Philosophy and science in Adam Smith’s ‘History of Astronomy’

Abstract

This article casts light on the intimate relationship between metaphysics and science in Adam Smith’s thought. Understanding this relationship can help in resolving an enduring dispute or misreading concerning the status and role of natural theology and the ‘invisible hand’ doctrine. In Smith’s scientific realism, ontological issues are necessary prerequisites for scientific inquiry, and metaphysical ideas thus play an organizing and regulatory role. Smith also recognized the importance of scientifically informed metaphysics in science’s historical development. In this sense, for Smith, the metaphysico-scientific link (i.e. metaphysically coherent conjecture), was a basic criterion of scientific validation by Inference to the Best Explanation. Furthermore, Smith’s comments implicitly suggest that in scientific progress there is a dialectic between metaphysics and science. These themes are illustrated primarily through his writings on the history of astronomy.

For reflexivity as an epistemic criterion of ontological coherence and virtuous social theorizing

“…Now, although the idea of the priority of ontology over epistemology and methodology partly originated in realist social philosophy ( Bhaskar, 1979 , 2009 ), it has also been adopted by social constructionism 6 ( Searle, 2008 ) and social anti-realism ( Bouzanis, 2016 ); it can be encapsulated in the post-positivist idea of the ‘metaphysics of science’. In this field, Agassi (1964) has argued that metaphysical doctrines are views of the world that constitute coordinating frameworks which regulate the field of scientific research by attaching significance to certain (and not other) theories, experiments, problems, etc (see Kim, 2017 : 110). More specifically, ‘where the social sciences are concerned, social ontology is prior to methodology and theory.…”