Reconsidering 19th century philosophy of science from a contemporary point of view

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider several aspects of the debate among philosophers of science in 19th century England. Even though the origin of philosophy of science as a sub-discipline of philosophy is generally attributed to the beginning of Vienna Circle in 1920s, certainly philosophical discussions on the nature of science have been around before that time. One major precursor of a collective attempt at philosophical considerations of science can be found in 19 th century England, i.e. the debates among John Herschel, William Whewell and John Stuart Mill on scientific methodology. The question this paper asks is what would be their positions on the current issues in philosophy of science. The present debates have rather peculiar background assumptions, so locating 19th century philosophers in present debates is not a straightforward matter. We look at two of such issues, namely the demarcation problem and scientific realism. As for the demarcation problem, even though the 19th century philosophers talked a lot about the nature of science, the demarcation between science and pseudoscience was not a issue at all. As for the scientific realism debate, the way 19th century philosophers see the issue is very similar to the present debate, so their positions can be located within the present debates (Herschel and Whewell are restricted realists, and Mill's position is very close to that of constructive empiricists). However, even there, we can also wonder what would be their position if they know some of the facts the present debates is based on (such as the refutation of ether and the remarkable confirmation of the existence of atoms). Their positions based on such information may not be the same as those without it, and we can find hints in their writings on what would be their reactions