"Science and Values" Integrated History and Philosophy of Science Workshop

Questions of value have always played a role in the history and philosophy of science. Philosophical questions surrounding scientific realism, for instance, often turn on the epistemic value or otherwise of virtues such as ‘simplicity’. While historians have long recognised this, philosophers have recently begun to acknowledge a wide range of values - the political, moral and aesethetic - in understanding scientific practices. This opens up a variety of new questions, both historical and philosophical, regarding the relationship between scientific practice and its historical development on the one hand, and the role of values—understood broadly. Consideration of the role of values in research provokes a host of historical and philosophical questions, typically well suited to an integrated HPS approach. This meeting of the iHPS will focus on such questions.