MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 15--TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO VOTE
Given the omissions noted in the prior iteration of this poll (some of whom might have made 'the top ten'), I thought we'd run it one more time with the top 13 from the last poll (there was a significant drop off after Sellars), plus adding Michael Polanyi, Moritz Schlick, David Lewis, Frank Ramsey, and David Hull. I've also added Pierre Duhem, because though he lived mainly in in the 19th-century, his main contributions to philosophy of science were, in fact, produced in the early 20th-century (thanks to Roger Ariew for pointing that out to me). Some folks suggested Foucault, which seems to me more of a stretch, in comparison to folks who influenced him like Bachelard and Canguilhem, who did not poll well last time around. One of the peculiarities of Foucault's writings is that he seems to take for granted a kind of positivist picture of the natural sciences, and he doesn't really have an explicit argument showing anything about the epistemic status of the human sciences. (I discuss the matter here.)
Anyway, here is the new poll.
And here are the results of the earlier one, with 660 votes cast:
| 1. Rudolf Carnap (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices) |
| 2. Thomas Kuhn loses to Rudolf Carnap by 301–289 |
| 3. Karl Popper loses to Rudolf Carnap by 316–268, loses to Thomas Kuhn by 321–246 |
| 4. Carl Hempel loses to Rudolf Carnap by 378–177, loses to Karl Popper by 312–247 |
| 5. W.V.O. Quine loses to Rudolf Carnap by 365–206, loses to Carl Hempel by 307–250 |
| 6. Hans Reichenbach loses to Rudolf Carnap by 453–94, loses to W.V.O. Quine by 321–218 |
| 7. Paul Feyerabend loses to Rudolf Carnap by 448–121, loses to Hans Reichenbach by 297–226 |
| 8. Imre Lakatos loses to Rudolf Carnap by 450–107, loses to Paul Feyerabend by 250–249 |
| 9. Nelson Goodman loses to Rudolf Carnap by 477–81, loses to Imre Lakatos by 256–243 |
| 10. Ernest Nagel loses to Rudolf Carnap by 481–74, loses to Nelson Goodman by 266–228 |
| 11. Otto Neurath loses to Rudolf Carnap by 494–40, loses to Ernest Nagel by 280–179 |
| 12. Wesley Salmon loses to Rudolf Carnap by 479–50, loses to Otto Neurath by 239–200 |
| 13. Wilfrid Sellars loses to Rudolf Carnap by 485–72, loses to Wesley Salmon by 244–206 |
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