History and Philosophy of Science

David L. Hull, 1935-2010

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Philosophy of science has lost one of its brightest minds: David L. Hull died this week at the age of 75. In an obituary in yesterday’s Sun-Times, Michael Ruse, who considered Professor Hull “a mentor and ‘big brother'” said of his late colleague, “David was not just interested in the philosophy side but in the whole history and development of science.” And Robert J. Richards remembered him by saying, “There are many whose careers owe something to David.”
Indeed, many of Hull’s students and admirers have found a home at the University of Chicago Press (both Ruse and Richards have published books with us), and his Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science, which, as the Sun-Times describes, “applied the rules of evolution in nature to evolution in science, proposing that the forces responsible for changes in species also act on scientific ideas,” has become in the 22 years since its publication an essential text in the philosophy of science.
We at the Press are saddened to learn of Hull’s passing, but we’re honored to keep his legacy alive with our strong lists in the history and philosophy of science.