Problems in the Philosophy of Science

The two volumes are companion proceedings from the same International Colloquium, but they contain different papers and serve different purposes. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (1970) centres on the confrontation between Popper and Kuhn, with Lakatos's 'Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes' as its centrepiece. Problems in the Philosophy of Science (1968) is the broader collection, containing papers on scepticism and the scientific revolution, demarcation between science and metaphysics, the maturation of science, perception, paradoxes in physics, formal logic, Faraday's experiments, relativity, game theory, sociology, and idealism in the social sciences . The volume is thus a wider survey of the state of the field in the mid-1960s, not a single debate.

Each paper in the volume is followed by prepared commentaries and, in some cases, transcripts of the discussion . This editorial choice is deliberate. Lakatos believed that philosophical positions are tested through critical exchange, not through the isolated presentation of papers. The volume enacts this conviction by preserving the cut and thrust of the conference, allowing readers to see how arguments were challenged and defended. A reviewer described the volume as 'a marvellous collection of presentations and commentary by some of the most brilliant scholars of the recent past,' dealing with major issues 'with real style and verve' . The inclusion of discussion makes the volume a document of philosophical practice, not merely a record of conclusions.

Several papers have had lasting influence. W. W. Bartley III's 'Theories of Demarcation between Science and Metaphysics' is a significant contribution to the debate over Popper's criterion, and it was subsequently cited in Lakatos's own work . Grover Maxwell's 'Scientific Methodology and the Causal Theory of Perception' engages with Quine, Popper, and Ayer on the relationship between perception and scientific theory. L. Pearce Williams's 'Epistemology and Experiment: The Case of Michael Faraday' exemplifies the volume's commitment to engaging with actual scientific practice. Ernest Gellner's 'The New Idealism—Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences' addresses the philosophical foundations of social inquiry. These papers show the range of the volume beyond the Popper-Kuhn debate.

Problems in the Philosophy of Science was published in 1968 by North-Holland Publishing Company in Amsterdam, as volume 49 in the series Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics . It runs to 448 pages and includes a preface, the papers, commentaries, and discussion . The volume was the third in the proceedings of the 1965 colloquium; the first two volumes covered other aspects of the conference. The series placement reflects the volume's orientation toward technical philosophy of science, though the inclusion of papers on sociology and social science broadens its scope beyond the formal and physical sciences.

The volume reveals a field in transition. The papers engage with the legacies of logical positivism and Popper's falsificationism, but they also register the impact of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which had been published in 1962. The inclusion of papers on the social sciences and on the causal theory of perception shows that philosophers of science were beginning to question the assumption that physics provided the model for all scientific knowledge. The volume's format—papers with commentaries and discussion—reflects a conception of philosophy as a collaborative, critical activity. Since the 1960s, the field has become more specialised and more historical, and the broad surveys exemplified by this volume are less common. But the questions it raises about demarcation, rationality, and the relationship between philosophy and scientific practice remain central.

The volume remains valuable for several reasons. It provides a snapshot of a pivotal moment in the history of the philosophy of science, capturing the state of debates that would shape the field for decades. It preserves the contributions of scholars whose work is not always easily accessible elsewhere, such as Bartley, Maxwell, and Williams. And it demonstrates a model of philosophical engagement—papers followed by critical commentary—that is instructive in its own right. That said, readers seeking the central arguments of Lakatos, Popper, or Kuhn should turn to their major works; this volume is a contextual and supplementary resource, not a substitute. It is best consulted by historians of the field and by readers interested in the specific debates it documents.