Description
Book SynopsisMore than 50 years after the publication of Thomas Kuhn's seminal book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, this volume assesses the adequacy of the Kuhnian model in explaining certain aspects of science, particularly the social and epistemic aspects of science. One argument put forward is that there are no good reasons to accept Kunh's incommensurability thesis, according to which scientific revolutions involve the replacement of theories with conceptually incompatible ones. Perhaps, therefore, it is time for another "decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed." Only this time, the image of science that needs to be transformed is the Kuhnian one. Does the Kuhnian image of science provide an adequate model of scientific practice? If we abandon the Kuhnian picture of revolutionary change and incommensurability, what consequences would follow from that vis-à-vis our understanding of scientific knowledge as a social endeavour? The essays in this collection continue this debate, offering a critical examination of the arguments for and against the Kuhnian image of science as well as their implications for our understanding of science as a social and epistemic enterprise.
Table of Contents1. Introduction / 2. Kuhn's Incommensurability Thesis: What's the Argument?, Moti Mizrahi / 3. Science as Human Behavior: Kuhn's Explanatory and Sense-Making Projects, Lydia Patton / 4. The Kuhnian Straw Man, Vasso Kindi / 5. There's Glory for You! Redefining Revolutions, Andrew Aberdein / 5. The Biological Metaphors of Scientific Change, Barbara Gabriella Renzi and Giulio Napolitano / 6. What's the Support for Kuhn's Incommensurability Thesis?, James Marcum / 7. Heuristic Principles and Incompatibility, Dunja Šešelja / 8. The Bright and Dark Sides of Thinking in Kuhnian Terms, Alexandra Argamakova / 9. Does Kuhn's Incommensurability Thesis Reflect Present and Future Science?, Seungbae Park / 10. Scientific Change and Scientific Method at the Level of the Group: A Case for Degrees of Incommensurability?, Darrell Rowbottom / 11. Incomparability and the Arguments for Incommensurability, Howard Sankey / Index
