Utility Versus Truth

Abstract

There is little doubt that the more appreciative, and thus better rewarded, partners in the controversial “marriage” of the history and philosophy of science are the philosophers. At one recent meeting that I was privileged to attend, a meeting expressly designed to recognize, if not to celebrate, that “marriage,” one historian’s recognition of the raison d’être of the meeting took the form of asking for divorce. And that is not merely a sometime thing. For several years ago, Michael Crowe canvassed American historians of science concerning their annual meetings and the result was that that group with whom they would least like to meet was the philosophers of science! That surely is very far from a state devoutly to be wished. What is to be done? Frankly, I do not know. But I believe I do know at least a part of what is to be, or might be, said.