Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE
Workshop on the Future of HPS
Author: David Mossley
Journal Title: Discourse
ISSN: 2040-3674
ISSN-L: 1741-4164
Volume: 6
Number: 1
Start page: 83
End page: 88
Return to vol. 6 no. 1 index page
Introduction
On 16th June 2006 at University College London (UCL) there was a national workshop to discuss the current standing of history of science and philosophy of science as academic disciplines. The workshop was organised jointly by UCL and the University of Leeds. The aim was to explore the complex relationship between these two subjects, discover factors that are motivating change in that relationship and chart possible future collaboration in a more explicit way than has been done for some time. Future meetings will occur annually and will be organised around specific topics.
At the initial meeting the Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies ran a panel session to look at learning and teaching. Many topics arose from issues of identity of the disciplines and from the papers presented during the rest of meeting. Identity is particularly relevant for history and philosophy of science (HPS) because many staff will be working in departments alone, maybe not even in philosophy or history units, and will have very close connections with their wider research communities to provide the impetus for their research and teaching. Four experienced teachers were invited to give their considered opinions on current educational issues and then discussion was opened up to the floor of the meeting. The invited speakers were Joe Cain (UCL), Geoffrey Cantor (Leeds), Grant Fisher (UCL) and Graeme Gooday (Leeds). I chaired the panel session.
The panel
Graeme Gooday began by noting how pleasant it was to have a jovial and good-humoured meeting on the relationship between history of science and philosophy of science, because, within the community, there had been some fears of a 'divorce' from about 1992 onwards. His visits to institutions where students were better at integrating their philosophy and history learning than the staff were, had shown him this is not the case, and that students may hold an important key to future dialogue and pedagogic development. Integration is already present in ways that are not immediately obvious and there is plenty to be optimistic about. And in dialogue with history teachers in the past he had been struck by the high level of argumentation, of conceptual clarity and rigor, which goes into HPS teaching, where the philosophy has had a clear input.
For Graeme the central point is that the role of the HPS teacher is to bring students to be able to explain and understand science. Things go wrong in teaching when this is forgotten. History can become too focused on the minutia of historical exegesis and philosophy on the abstract exposition of metaphysical and epistemological laws and an obsession with structure. Turning to the use of case studies, another danger in teaching is to become too focused on one's own area of research expertise, such as the history of technology, in order to use the teaching merely as an exercise in 'honing weapons of historiography', to forward only one mode of expertise. Graeme highly recommended Hasok Chang's work on the history of chlorine as a tremendous exercise in bringing a range of historical and philosophical skills together on a topic that wasn't a case study designed to prove an already existent sociological point, but a genuine account of all aspects of explaining and understanding science. Chang's chlorine project included exploration of metaphysical and epistemological issues, alongside ethics (use in warfare), hygiene, industrial applications and manufacture. This gave students a great deal of material that is extremely useful in a wider context than most other case studies usually provide.1 Where case studies and teaching are properly explored in this way, education of a very high quality, and that truly demonstrates the strengths of integrated HPS, can occur.
Geoffrey Cantor recalled a 'golden age' of HPS (that may or may not have existed), when he was taught by Lakatos, Laudan and Feyerabend. Geoffrey admired the teaching of Larry Laudan 'who exemplified the history and philosophy of science'. Laudan, in some ways, was reacting to his mentor, Thomas Kuhn, and was attempting to properly fully integrate history and philosophy of science. Geoffrey asked whether it was possible to recreate a similar module that was a genuine marriage of the disciplines at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when many departments deliver separate courses at undergraduate level. He explored an example from his own experience of teaching on a second-level philosophy of science course as a historian, where he had attempted to use the historical background to construct a framework within which the philosophy could be explored. However, in his own estimation this had not been a successful approach, because many of the students were oriented to philosophy and found the mode of presentation unfamiliar and Geoffrey's stress and enthusiasm for the historical episodes did not deliver the structured epistemological framework they were expecting. The challenge is therefore to bring creativity to the creation of an integrated HPS course so that students can see the value of multi-modal approaches to addressing the issues HPS raises. Areal challenge to doing this is that we lack text books that genuinely address history and philosophy of science together. We need more than historical introductions to the philosophy (or vice versa), but a reconceptualisation that gives 'history and philosophy of science—an introduction'. Finally, Geoffrey noted that, having seen many applications for research funding from graduate students, the historiographical benefits of studying HPS were enormous, HPS graduates being much better able to articulate the underlying principles of their research after having studied philosophy of science, in comparison with historians who had not.
Grant Fisher also welcomed the congenial nature of the day. He too had faced challenges in integrating teaching styles, with a research background in philosophy of science and having then taught history of science too. The multidisciplinary nature of HPS is exciting and challenging for students and gives them many opportunities to develop and grow. He had studied HPS at UCL as an undergraduate, not primarily as an historian or philosopher, but with an interest in science itself, and had learned a great deal about himself, his preferred learning styles and his skills in doing so. However, philosophy of science brings issues to HPS from the historical perspective that may create a tension around the issue of nature of history itself. How does consideration of explanatory power in a case study impact on the aspects of social and institutional history more recognisable to a straight historian, for example? Are the philosophers plugging gaps? These kinds of tensions need to be brought to the surface in teaching and the construction of modules.
Joe Cain stressed that in real science practice the borders and boundaries of disciplines and areas of activity (laboratories and field work) are fuzzy and uncertain. He said his key message for undergraduate learning in HPS was that borders and borderlands are all fuzzy, between scientist and citizen, between philosophy and history, between science and non-science. 'Everything's fuzzy!' Borderlands are also 'zesty', full of conflict, mixtures, hybridisations and innovations. Capturing this zest is crucial. A great deal of satisfaction can be gained from living in these fuzzy spaces. However, there are those students who find this fuzziness and uncertainty uncomfortable. This is why there is a tension with some students' and teachers' models of what they expect from HPS. Undergraduates who do well are those who can manage with border spaces intellectually. But we do need to ask whether we should be in such spaces at all. Does it offer anything of value? This is the kind of question we can also ask students. It offers a broad commitment to a multi-cultural experience in intellectual terms that serves to promote wider and deeper understanding of each other: HPS has a civic function.
Discussion topics
There were a number of themes in the ensuing discussion and it was clear different views on the nature of HPS teaching existed, all feeding into a diverse picture of the requirements for a good education in HPS. The following is a summary of the main points made and is presented to inspire further debate.
Most participants agreed that the interdisciplinarity of HPS meant that it could take more time and effort to properly acquire the skills and learning required to excel. But this interdisicpliarity, the fuzziness of HPS, was appreciated by the students precisely because it played a civic function and made them critical consumers of science. A large part of the discussion was concerned with how we balance HPS with science itself, questioning the kind of background knowledge in science that might be required for students signing up to HPS courses and some of the expectations of a science background HPS lecturers had. Some wondered 'what's so special about science?' Do we need to have 'internal-to-science' knowledge? One can be a historian of sewage handling without 'getting down in the muck'.
However, others felt that the dynamic that drives people to study HPS comes from science itself, from being aware of what science is, or at least how it is generally presented. Geoffrey Cantor thought that HPS should be 'X-rated' because of its potentially subversive nature for those who have some existing science knowledge: it causes a shift in perspective and understanding around the activity of science. Others felt that students are neither scientists nor philosophers coming to HPS; while they are (generally) enthusiastic they lack the context to readily grasp the important issues—which can be seen as too abstract and difficult — and at least a background in science helps to fill in some of this context. It was also pointed out that there are problems in studying science, particularly physics, from late 19th century onwards without some understanding of statistics. All these views can be seen as competing ideas about where you belong in an interdisiciplinary subject—in both countries with dual citizenship, or doing something different, innovative and original in the borderland?
A comparison was suggested between the institutions of physics and HPS. Since the end of the Cold War physics has been contracting; physics departments have been questioned and have needed to justify themselves. Their position requires greater supporting argumentation because an ideological grounding has been removed. Similarly there have always been folks asking stories about the bigger picture of science, but also since the Cold War the need for humanities to question the nature of physics has been falling away. So HPS needs a new justification too. Counter to this model Graeme Gooday argued that HPS has always been interstitial in the university and has re-invented its purpose at different times. It was also pointed out that being liberated from ideological constraints was a positive aspect of current HPS research and that, in any case HPS generated its own institutional purposes.
Joe Cain rounded off the discussion by noting that students come away from HPS with a bigger picture of science and that picture consists of four important ideas: knowledge isn't just a collection of facts accumulated over time; context, be it historical, social, institutional and so on, is important for knowledge; identities are fluid both for the student as philosopher/historian and for the nature of science; and that 'going somewhere else' is enlightening in itself — spatially, temporarily, and intellectually journeys of discovery and exploration are exciting and worth doing. History and philosophy of science has a crucial role to play, therefore, in defending the humanist tradition in education.
There will be future events in the UCL-Leeds programme, where specific HPS topics will be explored. To find out more, please contact Steven French at Leeds, or Hasok Chang at UCL. To find out what the Subject Centre for PRS is doing to support history of science and philosophy of science, please contact me at david@prs.heacademy.ac.uk.
Endnotes
1 See also, Chang, H. 'Turning an undergraduate class into a professional research community' Teaching in Higher Education Vol. 10, No. 3, July 2005, pp. 387-394.
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This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
