More pollling amusement. Same ground rules as before: no living greats, only the dearly departed. Main work must have been done in the 20th-century. Remember: evaluate these philosophers in terms of the significance of their contributions to philosophy of science, not their general or other contributions to philosophy. Have fun.
UPDATE: Eric Schliesser flags two clear oversights: Moritz Schlick and David Hull. My only excuse on the latter is that he died so recently, I still had him filed in my mind as a "living" philosopher. Alas.
ANOTHER: Jordi Cat points out another oversight: Michael Polanyi.
AND MAYBE ONE MORE? Barry Loewer makes the case for David Lewis: "he contributed more to phil science than most on the list.(of course he was more than a philosopher of science but the same goes for Carnap, Quine, Kuhn, Goodman... etc)... theoretical terms, accounts of laws, objective probability, subjective probability, counterfactuals, direction of time, time travel, causation, explanation, physicalism, even a paper on quantum mechanics that is closer to the mark than any of the others on the list." Of course, once one opens this list to any relevant work in metaphysics....
Recent Comments