1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781973903321

Autore

Wray K. Brad <1963->

Titolo

Kuhn's evolutionary social epistemology / / K. Brad Wray [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2011

ISBN

1-139-15307-2

1-107-22909-X

1-283-34261-8

1-139-16064-8

9786613342614

1-139-16164-4

1-139-15959-3

1-139-15607-1

1-139-15783-3

0-511-99799-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiii, 229 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Classificazione

SCI075000

Disciplina

501

Soggetti

Science - Philosophy

Knowledge, Theory of

Social epistemology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Kuhn's insight -- Part I. Revolutions, Paradigms, and Incommensurability: 1. Scientific revolutions as lexical changes; 2. The Copernican revolution revisited; 3. Kuhn and the discovery of paradigms; 4. The epistemic significance of incommensurability -- Part II. Kuhn's Evolutionary Epistemology: 5. Kuhn's historical perspective; 6. Truth and the end of scientific inquiry; 7. Scientific specialization; 8. Taking stock of the evolutionary dimensions of Kuhn's epistemology -- Part III. Kuhn's Social Epistemology: 9. Kuhn's constructionism; 10. What makes Kuhn's epistemology a social epistemology?; 11. How does a new theory come to be accepted?; 12. Where the road has taken us: a synthesis.



Sommario/riassunto

Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) has been enduringly influential in philosophy of science, challenging many common presuppositions about the nature of science and the growth of scientific knowledge. However, philosophers have misunderstood Kuhn's view, treating him as a relativist or social constructionist. In this book, Brad Wray argues that Kuhn provides a useful framework for developing an epistemology of science that takes account of the constructive role that social factors play in scientific inquiry. He examines the core concepts of Structure and explains the main characteristics of both Kuhn's evolutionary epistemology and his social epistemology, relating Structure to Kuhn's developed view presented in his later writings. The discussion includes analyses of the Copernican revolution in astronomy and the plate tectonics revolution in geology. The book will be useful for scholars working in science studies, sociologists and historians of science as well as philosophers of science.