ough it is customary, according to Ihde, to consider these writers philosophers of science, Ihde focuses on their discussion regarding the use of instruments in scientific experiments and theorizing and asserts that their work has had the effect of creating a "school" of instrumental realism.
Ihde's own method is comparative, and his principal line of discussion is connected to the thesis of praxis and perception. Kuhn's view that scientific revolutions emerge because of the dislocation of received perceptions by new scientific experiment is consistent with the thesis, as Ihde explains. In discussing the philosophy-of-science forbears of instrumental realism in Europe, Ihde shows at what point their work intersects with his claim that there has emerged an epistemological need to explore the implications of the fact that scientific knowledge, through instrumentation, is at least partly encased in technologies, and that it is elaborated through such instrumentation.
Ihde's comparisons are meant to show the emergence of a discrete philosophical discipline relative to the nexus of instruments and technology in science. The discussion of philosophers becomes the basis for a contention that science to some degree an attribute of technology. Husserl's idea that science arose amid the "sediments and traditions" of the "lifeworld," or common experience, is analogous to
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