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Kuhn and the Chemical Revolution: a re-assessment

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Abstract

A recent paper by Hoyningen-Huene argues that the Chemical Revolution is an excellent example of the success of Kuhn’s theory. This paper gives a succinct account of some counter-arguments and briefly refers to some further existing counter-arguments. While Kuhn’s theory does have a small number of more or less successful elements, it has been widely recognised that in general Kuhn’s theory is a “preformed and relatively inflexible framework” (1962, p. 24) which does not fit particular historical examples well; this paper clarifies that those examples include the Chemical Revolution.

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Acknowledgments

Helpful comments from Andrew Pyle, James Ladyman, Alexander Bird, John G. McEvoy and Cedric Paternotte are gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Geoffrey Blumenthal

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  1. Geoffrey Blumenthal
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Correspondence to Geoffrey Blumenthal.

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Blumenthal, G. Kuhn and the Chemical Revolution: a re-assessment. Found Chem 15, 93–101 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-011-9129-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-011-9129-6

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