ABSTRACT
The plausibility of the internal history of science has been supported by a certain selective history of the philosophy of science, one whose nineteenth and twentieth century focus is largely on philosophers writing in the English language, rather than on those writing in French or German. The leading players in twentieth century philosophy of science--the logical positivists, the Popperians, the Kuhnians-have managed to retain the scope of the nineteenth century enterprise, albeit more abstractly, and with the social dimension relegated to a few telling metaphors. By comparison with France and Germany, where disputes over disciplinary boundaries and science-society relations have been the norm, Britain remained, until quite late, a nation of institutionally unaffiliated and isolated scientific geniuses. As science became more a society in small, the positivists and their fellow-travelers began to lose touch with science in the society at large.
