Abstract
In this paper, I highlight the importance of models and social structure to Kuhn’s conception of science, and then use these elements to sketch a Kuhnian classification of scientific controversies. I show that several important sorts of non-revolutionary scientific disagreements were both identified and analyzed in Structure. Ultimately, I contend that Kuhn’s conception of science supports an approach to scientific controversies that has the potential to both reveal the importantly different sources of scientific disagreements and to provide useful resources for understanding their endurance and eventual termination. Several brief examples are used to suggest the power of a Kuhnian analysis and this analysis is contrasted with several more contemporary alternatives.
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Notes
Kuhn describes the evolution of his position on these matters at (Kuhn 2000, pp. 56–57).
Such competing paradigms are not incomparable, but there is no unit of measure, “in terms of which both can be measured directly and exactly” (Kuhn 2000, p. 189).
Perhaps a case like the competing models of the laser described in (Cartwright 1983) could be thought of in these terms.
In endnote 11 (Kitcher 2000, p. 36), Kitcher explains that the rival individual practices that supply the basis for scientific controversies need to be understood as “rival developments of a shared consensus practice.”
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Goodwin, W. Structure and Scientific Controversies. Topoi 32, 101–110 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-012-9136-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-012-9136-9