This paper discusses the claim that science is “messy.” Part I argues first, that a good portion of today’s discussions about messy science is just a portrayal of familiar features of science in new terms. In the paper, I refer to this as “messy science talk.” Second, Part I draws out rhetorical functions of messy science talk, namely the denigration of science in the popular media and the celebration of the maverick. Part II identifies one way in which it is enlightening to think about mess in current science, namely in reference to the problems that scientists need to address. It also shows that we do not need an entirely new conceptual inventory to analyze these problems. “Mess” and “wicked problems” were a theme in operations research and theories of social planning in the 1970s. These older analyses can illuminate important characteristics of today’s scientific problems. Wicked problems cut across different disciplines, engage different stakeholders (including non-scientists), are fluid, and cannot even be clearly formulated. They are urgent and need to be addressed before sufficient evidence is in.

This study examines how working scientists themselves understand, conceptualize, apply, and communicate norms and standards for good research practice. Drawing on semi-structured, detailed narrative interviews with more than 80 scientists, we highlight various topics of concern, including tensions between methodological requirements for good research practice and individual career goals, uncertainty about how exactly certain acknowledged methodological imperatives—such as replication—should be interpreted and turned into practice and the delegation of the responsibilty for ensuring good practice.

This special issue presents selected contributions to the conference “Integrated History and Philosophy of Science” (&HPS3) held at Indiana University in September 2010. The introduction revisits a previous special issue on History and Philosophy of Science, published in Perspectives on Science (2002), and reflects on the recent development of HPS as a field. Ten years ago, scholars expressed concern about the growing distance between mainstream history of science and mainstream philosophy of science. Today, we have good reason to be optimistic. The papers assembled in this special issue demonstrate that we now have a whole spectrum of combinations of historical, philosophical, and other perspectives to study science, ranging from augmenting historical studies by philosophical perspectives and vice versa to historicist reflection on methodological, epistemological, or scientific concepts and practices. This plurality of approaches to combining the historical and the philosophical perspectives on science is a hopeful sign that integrated HPS is here to stay.

This essay deals with the recent history of the disputes about the relation between history and philosophy of science and the merits and prospects of HPS as an intellectual endeavor. I begin with a brief outline of the debates in the late 1960s and 1970s. At that time, several philosophers of science argued that philosophical analysis was interpretive and that understanding a concept or practice involved understanding how it came about. More recently, however, philosophical studies of science have been likened to scientific theory construction. One basic idea permeates recent debates, namely, that pursuing HPS means confronting general philosophical frameworks with historical data. I argue that this “confrontation model” of HPS is highly problematic and should be abandoned. Instead, we should appreciate (again) that philosophical reflection on science is interpretive, and that historicist analyses of scientific, methodological, and epistemological concepts augment our understanding of science.

This paper is concerned with the claim that epistemic terms and categories are historical entities. The starting point is the observation that recent attempts at historical studies of epistemic terms fail to bridge the gap between history and philosophy proper. I examine whether, and how, it is possible to forge a closer link between historical and philosophical aspects of conceptual analysis. The paper explores possible links by analyzing aspects of the concept of error. A “pragmatic” and a “mentalist” notion of error are identified in current philosophical studies of error: according to the latter, errors can be ascribed only to mental operations, according to the former, errors can also be ascribed to things and processes. The paper then draws on historical accounts of optical instruments to highlight certain presuppositions and implications of these two uses of the term. Contextual features and trans-contextual structures of the notion of error are distinguished. In conclusion, I argue that an intimate link between history and philosophy of science can be forged by an analysis of the development of conceptual arrangements which allows for trans-contextual structural aspects while drawing attention to the contextual epistemological and scientific conditions of their re-arrangement.

The contributions to this volume originate from the workshop “Hauptsachen und Nebendinge—Pure Science and its Impurities”, organized by Christoph Hoffmann, which took place at the Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science (Berlin) in July 2000. We wish to thank all participants for rich and stimulating talks and discussions.

This article analyzes the transformation of epistemological and methodological discourses in German microscopy. It is argued that the expansion of microscopy in the early decades of the nineteenth century was pivotal for the emergence of intricate methodologies that characterized the instruments and methods of microscopy in new ways. Close examination of these means of investigation showed them to be intrinsically imperfect. The flaws of the instrument, the faults of the observer's eyes and the obstructive power of the objects of investigation actions came to be crucial issues in epistemological and methodological debates. It became clear that the particulars of the research arrangement not only limited the range of possible microscopical observations but would always impede and interfere with the results: Perfect working conditions could never be achieved.