A reinterpretation of Harre's copernican revolution

Philosophy of Science 42 (1):67-79 (1975)
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Abstract

Rom Harré's proposed Copernican Revolution in the philosophy of science is a very ambitious undertaking. It challenges established views, proposes a radically new model for scientific explanation, and forces a rethinking of the foundations of the field. In his treatment of the natural sciences, Harré rejects all deductivist accounts of scientific explanation basically on the grounds that such accounts seriously distort the methods of explanation actually operative in science. In the social sciences Harré, in collaboration with Secord, rejects mechanistic, positivistic, and behavioristic accounts of human behavior [5]. In place of these discarded interpretations he substitutes a new realism which stresses the role that models play in supplying accounts of observed patterns of phenomena in terms of the things and processes whose interactions are responsible for the manifest phenomena. This revolution, if successfully carried out, would indeed be a valuable contribution to the philosophy of science.

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Edward MacKinnon
California State University, Hayward

Citations of this work

Science as representation: A reply to mr. Mackinnon.Rom Harré - 1977 - Philosophy of Science 44 (1):146-158.
Scientific problems and the conduct of research.Brian D. Haig - 1987 - Educational Philosophy and Theory 19 (2):22–32.
The truth of scientific claims.Edward MacKinnon - 1982 - Philosophy of Science 49 (3):437-462.

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References found in this work

Phenomenalism.Wilfrid Sellars - 1963 - In Science, Perception, and Reality. Humanities Press. pp. 60-105.
The Explanation of Social Behaviour.Alan Ryan, R. Harre & P. F. Secord - 1973 - Philosophical Quarterly 23 (93):374.
Individuals.David Pears & P. F. Strawson - 1961 - Philosophical Quarterly 11 (44):262.

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