The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas Kuhn (1922-96) transformed the philosophy of science. His seminal 1962 work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" introduced the term 'paradigm shift' into the vernacular and remains a fundamental text in the study of the history and philosophy of science. This introduction to Kuhn's ideas covers the breadth of his philosophical work, situating "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" within Kuhn's wider thought and drawing attention to the development of his ideas over time. Kuhn's work is assessed within the context of other philosophies of science notably logical empiricism and recent developments in naturalized epistemology. The author argues that Kuhn's thinking betrays a residual commitment to many theses characteristic of the empiricists he set out to challenge. Kuhn's influence on the history and philosophy of science is assessed and where the field may be heading in the wake of Kuhn's ideas is explored.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a book that philosophers love to hate. With over a million copies sold it is one of the most popular books in twentieth century philosophy, yet most work in philosophy of science has been aimed at dismissing or at least modifying Kuhn. On the other hand, and much to Kuhn’s own horror, ‘‘social studies of science’’ have embraced Kuhn’s alleged skeptical consequences. In the 1990’s these opposing views between realists and constructivists collided in a disciplinewide debate called the ‘‘Science Wars’’. After the turn of the century, however, interest in Kuhn’s ideas seems to have waned. The topics got old and perhaps philosophers just grew tired of looking back. With no synthesis in sight, the relative calm suggests they agreed to disagree, leaving the discipline in a state of fragmentation. Now that the new century is well under way, the 50th anniversary of Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a good occasion to look ahead and ask what the role of Kuhn’s legacy can be in twenty first century philosophy of science. This issue of Topoi addresses this question with a mix of tradition and innovation. It brings together contributions by senior scholars who have themselves, like Kuhn, helped shape twentieth century philosophy of science, and young academics on whom the burden falls of shaping that of the 21th. Their contributions fall into two groups, those looking to refine Kuhn’s ideas and those ready to implement them. Hanne Andersen extends Kuhn’s ‘‘Essential Tension’’ between tradition and innovation within mono-disciplinary science with a complementary tension between intellectual dependence and critical scrutiny versus epistemic dependence and trust in interdisciplinary science. Dunja Seselja and Christian Straber develop Kuhn’s account of theory choice based on the evaluation of pursuit worthiness. They argue that dropping the account of epistemic semantic monism inherent in Kuhn’s ideas will yield richer notions of persuasion, interpretation and pluralism. William Rehg provides an interpretation of Kuhn’s ideas in terms of collective intentionality and argues this allows to save Kuhn’s conception of normal and revolutionary science without having to rely on meaning holism and incommensurability. Howard Sankey proposes to sharpen Kuhn’s account by adding to Kuhn’s later rejection of methodological incommensurability a particularist and naturalist conception of epistemic normativity in order to take away the sceptical basis for epistemic relativism. Jerry Doppelt asks what form of realism is still possible given Kuhn’s characterization of the process of theory change. In response to this challenge he develops and defends a ‘best current theory’ realism. While Ronald Giere argues that Kuhn’s later position is in line with his own account of perspectival realism. Visions for the future implementation of Kuhn’s ideas are developed in different directions. Some articles see Kuhn’s future as offering a new paradigm for philosophy of science, others see it as a bridge between philosophy and other fields or as a tool with applications to specific philosophical problems. Joseph Rouse calls attention to a number of less commonly recognized aspects of Kuhn’s work. Some of them indicate that Kuhn was an important precursor to subsequent philosophical developments. But Rouse also looks ahead and cites three overlooked themes that hold opportunities for future research, insisting that the Kuhnian revolution in philosophy of science still has to R. De Langhe (&) Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS), Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, PO Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands e-mail: rogierdelanghe@gmail.com

The view that inquiry can be understood in terms of rhetorical theory can be traced to Thomas Kuhn's influential work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn is often cited by scholars concerned with the discursive strategies by which the natural and social or human sciences justify themselves and their specific claims. Kuhn's legacy is well captured by Nelson, Megill, and McCloskey in the opening essay of The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences (1987) where they link him to Stephen Toulmin and Chaim Perelman as instigators of the study of the Rhetoric of Inquiry. In their words, Kuhn's landmark classic challenges philosophy to account for the actual operation of scientific communities their professional devices of communication and socialization, their political structures, their reliance on aesthetics, and their rhetorical dependence on persuasion (Nelson, Megill, and McCloskey 1987, 12). Despite this reaction, however, Kuhn's project was in many ways modest. He was not seeking to develop a sociology of science or a rhetoric of inquiry. He sought only to account for the form of modern science's history, which is not marked by linear progress, but by a succession of dominant frameworks, or what he termed paradigms. As I will argue in this essay, Kuhn's conception of paradigms is incompatible with rhetoric, except during scientific revolutions or under conditions of incommensurability. Incommensurability is a problematic category, however, for the opening it affords rhetoric ultimately undermines the very idea of paradigms. Consequently, locating rhetoric within normal science either undermines the very category distinctions that provide science with its specificity, or reduces rhetoric from a particular genre of discourse directed toward human agency to rhetoricality, an aspect of all discourse. As we shall see, such blurring of genre distinctions is itself fun-

In recent years, a revisionist process focused on logical positivism can be observed, particularly regarding Carnap’s work. In this paper, I argue against the interpretation that Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions having been published in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, co-edited by Carnap, is evidence of the revisionist idea that Carnap “would have found Structure philosophically congenial”. I claim that Kuhn’s book, from Carnap’s point of view, is not in philosophy of science but rather in history of science (in the context of a sharp discovery–justification distinction). It could also explain the fact that, despite his sympathetic letters to Kuhn as editor, Carnap never refers to Kuhn’s book in his work in philosophy of science.

SUMMARY It is a current idea that, in contrast with Continental philosophers, so-called analytical philosophers till 1960 attached no importance to history and could muster hardly any interest in it. As a factual claim this is just about right. As a claim about their implicit commitments it is incorrect. I argue that due to their idea of a rational reconstruction according to which the advanced sciences function as a criterion of rationality, both the Logical Positivists and the Popperians were committed to the relevance of the history of science. Because of this implicit commitment Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) could have the extra—ordinary impact it had. In reaction to Kuhn both the Post—positivistic realist (Putnam) and the new Popperians (Lakatos) have tried to make the best out of the situation by giving explicit prominence to the history of science: this history was to be an important judge of their philosophy of science. Though the history was to be a judge, not everything in th...

The success of Thomas Kuhn's work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in circles to which it was not initially addressed is particularly striking in the case of economics. In the last years, studies applying the Kuhnian framework to economic science have flourished, and no discussion about the history of economic theories takes place without at least a reference to Kuhn.' Undoubtedly, his ideas have provided the basis for a fresh look at the sociological factors affecting the development of economic thought. This is developed by Benjamin Ward in the following way:

Anyone who works at the interstices of intellectual history and philosophy and the history and philosophy of science will be quick to rank Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions amongst the most influential works of the last half-century. But its influence extends well beyond these disciplines as well. First published in 1962 as a contribution to the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, over the last fifty years it has enjoyed a rich afterlife, leaving in its wake an immense if contested inventory of ideas whose significance has transcended the well-policed boundaries that often separate the natural sciences from the social sciences and the humanities. Even more surprising for a book of its academic character, it has enjoyed a reception in popular discourse that exceeds its disciplinary bailiwick. Its trademark terms—not only the celebrated ideas of a paradigm and a paradigm shift but also more technical themes such as normal science, incommensurability, and anomaly—have been naturalized into mundane English with a degree of success that puts to shame just about any other work of recent scholarship. Paraphrasing one of its characteristic claims, one may be temped to observe that, since the publication of Kuhn's Structure, we all live in a different world.

ural science is moving closer to history rather than vice-versa. At this point, he invokes Kuhn and his paradigm, having already spoken of the two-culture problem and about to speak of E.O. Wilson and his book, Consilience. We need to pause, however. While Kuhn is fashionable, his theses have not stood up well to criticism. Historians of science have questioned his work. Kuhn himselfexpressed doubts after its publication. We who follow upon his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions should do likewise. Indeed, it can be argued that the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century incorporated not only the novel theories of Galileo and Newton, but established the basic outlines of scientific method, which, suitably modified, would amend the initial paradigms. Adherence to scientific method still persists. So, too, with Wilson and Consilience. This noteworthy effort to unify the sciences suffers from false understanding of the notion of consilience as introduced by William Whewell and then exemplified in the work of Darwin. Clearly, invocation of such figures as Kuhn and Wilson from the natural sciences must be accompanied by constant critique. The same is true for metaphors. When Christian mixes them as he does speaking of a huge super-organism consisting of all humans, and few sentences later ofthe super-continent of modern humanity, we must ask which is the one that is most valid as we try to do history. Or else, what purpose does each serve that the other does not?

Notes on Contributors

Literally speaking, "Philosophy of biology" is a rather old expression. William Whewell coined it in 1840, at the very time he introduced the expression "philosophy of science". Whewell was fond of creating neologisms, like Auguste Comte, his French counterpart in the field of the philosophical reflection about science. Historians of science know that a few years earlier, in 1834, Whewell had generated a small scandal when he proposed the word "scientist" as a general term by which "the students of the knowledge of the material world" could describe themselves, and distinguish themselves from artists. The term "philosopher", Whewell argued, was too wide. A new generic term, more or less equivalent to the French term "savant", was needed in order to prevent the disintegration of science that seemed to flow from its specialization in modern times.1 When Whewell first introduced the terms "philosophy of science" and "philosophy of biology" in his 1840 Philosophy of the inductive sciences, the latter term was merely a special branch of "philosophy of science". The expression "philosophy of science" itself had two justifications: firstly, this phrase expressed the idea that "science" remained cognitively coherent enough to justify a critical enquiry into its methodological unity and its foundation; secondly, the phrase "philosophy of science" was required in order to distinguish a properly "philosophical" enquiry from a "historical" approach to science. Although Whewell's 1840 Philosophy of the inductive sciences 2 had approximately the same chapter structure as his 1837 History of the Inductive Sciences 3 (that is, a series of chapters successively devoted to the concept of science in general, and although there was considerable overlap between the contents of the two books, then to particular sciences), its theoretical purpose was different. Clearly, Whewell was not willing to confuse the genres of history and philosophy as Auguste Comte had done in his 1830 Cours de philosophie positive.4 Note also that the word "biology" was still extremely rare in English when Whewell used it in 1840. In fact, Whewell's 1837 History of the Inductive Sciences does not make use of the word "biology": Whewell successively examines "botany", "zoology", "physiology" and "comparative antomy" as special branches of "analytico-classificatory science", then discusses palaeontology as a special case of the "palaeo-etiological sciences". Three years later, in his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Whewell does use "biology" as a generic term for all the sciences dealing with life. The various sciences which were separately examined in the previous book are now collectively considered. Furthermore, the main philosophical problem raised by biology is its dual nature: biology is both nomological and a historical science. Modern philosophers of biology are generally unaware of the story of the origins of the expression "philosophy of biology", but Whewell's dual theoretical nature of biology is still a major concern for modern "philosophy of biology".

Was there a Darwinian Revolution? Yes, no, and maybe!

On this occasion, and in this place, I feel that I ought, and am probably expected, to look back at the things which have happened to the philosophy of science since I first began to take an interest in it over half a century ago. But I am both too much an outsider and too much a protagonist to undertake that assignment. Rather than attempt to situate the present state of philosophy of science with respect to its past — a subject on which I’ve little authority — I shall try to situate my present state in philosophy of science with respect to its own past — a subject on which, however imperfect, I’m probably the best authority there is.As a number of you know, I’m at work on a book, and what I mean to attempt here is an exceedingly brief and dogmatic sketch of its main themes. I think of my project as a return, now underway for a decade, to the philosophical problems left over from the Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

In this paper,I first review the seminal work by Thomas Kuhn — The Structure of Scientific Revolutions — and elaborate my view on paradigm shifts in software engineering research and practice as it turns 50 years old in 2018. I then examine major undertakings of the computing profession since early days of modern computing, especially those done by the software engineering community as a whole. I also enumerate anomalies and crises that occurred at various stages, and the attempts to provide solutions by the software engineering professionals in the past five decades. After providing such a background, I direct readers attention toward emerging anomalies in software engineering, at a severity level that is causing another software engineering crisis, and suggest a set of criteria for feasible solutions. The main theme of this paper is to advocate that situation analytics, equipped with necessary definitions of essential concepts including situation and intention as parts of a new computational framework, can serve as the foundation for a new software engineering paradigm named the Situation-Centric Paradigm. In this framework, situation is considered a new abstraction for computing and is clearly differentiated from the widely accepted existing abstractions, namely function and object. I argue that the software engineering professionals will inevitably move into this new paradigm, willingly or unwillingly, to empower Human-Embedded Computing (HEC) and End-User Embedded Computing (EUEC), much more than what they have done with traditional human-centered or user-centric computing altogether. In the end, I speculate that an ultimate agile method may be on the rise, and challenge readers to contemplate “what if" hundreds of thousands “end-user developers" emerge into the scene where the boundaries between end users and developers become much more blurred.