A REALISTIC LOOK BACKWARD

THE MAJOR plaint of this paper is that constructivism, in its guise as a doctrine that denies that historically remote theories are about th e same objects we now study, cannot render intelligible contemporary s cientists' reliance on historically remote data. Drawing upon examples from both the history of cometary research and the history of clinica l accounts of aphasia, I will argue that constructivism falls far shor t of its advertised descriptive accuracy and historiographic sensitivi ty; the history of science should explain, rather than mystify or comp ete with, the fact of scientific progress. The general morals of the c ase studies establish that only a realist understanding of the history of science can account for the confirmatory role of archaic evidence. In Section 2, I will set out the objections to Whiggism in the histor y of science which, along with the demands of descriptive accuracy, le d many to embrace constructivism. Section 3 articulates constructivism , making explicit its commitment to the constitution of ontology by th eory. Section 4 examines two sorts of cases, one in cometary theory an d the other in speech disorder, in which archaic evidence is recruited to confirm contemporary theories. It shows how reliance on historical ly remote data is at once essential to the confirmation of contemporar y theories of comets and aphasia, and yet incompatible with the constr uctivist's principle of the constitution of ontology by theory. By art iculating the distinction between archaic confirmation and anachronist ic attribution, Section 5 defends my position against the claim that t he realist must make psychologically inaccurate belief attributions to historically remote scientists. In the closing section, I consider th e prospects for a distinctively realist (now opposed to empiricist) un derstanding of the history of science.