Coldness Rising: the History of Formal Social Epistemology of Science

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The chapter's central question is: why does formal social epistemology of science (FSEOS) tend to focus on the social structure of science rather than on what I call its 'scientific ethos' - the shared norms and values that scientists hold? To answer it, I sketch the historical context in which two of the discipline's foundational books - Kitcher's The Advancement of Science and Hull's Science as a Process - were written: a conflict between the sociology of scientific knowledge and the philosophy of science. I argue that the emphasis on structure was understandable as a strategy of argumentation at the time (both Kitcher and Hull, in fact, left room for ethos, even as structure took centre stage) but that there is no principled reason for FSEOS to retain that focus today.
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