Philosophy of science in Latin America

ALBERTO CORDERO; OLIMPIA LOMBARDI; ANA ROSA PÉREZ RANSANZ

STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Lugar: Stanford; Año: 2019 vol. 2019 p. 1 - 46

1095-5054

When philosophy of science began as a professional field in the late 1940s, contributions from Latin America joined the forefront of the international debate right away. Philosophers of science from the subcontinent have expanded their presence since. This article aims to provide an overview of philosophy of science in the subcontinent. The primary focus ison contributions produced in Latin America by thinkers living in the region,with an emphasis on "mainstream philosophy of science" a discipline centered in the study of scientific knowledge, metaphysics, methodology, and values,broadly analytic in style, as exemplified by works published in such major journals as Philosophy of Science, Erkenntnis, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Studies in the History and Philosophy ofScience. This entry has four parts. Section 1 provides historical background. Section 2 is devoted to philosophy of science activityin various regional centers through the early 1990s, when the Internet and improved institutional resources "globalized" the practice of philosophy of science, greatly blurring earlier geographical separations. The two following sections focus on the last decades: Section 3 presents the contributions to the general philosophy of science, and Section 4 reviews the advances in the philosophy of special sciences. The final Section 5 briefly considers some of the difficulties and prospects for the philosophy of science in Latin America.In this article effort is made to provide an even-handed and objective picture, but of course only a selective sketch is possible, made of choices influenced by the authors' interpretation of the field.