Synopsis of Thomas Kuhns The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Part I, Introduction: A Role for History
Keywords philosophy, science, history, epistemology, scientific method, historiography, knowledge
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Synopsis Thomas Kuhn makes the case for the
role of historiography in the understanding of
what science consists in and how it develops.
He first elucidates the common view of science,
dubbed the textbook tradition, as a continual
accretion of knowledge through discoveries and
inventions, and also illustrates the customary
role of history in documenting this
accumulation of facts, the people and dates
associated with them, and the obstacles that
impeded the acquisition of this knowledge.
However, Kuhn contradicts this notion of
science as being a simplistic account, and
claims a larger and ultimately indispensable
role for history. Science for Kuhn must be
understood not as a mere collection of facts,
theories, and methods, but always with
reference to the actual historical processes from
which science had emerged. For instance,
historians are increasingly finding it more
difficult to pinpoint personages and precise
dates that are responsible for such-and-such a
scientific development, and Kuhn hints at the
possibility that the wrong questions are being
asked, that perhaps science does not develop as
a mere sequence of individual discoveries and
inventions. Moreover, there is the problem of
clearly sifting genuine scientific knowledge
from what is not, since several cases of what
was considered scientific in a specific age is
labeled as error or even superstition in a later
one. Kuhn insists that theories considered
outdated are not in principle to be denigrated as
unscientific on such grounds. He claims that
discarded theories such as those mentioned:
Aristotelian dynamics, phlogistic chemistry,
caloric thermodynamics are neither less
Raymond Albert L. Ng
PHY551M, Physics Department
De La Salle University - Manila
raymondalbertng@gmail.com
scientific nor more the product of human
idiosyncrasy as theories currently held today.
Kuhn explains that if such old theories are to be
dubbed unscientific, then it must be admitted
that downright myths can in fact be produced
by the same sorts of methods and held for the
same sorts of reasons that now lead to scientific
knowledge. On the contrary, if these
abandoned theories are still to be considered
scientific, then it must be conceded that science
in the past has included bodies of belief quite
incompatible with the ones we hold today, and
may certainly do so even in the future. This is a
dilemma presented by historical study that casts
doubt on the reliability of the scientific
enterprise at attaining genuine knowledge
about the world unless the understanding of
history as a mere cumulative process is
abandoned. The key, according to Kuhn, lies in
the evaluation of the merits of a science in the
context of its own epoch, that which gives the
maximum internal coherence and the closest
possible fit to nature. Kuhn advocates a
historiographic revolution which he claims will
lead to important insights in the notion of
science. The content of this new historiography
is outlined in the succeeding parts of the essay,
and Kuhn proceeds to describe the parts briefly.
Review Kuhns attempt to rehabilitate the role of
historical study in the understanding of science is
laudable, considering that the scientific enterprise
does remain to be a primarily human endeavor. It
may be justly maintained that any undertaking
done among human beings necessarily involves
sociological and historical factors intertwined: cf.
C.H. Dawson, The Dynamics of World History.