According to Ernst Cassirer, symbolic forms “are not different modes in which an independent reality manifests itself to the human spirit but roads which the spirit proceeds towards its objectivization, i.e., its self-revelation” (1923, p. 78). Can Hilbert's axiomatics be viewed as a symbolic form? The aim of this introductory essay is to frame the question in a ‘map’ and to provide a few signs to orient it. Each of the essays collected in this volume may contribute a different set of instructions to reach an answer.

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.