We have previously argued that historical cases must be rendered canonical before they can plausibly serve as evidence for philosophical claims, where canonicity is established through a process of negotiation among historians and philosophers of science (Bolinska and Martin, 2020). Here, we extend this proposal by exploring how that negotiation might take place in practice. The working stock of historical examples that philosophers tend to employ has long been established informally, and, as a result, somewhat haphazardly. The composition of the historical canon of philosophy of science is therefore path dependent, and cases often become stock examples for reasons tangential to their appropriateness for the purposes at hand. We show how the lack of rigor around the canonization of case studies has muddied the waters in selected philosophical debates. This, in turn, lays the groundwork for proposing ways in which they can be improved.

我们之前曾争论过，历史案例必须先成为规范，然后才能合理地作为哲学主张的证据，其中规范性是通过历史学家和科学哲学家之间的谈判过程建立的（Bolinska 和 Martin，2020 年）。在这里，我们通过探讨如何在实践中进行谈判来扩展这一提议。长期以来，哲学家倾向于使用的历史例子的工作储备是非正式地建立起来的，因此，有些随意。因此，科学哲学的历史经典的构成是路径依赖的，并且案例经常成为典型的例子，原因与它们对手头目的的适当性相切。我们展示了案例研究规范化缺乏严谨性如何使选定的哲学辩论变得混乱。反过来，这为提出可以改进它们的方法奠定了基础。