The Kuhnian Image of Science

Time for a Decisive Transformation?

By: Moti Mizrahi (Editor)

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eText | 6 December 2017 | Edition Number 1

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More than 50 years after the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s seminal book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, this volume assesses the adequacy of the Kuhnian model in explaining certain aspects of science, particularly the social and epistemic aspects of science. One argument put forward is that there are no good reasons to accept Kunh’s incommensurability thesis, according to which scientific revolutions involve the replacement of theories with conceptually incompatible ones. Perhaps, therefore, it is time for another “decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.” Only this time, the image of science that needs to be transformed is the Kuhnian one. Does the Kuhnian image of science provide an adequate model of scientific practice? If we abandon the Kuhnian picture of revolutionary change and incommensurability, what consequences would follow from that vis-à-vis our understanding of scientific knowledge as a social endeavour?
The essays in this collection continue this debate, offering a critical examination of the arguments for and against the Kuhnian image of science as well as their implications for our understanding of science as a social and epistemic enterprise.

Industry Reviews

Mizrahi has curated an exciting and provocative volume on that icon of the philosophy of science—Thomas Kuhn’s image of science. These essays challenge that image and defend that image; they criticize it and they develop it. The reader will come away stimulated and with a deeper understanding not only of Kuhn’s conception of science but also of science itself.