&HPS

Our mission statement on integrated HPS

Good history and philosophy of science is not just history of science into which some philosophy of science may enter, or philosophy of science into which some history of science may enter. It is work that is both historical and philosophical at the same time. The founding insight of the modern discipline of HPS is that history and philosophy have a special affinity and one can effectively advance both simultaneously.

What gives HPS its distinctive character is the conviction that the common goal of understanding of science can be pursued by dual, interdependent means. This duality may be localized in a single work. Or it may be distributed across many works and many scholars, with parts locally devoted just to historical or philosophical analysis. Intellectual history, for example, serves this purpose. What unifies this local scholarship into an HPS community is the broader expectation that all the work will ultimately contribute to the common goal.

There is no distinct methodology that is HPS. Doing HPS does not confer a free pass to suspend the standards of one field to advance the other. It must be good history of science and philosophy, in that its claims are based on a solid grounding in appropriate sources and are located in the relevant context. And it must be good philosophy of science, in that it is cognizant of the literature in modern philosophy of science and its claims are, without compromise, articulated simply and clearly and supported by cogent argumentation.

The primary function of the committee has been to organize conference devoted to integrated history and philosophy of science. The series began with the first conference in 2007 at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh. It has held conferences roughly once each two years since.

The composition of the committee is international and the venues of the conferences have, as much as possible, been spread over North America and Europe.

The motivation for founding the committee was the slow separation of the communities of historians of science and of philosophers of science. In the later part of the 20th century, the historians' HSS and philosophers' PSA conferences were held jointly, because of the commonality of interests in the two groups. By 2000, it had become apparent that the two communities were sharing a venue and organization structure, but there was a rapidly dwindling mixing of participants in the two programs. The joint conferences persisted largely out of the convenience of joint organization and the ability to offer a hotel venue a larger conference.

What was lacking was a single venue in which scholars in history and philosophy of science could present their research without needing to apologies to the philosophers for the history and to the historians for the philosophers. The committee was formed in order to provide just such a venue.

The distinctive feature of the &HPS conference series is that the meetings are all plenary sessions. That restricts the number of speakers but enhances a unified experience for participants.

The next conference, &HPS8, was to be held at Virginia Tech on 15-17 July 2020. The physical meeting was cancelled becuase of the corona virus pandemic and converted into an offline workshop.

The committee was formed when conveners Don Howard and John D. Norton approached a selection of scholars in history and philosophy of science and invited them to join the committee. The approaches were successful and met with considerable enthusiasm. A committee of nineteen scholars was formed. The first two conferences were held at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh (2007), and the Reilly center, University of Notre Dame (2009). They were supported by a grant from the NSF and by the hosting institutions.

The committee has continue with rotating membership. Howard and Norton stepped down as conveners in 2015. Leadership was passed to a six member executive committee.

HOPOS, The International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, is devoted to promoting scholarly research on the history of the philosophy of science. We construe this subject broadly, to include topics in the history of related disciplines and in all historical periods, studied through diverse methodologies. We aim to promote historical work in a variety of ways, but especially through encouraging exchange among scholars through meetings, publications, and electronic media.

HOPOS was founded in 1990 by Don Howard as a listserv. That is, it began as an online forum in which those with an interest in history of philosophy of science could discuss and exchange ideas. HOPOS began publishing a news letter in 1993 and held its first formal conference in 1996. The journal HOPOS published its first issue in 2011.

A literal reading of the name of the society indicates that it is something much narrower in scope than is history AND philosophy of science. It is history OF philosophy of science. Much of the work collected under the HOPOS banner conforms with this narrower "OF". A standard paper examines the views specifically in philosophy of science of past thinkers. Most commonly they are themselves philosophers, but often they are scientists engaged in foundational reflections.

The practical scope of work sponsored by HOPOS commonly extends beyond these last investigations. It is hard to separate historical investigation of a scientist's ideas on methodology from historical investigation of the scientist's work. What then results is a piece of philosophically sensitive history of science, which is history AND philosophy of science.

A second theme that has risen to some importance in HOPOS writing is the distinction between "systematic" and "historical" philosophy. The first offers ideas that can be expressed ahistorically. They look like much of the familiar writing in philosophy of science in the Anglo-American tradition. The historical tradition conceives of philosophy as essentially connected to the changing specifics of each historical period. Thus philosophy must be pursued, in this approach, through historical investigations. This has led to an historical style of writing in which philosophy of science is conceived as the examination of the ideas of past thinkers in philosophy of science in relation to their times. Investigations of this character fit naturally within HOPOS.

For those writing in this historical tradition, the examination of the history OF... is not a specialized and dispensable adjunct to the main ahistorical activity of the writing philosophy of science. It is an essential part of the writing philosophy of science and perhaps even the essential activity.

This distinction and the second approach has a much stronger presence in European scholarship than it does in Anglo-American scholarship. As a result, HOPOS has a strong presence in Europe.