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

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo Pirozelli
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Problem ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of 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.

scholarly journals Ludwik Fleck e a presente história das ciências

1994 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilana Löwy
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Ludwik Fleck ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
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.

Ptolemy versus Copernicus

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Tipler ◽  
Wesley Bollinger
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of 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.

scholarly journals Kuhn e as dimensões da incomensurabilidade

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (29) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robinson Guitarrari ◽  
Caetano Ernesto Plastino
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of 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.

ARE WE COMING FROM OR GOING TO?

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 677-677
Author(s):  
Student
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Novelty Seeking ◽  
Classification Analysis ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of 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

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
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 ◽  
Structure Of 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

2020 ◽  
pp. 340-355
Author(s):  
Joyce Appleby ◽  
Elizabeth Covington ◽  
David Hoyt ◽  
Michael Latham ◽  
Allison Sneider
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of Scientific Revolutions

Incommensurability in Science

Philosophy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Oberheim ◽  
Paul Hoyningen-Huene
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Human And Social Sciences ◽  
Paul Feyerabend ◽  
Continuous Progress ◽  
Complete Contact

In 1962 in independent, influential publications, Thomas S. Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend suggested the provocative idea that some scientific theories (concepts, paradigms, worldviews) separated by a scientific revolution are incommensurable. They have “no common measure.” The idea of incommensurability became central to both Kuhn’s historical philosophy and Feyerabend’s philosophical pluralism. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Kuhn 1996, cited in Thomas S. Kuhn on Incommensurability dramatically claims that the history of science reveals proponents of competing paradigms failing to make complete contact with each other’s views, so that they are always talking at least slightly at cross-purposes. Kuhn calls the collective causes of such miscommunication the incommensurability between pre- and postrevolutionary scientific traditions, claiming that the Newtonian paradigm is incommensurable with its Cartesian and Aristotelian predecessors in physics, just as Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier’s paradigm is incommensurable with that of Joseph Priestley’s in chemistry. These competing paradigms lack a common measure, because they use different concepts and methods to address different problems, limiting communication across the revolutionary divide. Incommensurability is also central to the aims and methods of Kuhn’s hermeneutic “new historiography of science,” which attempts to transform our image of science. Instead of the traditional image of continuous progress toward truth, Kuhn argues that scientific development is an evolutionary process away from anomalies. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is unprecedentedly popular across the human and social sciences, widely touted as among the most influential academic books of the 20th century. Feyerabend first used the term “incommensurable” in 1962 to characterize the relationship between the concepts of universal scientific theories interpreted realistically, claiming that they have no common measure. The idea of incommensurability remained central to his pluralistic approach to philosophy from his early work to his infamous Against Method (1975; Feyerabend 2010, cited in Paul Feyerabend on Incommensurability) through to his late, postmodern phase. For example, two main themes of The Tyranny of Science (Feyerabend 2011, cited in Feyerabend, Reality, and Incommensurability) are the disunity of science and the abundance of nature, which are lessons he learned directly through his experience with incommensurability. With incommensurability, Kuhn and Feyerabend appeared to be challenging the idea that science is rational, and they were called the “worst enemies of science” in the journal Nature. By now incommensurability has become a well-worn catchphrase of 20th-century philosophy, used across a range of interrelated disciplines to mean many different things in any number of controversial discussions.

Scientific Revolutions

Philosophy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Nickles
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Practice ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Scientific Change ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of Scientific Revolutions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Scientific Decision

Scientific revolutions and the problem of understanding deep scientific change became central topics in philosophy of science with Thomas S. Kuhn’s publication in 1962 of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (see Kuhn 1970, cited under General Overviews). Kuhn attacked the received view of the logical empiricists and Popperians that scientific change is cumulative. He claimed that there have been several revolutions since the so-called scientific revolution, including dramatic overturnings in the most mature sciences—with more to be expected in the future. Kuhn’s more dynamic model of scientific development postulated the existence of occasional crises that sometimes trigger full-scale revolutions that overthrow the old “paradigm” and replace it with a new one discontinuous or “incommensurable” with the old one. He rejected the received views of scientific rationality and denied that even the most successful sciences are progressing toward a final, representational truth about the world. By focusing on finished, “textbook” science, defenders of the received view, he argued, presented an inadequate account of how scientific research is done, leaving unexplained the marked difference between the mature natural sciences and the social sciences as well as the difference within a mature science itself between “normal science” and the extraordinary research context of science in crisis. Kuhn and an entire generation of historically oriented philosophers of science believed that philosophical models of science should be more naturalistic (not based on a priori normative claims), more reflective of scientific practice, and thus testable against the history of science. Unlike the logicians of science, Kuhn highlighted cognitive and social psychological factors and the importance of rhetoric in scientific decision making. In reaction, critics questioned whether there have been any genuinely Kuhnian revolutions, accusing Kuhn of debunking modern science by portraying science as subjective, irrational, and relativistic. Kuhn replied that he was not a relativist, that he was attempting to develop a new account of scientific cognition and rationality, and that he was in effect trying to instigate a revolution of his own at the level of metascience and even general epistemology. Virtually no expert fully accepts Kuhn’s model of science, but there is general agreement that he posed some serious problems, including the problem of new theories: How can it be rational for scientists to reject a highly developed and accomplished theory or research program in favor of a radical and undeveloped new approach? Kuhn’s work stimulated a number of later developments in philosophy and in social studies of science more generally.

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