Method and the ‘Micropolitics’ of Science: The Early Years of the Geological and Astronomical Societies of London

Abstract

Method discourse occurs on a variety of levels. The most obvious, and most intensively studied, are statements presented as definitive discourses on method by practising scientists or philosophers. Insofar as the study of the history of scientific method has been seen as primarily a philosophical enterprise, past discourses on method by the great philosophers have been studied with a view to first establishing the ‘true’ meaning attached to them by their advocates, and second, with a view to showing in what ways that meaning had influence or significance in the evolution of a true or satisfactory scientific method. More recently such approaches have been criticized as Whiggish and positivistic. This criticism points out that to confine oneself to the great philosophers is to miss a considerable body of significant work on scientific method by practising scientists. In addition, the context of such past investigations has been misunderstood — prior to the twentieth century the philosophy of scientific method was closely connected with the actual practice of science. In particular, as Laudan has emphasized, statements about method cannot be understood if they are separated from the scientific context in which they were made. And very often discourses on method were stimulated and shaped by quite particularistic concerns with specific scientific theories.¹