Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

O médico e epistemologista Ludwik Fleck desenvolveu, nas décadas de 1920-30, uma abordagem bastante original para o estudo das ciências. Ele apoiou sua epistemologia em duas bases: por um lado, em sua própria experiência profissional de bacteriologista e imunologista; por outro, na reflexão da Escola Polonesa de Filosofia da Medicina sobre as práticas dos médicos. Tal escola julga que os 'fatos científicos' são construídos por comunidades de pesquisadores - segundo os termos de Fleck, "coletivos de pensamento". Cada coletivo de pensamento elabora um "estilo de pensamento" único, composto pelo conjunto de normas, saberes e práticas partilhados por tal coletivo. Os recém-chegados são socializados em seu estilo de pensamento particular e adotam, portanto, seu olhar específico sobre o mundo. Os fatos científicos produzidos pelos membros de um dado coletivo de pensamento trazem sempre a marca de seu estilo de pensamento. Graças a isso, eles são incomensuráveis com os 'fatos' produzidos por outros coletivos de pensamento. A incomensurabilidade dos fatos científicos, aumentadas pela necessidade de 'traduzi-los' em outro estilo de pensamento para sua utilização pelas outras comunidades profissionais é, aos olhos de Fleck, uma fonte importante de inovação nas ciências e na sociedade. Por muito tempo esquecidas, as idéias de Fleck foram redescobertas nas décadas de 1960-70, em primeiro lugar por Thomas Kuhn (que, na introdução de The structure of scientific revolutions presta uma homenagem explícita à sua obra), depois pelos sociólogos das ciências. Além de sua influência diretamente perceptível, a epistemologia de Fleck mostra profundas afinidades com as novas tendências que se afirmam no estudo das ciências: a consideração das práticas dos pesquisadores e o interesse por suas técnicas materiais, discursivas e sociais.

A Sophomore Tackles Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1964)

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences ◽

10.1525/hsns.2012.42.5.562 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 42 (5) ◽

pp. 562-563

Author(s):

Margaret W. Rossiter

Keyword(s):

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

Ptolemy versus Copernicus

Inference: International Review of Science ◽

10.37282/991819.15.12 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Frank Tipler ◽

Wesley Bollinger

Keyword(s):

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

Tycho Brahe

If, as Thomas Kuhn suggested in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Copernicus was not superior to Ptolemy, why was Ptolemy rejected? Was Copernican theory more elegant? Frank Tipler shows that Tycho Brahe compared their predictions with his own observations. The winner, on balance, was Copernicus.

Kuhn e as dimensões da incomensurabilidade

Revista Ideação ◽

10.13102/ideac.v1i29.1340 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 1 (29) ◽

pp. 31 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Robinson Guitarrari ◽

Caetano Ernesto Plastino

Keyword(s):

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

Desde The structure of scientific revolutions em 1962 até artigos da década de 70, Thomas Kuhn utilizou a incomensurabilidade entre paradigmas para caracterizar a mudança de compromissos teóricos e práticos nas ciências maduras, destacando aspectos ontológicos, semânticos e epistemológicos. A tese geral afirma a inexistência de uma instância supraparadigmática que resolva conflitos entre comunidades científicas que defendam paradigmas rivais. As primeiras críticas indicavam a irracionalidade que sua defesa instauraria. Críticas de Shapere e de Sheffler incidiram sobre a formulação semântica. Em resposta, Doppelt, defendendo um quadro kuhniano da dinâmica da ciência, destacou que a incomensurabilidade epistemológica seria a mais básica, e que, além disso, ela evitaria as críticas dirigidas à versão semântica. Putnam, posteriormente, também considerou apenas a incomensurabilidade semântica para mostrar a irracionalidade do relativismo kuhniano. Contra Doppelt, mostramos que não há uma redução dos aspectos semânticos aos epistemológicos. São dimensões distintas de um mesmo conceito. Contudo, a favor de Doppelt, entendemos que a dimensão epistemológica acarreta formas de relativismos que se impõem como desafios aos críticos que apenas se detiveram em sua dimensão semântica.

Individuals, Communities, and Groups in Thomas Kuhn’s Model of Scientific Development

Principia an international journal of epistemology ◽

10.5007/1808-1711.2021.e71002 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Paulo Pirozelli

Keyword(s):

Methodological Problem ◽

Scientific Development ◽

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

Scientific Controversies ◽

The Individual ◽

Fundamental Units ◽

Scientific Debates ◽

Apparent Conflict

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn resorts to concepts from several disciplines in order to describe the general patterns of scientific development. This blend of disciplines can be explained in part by Kuhn's intellectual path, from physics to history and then to philosophy of science; but it also points to a deeper methodological problem, which is the question of what is the real unity of analysis in his model of science. The primary intention of this article is, thus, to give a solution to this difficulty. The answer, I believe, rests on identifying three fundamental units present in Kuhn's theory of scientific development. They are, respectively, the individual, responsible for producing evidence, spreading information, and choosing theories; the community, a set of scientists investigating a series of phenomena; and the groups, individuals with similar behavior but with looser institutional or social ties — a usually neglected category in Kuhnian literature, but equally fundamental for the final outcome of scientific debates. After investigating these categories in detail, I propose a way of integrating them into a general model for explaining the resolution of scientific controversies. Finally, I try to resolve the apparent conflict among disciplinary vocabularies by offering an account of the function of sociological, psychological, and epistemological concepts for describing controversies, and some of the methodologies appropriate for each of these tasks.

ARE WE COMING FROM OR GOING TO?

PEDIATRICS ◽

10.1542/peds.84.4.677 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 84 (4) ◽

pp. 677-677

Author(s):

Student

Keyword(s):

William James ◽

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Novelty Seeking ◽

Classification Analysis ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

Success Of Science ◽

The One

William James observed that we live forwards but we understand backwards. He used this phrase to express his conviction that the creative, novelty-seeking surge of life comes first and that reflection, articulation, classification, analysis, and understanding come later. Whether or not something constitutes progress depends not upon reaching some preexisting goal but upon the distance traveled from where we have been to where we are now. To understand something is to judge it in the light of already known criteria. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, philosopher Thomas Kuhn argues that we understand science better if we do not think of it as evolving toward anything. We need not see science "as the one enterprise that draws constantly nearer to some goal set by nature in advance." The success of science rests in how far it travels "from the community's state of knowledge at any given time."

The Kuhning of reason: Realism, rationalism, and political decision in IR theory after Thomas Kuhn

Review of International Studies ◽

10.1017/s0260210515000054 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 42 (1) ◽

pp. 3-24 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

NICOLAS GUILHOT

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

Strategic Decision ◽

Theory Of Knowledge ◽

Strategic Decision Making ◽

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Ir Theory ◽

Political Decision ◽

Scientific Communities ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

AbstractBeyond the initial infatuation with his work, Kuhn’sStructure of Scientific Revolutionshas had a lasting impact on the field of International Relations. The article analyses the reception of Kuhn in IR and suggests that it contributed to overcoming the ‘second debate’ by making science and realism fully compatible. More importantly, Kuhn offered a vision of science in which scientific communities operated on the basis of realist principles. This not only consolidated the academic hold of neorealism, but transformed realism into a theory of knowledge, which its critics have failed to acknowledge. This lasting transformation is analysed by looking at Kuhn’s influence on the classic studies of strategic decision-making by Graham Allison and Robert Jervis.

Thomas Kuhn (1962): The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Knowledge and Postmodernism in Historical Perspective ◽

10.4324/9781315022086-54 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 340-355

Author(s):

Joyce Appleby ◽

Elizabeth Covington ◽

David Hoyt ◽

Michael Latham ◽

Allison Sneider

Keyword(s):

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

Bioethics as the ‘Third Culture’: Integrating Science and Humanities, Preventing ‘Normative Violence’

Conatus ◽

10.12681/conatus.16011 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 9

Author(s):

George Boutlas

Keyword(s):

Cultural Policy ◽

Scientific Revolution ◽

Philosophy Of History ◽

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Third Culture ◽

New Paradigm ◽

Two Cultures ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

The Two Cultures

Integrative Bioethics engages in descriptive and normative fields, or in two cultures, as Snow puts it in The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, announcing though, in his later writings the emergence of a third culture that can mediate between the two. Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions exposes the practice of a new paradigm of the teaching of history describing in fact the relation of science and humanities in the positivist era. The long standing reasons-causes debate that lay the groundwork of the implied incompatibility of the two cultures, as it reflects on the Collingwoodian anti-causalism of the philosophy of history, against Davidsonian causalism, may elucidate the problem of the ‘marriage’ of cultures. Taking a look on Collingwood’s absolute presuppositions and Carnap’s external to linguistic frameworks questions, will help us investigate the possibility of a coherent framework for integrated Bioethics. Can we frame a transdisciplinary field, where science and humanities as collaborating social practices, or as a new ‘cultural policy’ (according to Richard Rorty), will abstain from normative violence against each other?

Two Myths: Corporate Personality and Language/Mentality Determinism

Scottish Journal of Theology ◽

10.1017/s0036930600032701 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 43 (3) ◽

pp. 289-307 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stanley E. Porter

Keyword(s):

Paradigm Shift ◽

Scientific Community ◽

Good Evidence ◽

Biblical Studies ◽

Thomas Kuhn ◽

Normal Science ◽

New Model ◽

Scientific Revolutions ◽

Corporate Personality

Certain myths are often perpetuated in a discipline, myths which upon later reflection are seen to be what they in fact are: unhelpful, deceptive or simply wrong. Often these myths are perpetuated in spite of good evidence to the contrary. This tendency is not unique to Biblical studies but is a pattern that is found in a range of disciplines. Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, addresses this tendency in the so-called hard sciences. He does not use the term myth but rather speaks of the presuppositions of normal science, the scientific paradigm which controls the scientific community of a given time. But as is so often the case, growing evidence mounts that the model is unsatisfactory, that it fails in significant ways to explain evidence which is increasingly seen to be important. The evidence mounts, until a paradigm shift occurs, when the significant or major practitioners of a discipline realise that a new model must be invoked to explain the data at hand.