Abstract

Reflections on the Practice of Physics has two admirable aims: on one hand, to contribute to a comprehensive historical understanding of Maxwell’s approach to physical inquiry; on the other, to extract philosophical lessons from the story of Maxwell’s astounding scientific breakthroughs. In line with an established tradition in scholarship (for example, Achinstein [1991]; Siegel [1991]; Harman [1998]), the authors defend the view that the method of ‘physical analogy’ that Maxwell first presented in the introductory section of his ‘On Faraday’s Lines of Force’, and continued to invoke throughout his later physical works, was in fact many different methods. The authors deserve praise for bringing new life to the narration of Maxwell’s alleged twists in methodology, merging historical and philosophical perspectives to defend it. In this review, I elaborate on some of the book’s main strengths and weaknesses, in the spirit of pursuing a constructive critical discussion.