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Shifting Paradigms Thomas S Shifting Paradigms Thomas S. Kuhn and the History of Science Edition Open Access Series Editors Ian T. Baldwin, Gerd Graßhoff, Jürgen Renn, Dagmar Schäfer, Robert Schlögl, Bernard F. Schutz Edition Open Access Development Team Lindy Divarci, Georg Pflanz, Klaus Thoden, Dirk Wintergrün The Edition Open Access (EOA) platform was founded to bring together publi- cation initiatives seeking to disseminate the results of scholarly work in a format that combines traditional publications with the digital medium. It currently hosts the open-access publications of the “Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge” (MPRL) and “Edition Open Sources” (EOS). EOA is open to host other open access initiatives similar in conception and spirit, in accordance with the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the sciences and humanities, which was launched by the Max Planck Society in 2003. By combining the advantages of traditional publications and the digital medium, the platform offers a new way of publishing research and of studying historical topics or current issues in relation to primary materials that are otherwise not easily available. The volumes are available both as printed books and as online open access publications. They are directed at scholars and students of various disciplines, as well as at a broader public interested in how science shapes our world. Shifting Paradigms Thomas S. Kuhn and the History of Science A. Blum, K. Gavroglu, C. Joas, J. Renn (eds.) Proceedings 8 Proceedings 8 Proceedings of the conference “50 Years Since Structure: Towards a History of the History of Science,” held in Berlin in October 2012 Communicated by Rivka Feldhay Editorial Team: Lindy Divarci, Caroline Frank, Georg Pflanz, Nina Ruge, Chandhan Srinivasamurthy Cover Image: Thomas S. Kuhn being interviewed November 1989 in his office at MIT. Photo: Skúli Sigurdsson ISBN 978-3-945561-11-9 Published 201 by Edition Open Access http://www.edition-open-access.de a Planc nstitute for the History of cience Reprint of the 2016 edition Printed and distributed by ProBusiness digital printing Deutschland GmbH, Berlin Published under Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 Germany Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/de/ The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge The Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge comprises the subseries, Studies, Proceedings and Textbooks. They present original scientific work submitted un- der the scholarly responsibility of members of the Scientific Board and their academic peers. The initiative is currently supported by research departments of three Max Planck Institutes: the MPI for the History of Science, the Fritz Haber Institute of the MPG and the MPI for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute). The publications of the Studies series are dedicated to key subjects in the history and development of knowledge, bringing together perspectives from different fields and com- bining source-based empirical research with theoretically guided approaches. The Proceedings series presents the results of scientific meetings on current issues and supports, at the same time, further cooperation on these issues by offering an electronic platform with further resources and the possi- bility for comments and interactions. The Textbooks volumes are prepared by leading experts in the relevant fields. Scientific Board Markus Antonietti, Antonio Becchi, Fabio Bevilacqua, William G. Boltz, Jens Braarvik, Horst Bredekamp, Jed Z. Buchwald, Olivier Darrigol, Thomas Duve, Mike Edmunds, Fynn Ole Engler, Robert K. Englund, Mordechai Feingold, Rivka Feldhay, Gideon Freudenthal, Paolo Galluzzi, Kostas Gavroglu, Mark Geller, Domenico Giulini, Günther Görz, Gerd Graßhoff, James Hough, Manfred Laubichler, Glenn Most, Klaus Müllen, Pier Daniele Napolitani, Alessandro Nova, Hermann Parzinger, Dan Potts, Sabine Schmidtke, Circe Silva da Silva, Ana Simões, Dieter Stein, Richard Stephenson, Mark Stitt, Noel M. Swerdlow, Liba Taub, Martin Vingron, Scott Walter, Norton Wise, Gerhard Wolf, Rüdiger Wolfrum, Gereon Wolters, Zhang Baichun. Contents Introduction Alexander Blum, Kostas Gavroglu, Christian Joas and Jürgen Renn ................................ 1 Where to Start? John L. Heilbron .............................................. 3 Part 1: Personal Recollections 15 1 The Nature of Scientific Knowledge: An Interview with Thomas S. Kuhn Skúli Sigurdsson .............................................. 17 2 Steve’s Question and Tom’s Last Lecture: A Personal Perspective Gerald Holton ................................................ 31 3 Thomas Kuhn: A Man of Many Parts William Shea ................................................. 37 Part 2: Historicizing Kuhn 41 4 An Episode from the History of History and Philosophy of Science: The Phenomenal Publishing Success of Kuhn’s Structure Kostas Gavroglu .............................................. 43 5 Kuhn’s Paradigm of Paradigms: Historical and Epistemological Coordinates of The Copernican Revolution Pietro Daniel Omodeo......................................... 71 6 Contemporary Science and the History and Philosophy of Science Olival Freire Jr................................................ 105 viii Contents 7 Kuhn in the Cold War Ursula Klein ................................................. 115 8 Science, Criticism and the Search for Truth: Philosophical Footnotes to Kuhn’s Historiography Stefano Gattei ................................................ 123 9 Two Encounters Fynn Ole Engler and Jürgen Renn .............................. 139 Part 3: Kuhn’s Legacy 149 10 Thomas Kuhn Jed Z. Buchwald .............................................. 151 11 Thomas Kuhn and the Dialogue Between Historians and Philosophers of Science William Shea ................................................. 163 12 Constructive Controversy and the Growth of Knowledge Martin J. S. Rudwick .......................................... 181 13 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and History and Philosophy of Science in Historical Perspective Theodore Arabatzis ........................................... 191 14 On Reading Kuhn’s Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894–1912 Richard Staley ................................................ 203 15 Science, Politics, Economics and Kuhn’s Paradigms José M. Sánchez-Ron .......................................... 211 16 Abgesang on Kuhn’s “Revolutions” Ursula Klein ................................................. 223 Part 4: Reinterpreting Kuhn 233 17 The Pendulum as a Social Institution: T. S. Kuhn and the Sociology of Science David Bloor .................................................. 235 Contents ix 18 The Notion of Incommensurability Harry Collins................................................. 253 19 Kuhn, Meritocracy, and Excellence Michael Segre ................................................ 259 20 From Structures and Tensions in Science to Configurational Histories of the Practices of Knowledge John Pickstone ............................................... 265 Part 5: Beyond Kuhn 285 21 Kuhnian and Post-Kuhnian Views on How Science Evolves Mary Jo Nye ................................................. 287 22 Experimental Turnaround, 360°: The Essential Kuhn Circle Carsten Reinhardt ............................................ 295 23 History of Science: The French Connection John Stachel ................................................. 301 24 The Professionalization of Research on the History of Science in China and the Influence of Eurocentrism on Chinese Histo- rians of Science Baichun Zhang ............................................... 329 25 On Kuhnian and Hacking-Type Revolutions Silvan S. Schweber ............................................ 337 26 Goethe Was Right: ‘The History of Science Is Science Itself’ M. Norton Wise ............................................... 347 27 History of Science and Technology in Portugal: Networking in the European Periphery Ana Simões................................................... 361 List of Contributors.......................................... 379 Name Index Introduction Alexander Blum, Kostas Gavroglu, Christian Joas and Jürgen Renn Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (“Structure” in the following) was first published in 1962 and became the most widely read book on the history of science. Since then, philosophers, historians, sociologists, edu- cationalists, anthropologists, psychologists, economists, cultural commentators, journalists and readers belonging to many more academic and non-academic areas have been discussing this book. In scholarly journals, seminars, popular writings, monographs, public lectures and conferences, the book has been analyzed, com- mented upon, (often) criticized, (sometimes) praised, its impact assessed, and, in various instances, dismissed as trivial. The appearance of Structure was perhaps the second major milestone, after the first publication of the journal Isis in 1912, to mark the rise of the history of science to a field enjoying broad recognition beyond the narrow community of its practitioners. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Structure, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science organized an international conference, inviting scholars from
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