John Herschel's Philosophy of Science

Scholarship on Herschel has underlined the extent to which his Preliminary Discourse should be read in context, as more than a work purely concerning the methodology of science, fitting into a broader 19th-century tradition of pamphlets and books seeking to improve the human condition and provide advice for life. That said, it is still a work with injunctions about both how one ought to proceed in scientific inquiry and present those results. By examining Herschel’s influence on Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, and Charles Lyell, this talk treats his connections to the development of the physical sciences over the second half of the 19th century. Herschel’s influence is emblematic of a shift toward professionalized and standardized presentations of scientific theories, one important aspect of the ongoing construction of the professional scientific career.