Making symbols, making worlds: Philosophical and historical reflections on scientific representation.

摘要

This dissertation presents a new conception of the relationship between history of science and philosophy of science. Navigating between the extreme contextualization of current history of science and the hyper-generality of current philosophy of science, it is argued that history and philosophy of science should aim to produce conceptual documentaries. The dissertation focuses on issues arising from the use of representations in science. Rather than asking "What is a scientific representation?", it is argued that we should ask "How does X function to represent Y?" The latter question shifts the focus from a search for necessary and sufficient conditions to the pragmatics of representation. This emphasis on pragmatics is shown to support a form of constructivism.