Timothy McGrew, Marc Alspector-Kelly, and Fritz Allhoff's Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology is the kind of text that I wish had been available a few years ago when I taught an undergraduate course on the history and philosophy of science (HPS). Included in this extensive anthology are many of the reading selections that I cobbled together from various sources for that course, as well as countless others to which I did not have ready access. This book is well suited to serve as the primary text for a graduate-level survey course in HPS or a graduate-level special topics seminar that focuses on a particular theme in HPS, for example, the evolution from antiquity to present of the notion of truth, or the history of the problem of induction, in science. If the anthology were used as the primary text in one such special topics seminar, however, supplementary texts would be necessary since the reading selections are, for the most part, brief (or very brief) extracts from much larger works. This book will also be useful for an undergraduate course in HPS or other undergraduate philosophy courses with a generalized theme, such as Introduction to Philosophy, wherein some exposure to HPS is desired.
The anthology interweaves short selections from primary sources with helpful explanatory commentary written by two of the book's editors. The more than 80 short reading selections are meant to give a well-rounded, historical introduction to the major players in the philosophy of science from ancient to contemporary time. The editorial contributions include a brief introduction to the volume as a whole, more in-depth introductions to the two parts of the book, helpful introductions to each of the nine thematic units of the book, and even a very brief introduction to each reading selection itself. The substantial editorial commentary provides the necessary context to help the reader begin to grasp “the big picture.” For instance, each of the nine unit introductions explains in an appropriate level of detail what was happening in the scientific culture during the particular era under discussion and is supplemented by notes containing more details and suggestions for further reading.
The book is divided into two main parts: Part 1 contains units on the ancient, medieval, and modern periods; the scientific revolution; and some early revolutionary movements in science, such as Charles Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis and Charles Sanders Peirce's account of induction. Part 2 contains units on the received view and the philosophical fallout from it, specifically the new trends in post-received-view confirmation, observation, methodology, explanation, and finally, the contemporary realism debate. In some units, there is an emphasis on the especially significant figures of that period; for example, there are five selections from Aristotle in the ancient and medieval unit, five selections from Newton and four from Galileo in the scientific revolution unit, three by Wesley Salmon in the unit on explanation, as well as two selections by the same author in several other units. These carefully selected concentrations on particular thinkers allow the reader to begin to get a sense, albeit a somewhat superficial one given the brevity of many of the selections, of how a particular thinker's influence is situated within the whole of the history of science.
Regarding the wisdom of the reading selections chosen, however, it cannot escape mention that this sizable anthology contains not one entry from a woman philosopher of science. This omission would be more easily justified in a historical anthology that ended in the modern period, but the growing number of significant contributions to the philosophy of science from women should be reflected in an anthology that includes the contemporary period.
Using this anthology in an HPS course at any level will impress on students the notion that progress in philosophy does not mean answering any particular question once and for all (which can be a lesson in and of itself for the philosophically uninitiated!). Rather, philosophical progress becomes possible only when we have grounds for believing that we are asking the right question; in the context of HPS, this means articulating philosophical questions in the context of what we already believe to be true in science.
The question of the nature of life, in philosophy of the natural sciences, provides a good example of this point. In one of the selections from Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals, he notes that all different kinds of animals share in common certain characteristics such as sleep, respiration, growth and death, and other “affections and dispositions such as these” and justifies his vagueness here by adding that “at the moment it is permissible to speak unclearly and indefinitely about these things” (57; italics added). Reading this, one cannot help but be struck by the fact that almost two and a half millennia later we are still actively trying to pin down the necessary and sufficient conditions for living things vis-à-vis nonliving things. The moral of the story is that an important part of philosophical work may lie in reevaluating the question “what is life?”
While newer branches of science—for example, climate change, astrobiology, and nanotechnology—continue to grow, the purview of philosophy of science continues to expand. This anthology can help students get caught up to date with the history of science, enabling them to approach with a trained mind the philosophical problems peculiar to cutting-edge research fields in science. Philosophical questions concerning the validity of computer simulations and other kinds of representations generated by the highly specialized technological tools employed in these fields become especially salient. Having a historically informed working ontology of the relevant scientific concepts such as theory, observation, discovery, inference, truth, and so on will render philosophy students better prepared to take on new and developing, but as of yet uncharted, territories in science.
