HPS Complements Scientific Scientific Progress

Traditional HPS(history and philosophy of science) believes that studies of history of science and philosophy of science just focus on scientific theory, ignoring the involvement of nature while science is being conducted. Therefore there is no reliable conceptual basis of combination, the history of science is descriptive, and the philosophy of science is normative, that are just two parallel lines. Hasok chang extended his work in HPS research, posed complementary science which combined descriptive mode with normative mode of HPS.Complementary science often focuses on nature, new scientific knowledge that generated from process of scientific invention,which complemented and developed specialist science. The specialist science needs to use certain assumptions and beliefs as core to produce scientific knowledge. This inevitably leads to lack of introspection and critical consciousness of specialist science.HPS complementary science can improve such weakness, and recover the forgotten knowledge, to promote the development of new knowledge through reflection and criticism on current scientific knowledge. Three ways to increase the scientific knowledge: recovery, critical awareness and new developments. Hasok starts his study on early case of temperature measurements, revealed that “defense cycle” problem of coherentism in history of science can be solved through “epistemic iteration”.Enrichment and self-correction, two mechanisms of epistemic iteration, achieved the blueprint of scientific progress of multi-perspectives in original science tradition through interaction that restricted in existing paradigm between the two.Complementary science holds that scientific progress does not mean that infinitely getting closed to the truth, as they didn’t reach an agreement in various attempts to find useful, truthful viewpoints(approximate truth, reality, etc.) As long as we can give a satisfactory explanation on any knowledge system, thus it would be regarded as effective in coherence theory of epistemic iteration. There are both breaking strength and building power, each science tradition will be updated due to epistemic iteration of original foundation, and then new scientific knowledge formed.It is like a string containing many fibres in which thereone fribre can be disrupt and other one can beconnected at the same time.Therefore,according to each traditional cognition based on the original change,this tradition has been updated and formed into new science knowledge.Compared to traditional view of progress of science, complementary science denies the existence of truth, which also differs from the relativism of Kuhn’s paradigm.They believe that new cumulative progressive view of science established as scientific progress is driven by the accumulation of experimental knowledge. Complementary science is not trying to explain that its interpretation of history of science demonstrating the original appearance of history, but only presents a possible explanation on the grounds of philosophy of science, history of science and natural science, and finds a particular way of increasing scientific knowledge, which can be applied effectively.Hasok Chang has placed his study on “invent temperature”, maintains that in the condition of lack of reliable foundation, science could be progressed on the way of epistemic iteration by which he can bring an effective way to build knowledge of science.This is to explore the problems of scientific progress.