Philosophy of sciencebetween humaniora and realiaRein Vihalemm (1938–2015) was the most influential philosopher ofscience in Estonia and perhaps in the entire Baltic States’ region.However, the applications of his alma mater, the University of Tartu,on awarding Professor Vihalemm with a lifetime achievement awardwere rejected twice on the grounds that Vihalemm was a humanistphilosopher and should have been more well-known in society to qualifyfor such an award.This paper discusses the position of the philosophy of science andthe role of philosophers of science in the academic landscape. Themain argument is that both the field and philosopher are stuck in ano man’s land between the natural sciences and humanities. Theycannot be considered as a part of the former or latter.The paper touches briefly on some of the main ideas of Rein Vihalemm,e.g., his solution to the problem of demarcation by means ofmaking a distinction between constructive hypothetic-deductive andclassifying historical-descriptive types of cognition. The former is thebasis of Vihalemm’s theoretical model of science proper that he calledᵠ-science.Fortunately, the colleagues and disciples of Rein Vihalemm haveaccess to his texts and can develop his thoughts further.
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