UC Irvine

While the history of science has received increased attention from philosophers of science in recent decades, the methods with which we import the former into the latter are less well-understood. This dissertation investigates two common import strategies and discussions of one significant historical question to this end. The first chapter addresses Howard Stein's "Yes, but...," which is typically conceived of as an entry into the scientific realism debate. To the contrary, I show that it denies the methodological errors that allow the debate to take place. The second chapter addresses attempts to derive norms for scientific practice from science's history. Examining a paradigmatic example, I show that extant arguments of this sort fail to establish any norms because they fail to establish any causal relationship. The third chapter addresses the history of von Neumann's so-called no hidden variables theorem. By situating it in the context of Hilbert's axiomatic method I show that, contrary to most historical accounts, von Neumann's theorem was sound.