A Preliminary Study On William Wimsatt’s Philosophy Of Science

The methods for philosophy of science discussed in this paper, which are derived from the further understanding of traditional philosophy of science and the research of modern philosophy of science by William C.Wimsatt, combined with the experience in his long-time studies of scientific practice, ultimately developed a systematic method of philosophy of science. One of the most impressive ideas is the analysis of idealization in scientific research and practice, and the theory of heuristic that sits at the heart of his methodology. Comparing with the traditional methodology of philosophy of science,Wimsatt’s methodology is more helpful to expound the problems and blindness in scientific practices and philosophical theories. Thus his method is valuable for re-understanding the fallacious theories in the past and exploring the new theories forward. In this paper, the first chapter started with the description and analysis of Wimsatt’s understanding and status about philosophy of science,conceptualized the framework of his cognition, then gave another analysis about his aspiration of "re-engineering" which was built on his central methodology and cognition. In the second chapter, the main purpose here is analyzing and stating the central conception of his heuristic theory to build a first-step structure of his theory system. Ultimately, the last chapter showed some enlightment and meaning for our future exploration after exploring his creative ideas.