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Assessing the influence of Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions

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Notes

  1. Not all textbooks in philosophy of science include excerpts from Structure. Neither Marc Lange’s (2007) textbook, Philosophy of Science, nor Balashov and Rosenberg’s (2002) Philosophy of Science include excerpts from Structure, though both include a piece by Kuhn, “Objectivity, Value judgment, and Theory Choice.” There is another type of introductory textbook in philosophy of science, a single-authored textbook. These also give attention to Kuhn’s view. Peter Godfrey-Smith’s (2003) Theory and Reality contains two chapters devoted to Kuhn: “Kuhn and Normal Science” and “Kuhn and Revolutions.”.

  2. At least some of his early readers regarded the book as a challenge to positivism. In a review of Structure, Mary Hesse (1963) notes that “Kuhn has … outlined a new epistemological paradigm which promises to resolve some of the crises currently troubling empiricist philosophy of science” (287).

  3. There is, though, a growing body of scholarship in the history of philosophy of science addressing Kuhn, and the writing of Structure. See, for example, Hoyningen-Huene (2006) and Kindi (2005).

  4. A number of scholars have examined and continue to examine whether specific instances of theory change in a variety of fields are aptly characterized as Kuhnian revolutions. See, for example, Mayr (2004), Hoyningen-Huene (2008), and Marx and Bornmann (2010).

  5. To the title question of his paper “Did Tom Kuhn actually Meet Tom Bayes?” Lefteris Farmakis (2008) answers “no.”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, State University of New York, Oswego, Campus Center, Oswego, NY, 13126, USA

    K. Brad Wray

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Correspondence to K. Brad Wray.

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This essay review was especially commissioned on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Kuhn’s seminal book. It continues the series of re-appraisals of older classics.

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Wray, K.B. Assessing the influence of Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Metascience 21, 1–10 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-011-9603-8

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