Paul Hoyningen-Huene

The paper discusses several wide-spread misunderstandings of Kuhn’s theory of scientific development, most prominently the ascription that he conceives of scientific development as irrational. The core of this ascription is an assessment of incommensurability as implying the lack of any rational possibility of theory comparison. This is supposed to be due to Gestalt switches and a quasi-religious element of conversion in theory change. Accordingly, scientific revolutions cannot be a serious matter for philosophical analysis; they furthermore foreclose any scientific progress. It is shown that such images of Kuhn’s theory rest on deep misunderstandings that are partly due to Kuhn’s writing style.

To begin, the so-called ‘selectivity of historical judgment’ is discussed. According to it, writing history requires a comparative criterion of historical relevance. This criterion contains philosophical elements. In Kuhn’s case, the criterion directs historical research and presentation away from Whiggish historiography by postulating a hermeneutic reading of historical sources. This postulate implies some sort of internalism, some sort of rationality of scientific development, and historical realism. To conclude, some consequences of Kuhn’s anti-Whiggism are discussed.

Few philosophers of science have influenced as many readers as Thomas S. Kuhn. Yet no comprehensive study of his ideas has existed--until now. In this volume, Paul Hoyningen-Huene examines Kuhn's work over four decades, from the days before The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to the present, and puts Kuhn's philosophical development in a historical framework. Scholars from disciplines as diverse as political science and art history have offered widely differing interpretations of Kuhn's ideas, appropriating his notions of paradigm shifts and revolutions to fit their own theories, however imperfectly. Hoyningen-Huene does not merely offer another interpretation--he brings Kuhn's work into focus with rigorous philosophical analysis. Through extended discussions with Kuhn and an encyclopedic reading of his work, Hoyningen-Huene looks at the problems and justifications of his claims and determines how his theories might be expanded. Most significantly, he discovers that The Structure of Scientific Revolutions can be understood only with reference to the historiographic foundation of Kuhn's philosophy. Discussing the concepts of paradigms, paradigm shifts, normal science, and scientific revolutions, Hoyningen-Huene traces their evolution to Kuhn's experience as a historian of contemporary science. From here, Hoyningen-Huene examines Kuhn's well-known thesis that scientists on opposite sides of a revolutionary divide "work in different worlds," explaining Kuhn's notion of a world-change during a scientific revolution. He even considers Kuhn's most controversial claims--his attack on the distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification and his notion of incommensurability--addressing both criticisms and defenses of these ideas. Destined to become the authoritative philosophical study of Kuhn's work, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions both enriches our understanding of Kuhn and provides powerful interpretive tools for bridging Continental and Anglo-American philosophical traditions.

Die im Aufsatz vorgetragene Kritik am Leitmotiv von Georg Pichts Vorlesung "Der Begriff der Natur und seine Geschichte" kann wie folgt zusammengefaßt werden:1. Das für die Natur bedrohliche Handeln ist nicht primär als angewandte Naturwissenschaft, sondern als technisches Handeln zu bestimmen.2. Die Zerstörung von Natur ist nicht Ausdruck einer Wesensqualität von Wissenschaft, sondern allenfalls eine Nebenfolge ihrer Anwendung, primär aber eine Nebenfolge des technischen Handelns.3. Wissenschaftliches Wissen erfaßt tatsächlich die Natur nicht so, wie sie von sich her ist, aber die zerstörerische Anwendung von Wissenschaft ist kein Indiz für diesen Sachverhalt.4. Bei der Anwendung von Wissenschaft überblickt niemand die Gesamtheit der Handlungsfolgen, aber das liegt nicht spezifisch an den Charakteristika der Wissenschaft, sondern an der conditio humana.5. Die Mahnung, heute die Wahrheit unserer Naturerkenntnis in Frage zu stellen, erübrigt sich, da diese Diskussion längst im Gange ist

The article discusses Thomas S. Kuhn's impact on the history of science, especially in the United States of America. First, the state of the history of science in the fifties is sketched. Second, Kuhn's particular contribution to the emerging new historiography of science is presented. Third, Kuhn's role in the m‐stitutionalization of the history of science in the USA is considered. Finally, some remarks are made on the relation between Kuhn's historiographic work and his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

This paper deals with the following questions: What features of modern natural science are responsible for the fact that, of all forms of science, this form is technologically exploitable? The three notions: concept of nature, epistemic ideal, and experiment, suggest the most important components of my answer. I will argue, first, that only the peculiar interplay of the modern concept of nature with an epistemic ideal attuned to it can cast experiment in the specific, highly central role it plays in the pursuit of knowledge about nature. It will then become clear that the form of science in which experiment plays such a role will, necessarily, prove technologically exploitable.