Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty: Reflections on a Science Classic

211 Pages·2016·1.85 MB·English

by  Robert J. Richards

Kuhn’s
Structure of Scientifi c Revolutions
at Fifty

Kuhn’s
Structure of Scientifi c Revolutions
at Fifty
Refl ections on a Science Classic
Edited by
ROBERT J. RICHARDS and
LORRAINE DASTON
University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Robert J. Richards is the Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service
Professor of the History of Science and Medicine; professor in
the Departments of History, Philosophy, and Psychology and in
the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science;
and director of the Fishbein Center for the History of Science and
Medicine, all at the University of Chicago.
Lorraine Daston is director of the Max Planck Institute for
the History of Science in Berlin, and visiting professor in the
Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2016 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2016.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 31703- 8 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 31720- 5 (paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 31717- 5 (e- book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226317175.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientifi c Revolutions at fi fty : refl ections on a
science classic / edited by Robert J. Richards and Lorraine Daston.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-31703-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-
31720-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-31717-5 (ebook)
1. Kuhn, Thomas S. Structure of scientifi c revolutions. 2. Science—
Philosophy. 3. Science—History. I. Richards, Robert J. (Robert
John), 1942– editor. II. Daston, Lorraine, 1951– editor.
Q175.K84 2016
501—dc23
2015017230
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1 992
(Permanence of Paper).
CONTENTS
Introduction / 1
ONE / Aristotle in the Cold War: On the Origins of
Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientifi c Revolutions / 12
George A. Reisch
TWO / A Smoker’s Paradigm / 31
M. Norton Wise
THREE / Practice All the Way Down / 42
Peter Galison
FOUR / Thomas Kuhn and the Psychology of Scientifi c Revolutions / 71
David Kaiser
FIVE / Paradigms / 96
Ian Hacking
SIX / History of Science without Structure / 115
Lorraine Daston
SEVEN / Why the Scientifi c Revolution Wasn’t a Scientifi c Revolution,
and Why It Matters / 133
Daniel Garber
EIGHT / Paradigms and Exemplars Meet Biomedicine / 151
Angela N. Creager
NINE / Structure as Cited, Structure as Read / 167
Andrew Abbott
Bibliography / 183
Index / 195

Portrait of Thomas Kuhn in his late teens
INTRODUCTION
You must have a special circle of Hell reserved for authors who write to re-
quest special treatment. Let me try to persuade you to be slow in assigning
me to it. I would not write this sort of letter if I did not think the view of sci-
ence developed in my manuscript might prove particularly important.1
Like so many authors, Thomas Kuhn, then associate professor of the his-
tory of science at the University of California, Berkeley, had come to regret
an earlier publishing commitment. When he had agreed some eight years
previous in 1953 to contribute an article to the International Encyclopedia of
Unifi ed Science2 titled “The Structure of Scientifi c Revolutions,” Kuhn was a
freshly minted assistant professor at Harvard in General Education and the
history of science, subjects in which he held no degrees.3 He was fl attered,
no doubt, by the invitation to contribute to a venture so closely associated
with the Vienna Circle in exile.4 His article would appear in the best of
philosophical company: Ernest Nagel on the principles of probability the-
ory, John Dewey on the theory of valuation, Rudolf Carnap of the founda-
tions of logic and mathematics. But as the years (and the original deadline)
went by, the manuscript waxed, and so did the author’s ambitions. His fi rst
book, The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of
Western Thought,5 had enjoyed suffi cient success to net him a joint appoint-
ment in the Departments of History and Philosophy at Berkeley; the re-
nown of the Encyclopedia had in the meantime waned (Kuhn claimed that
his primary audience of “historians, sociologists, and scientists” had never
even heard of it). The “special treatment” that Kuhn was requesting in his
1961 letter to Carroll Bowen of the University of Chicago Press was not
exactly a release from what he considered to be “at the very least, a strong