The Cognitive Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 220 pages
• Published by: Cambridge University Press April 24, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0521855756
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521855754
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 15.2 ounces

Product Review
' the authors do offer powerful illustrations of why consideration of concepts and conceptual change must be an integral part of any convincing history of science, just as they urge against some competing views.' British Journal for the History of Science

Product Review
"Does the propsal for a newly cognitivized Kuhnian approach work? Can it offer the historian of science a useful set of tools? For thsi reviewer the answer is clearly Yes, though much remains to be done. Still given its richness and the clarity with which the case is argued, this is a work which will have to be dealt with. Cognitive science does offer historians tools for a new approachto the history of science, one that would have pleased Kuhn himself." - Ryan D. Tweney, Bowling Green State University

Reader Reviews
Peter Barker and his colleagues Hanne Andersen and Xiang Chen have been working for more than a dozen years to reconsider, reframe and extend the concepts developed by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This book presents a synthesis of their thought in a concise, rigorous, and highly readable volume. Most impressively, the authors provide an empirical grounding for the Kuhnian notions of scientific revolution, normal science, the role of anomalies and the key concept of incommensurability. They reinterpret the course of the Copernican Revolution, persuasively solving many of the problems that Kuhn could not. They provide an account of "paradigm shift" in the discovery of nuclear fission. They provide a brief account of the implications of their thought for Science and Technology Studies, and the sociology, history and philosophy of science. They provide a persuasive argument for how their approach avoids the perils of strong programs in realism and relativism. If this description already makes sense to you, then you should read this book. If it sounds like jargon or gobbledygook, then I can tell you that the book is lucid and accessible, with many illustrations and examples. It provides an important answer to the questions, "What is scientific knowledge, and how does it change?" It should be on the reading list for any introductory course in the philosophy of science, and should be a challenging but good read for anyone who might consider taking such a course.