Volume 48, Part A, December 2014, Pages 38–45
Introduction
Psychical research in the history and philosophy of science. An introduction and review
Highlights
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- Provides a sketch of changing historiographical conventions regarding the ‘occult’.
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- Reviews standard claims regarding psychical research in discussions of demarcation.
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- Criticizes reliance on simplistic notions of science and outdated historiographies.
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- Suggests study of unorthodox scientists to increase epistemological sensitivities.
Abstract
As
a prelude to articles published in this special issue, I sketch
changing historiographical conventions regarding the ‘occult’ in recent
history of science and medicine scholarship. Next, a review of standard
claims regarding psychical research and parapsychology in philosophical
discussions of the demarcation problem reveals that these have tended to
disregard basic primary sources and instead rely heavily on problematic
popular accounts, simplistic notions of scientific practice, and
outdated teleological historiographies of progress. I conclude by
suggesting that rigorous and sensitively contextualized case studies of
past elite heterodox scientists may be potentially useful to enrich
historical and philosophical scholarship by highlighting epistemologies
that have fallen through the crude meshes of triumphalist and
postmodernist historiographical generalizations alike.
Keywords
- Historiography;
- Psychical research;
- Parapsychology;
- Demarcation problem;
- Popular science
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