Methodology, Metaphysics and the History of Science: In Memory of Benjamin Nelson

This selection of papers that were presented (or nearly so!) to the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science during the seventies fairly re­ presents some of the most disturbing issues of scientific knowledge in these years. To the distant observer, it may seem that the defense of rational standards, objective reference, methodical self-correction, even the distin­ guishing of the foolish from the sensible and the truth-seeking from the ideological, has nearly collapsed. In fact, the...