Hanne Andersen

This volume is a serious attempt to open up the subject of European philosophy of science to real thought, and provide the structural basis for the interdisciplinary development of its specialist fields, but also to provoke reflection on the idea of ‘European philosophy of science’. This efforts should foster a contemporaneous reflection on what might be meant by philosophy of science in Europe and European philosophy of science, and how in fact awareness of it could assist philosophers interpret and motivate their research through a stronger collective identity. The overarching aim is to set the background for a collaborative project organising, systematising, and ultimately forging an identity for, European philosophy of science by creating research structures and developing research networks across Europe to promote its development.

In this chapter, I shall revisit Kuhn’s arguments about the roles of convergent and divergent thought in science education, and I shall compare them to later work and debates in science education, cognitive science, and neighboring disciplines. First, I shall argue that Kuhn’s ideas about convergent thought resonate well with both empirical and theoretical work from prominent scholars in education, cognitive science, and philosophy. Second, I shall argue that although Kuhn’s ideas about divergent thought remained underdeveloped, the topic has been investigated by many other scholars from philosophy, cognitive science and education. Finally, I shall return to Kuhn’s reflections on the different educational needs for basic and applied scientists. I shall argue that Kuhn’s analysis of science education at the university level was rooted in a historical context where enrollment was low, and that the immense growth of science that has happened over the last half century calls instead for education of scientists that bridges rather than deepens the divide between pure and applied science.

Philosophy of science has developed immensely over the last half century. Subspecializations focused on particular scientific disciplines as well as generalist turns towards naturalization, practice, and engagement, not to mention an increasing internationalization, have all contributed to changing the practices of how philosophy of science is produced, published, and received, and to changing the relations between philosophy, philosophy of science, and science itself. This contribution to the Festschrift compiled in honor of Professor Finn Collin provides a brief sketch of these developments as seen through the prism of how Finn Collin as both a philosopher and a philosopher of science has contributed to these developments, nationally and internationally.

This chapter revisits Thomas Kuhn’s argument about an essential tension between tradition and innovation as a driver of scientific progress. It shows that Kuhn’s argument builds on a number of assumptions about the practices of science that held for past science conducted by individuals working within isolated disciplines, and argues that it does therefore not necessarily hold for the increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary science we see today. Examining different types of organization into teams, the chapter discusses how changes in the granularity of collaboration affect Kuhn’s essential tension argument.

Thomas S. Kuhn’s monograph The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Structure) in which Kuhn introduced his seminal phase model for the development of science was one of the most influential books in philosophy of science from the twentieth century. The central ideas about paradigms and revolutions that Kuhn presented in this monograph have not only become part of the standard curriculum across a wide range of academic fields; they have also made deep imprints on science policy as well as on our everyday thinking about how frames of mind guide our actions. Kuhn’s Structure not only provided a new perspective on how science develops; it also constituted an important contribution to an emerging naturalization of scholarship in philosophy of science by arguing that philosophical analyses of science had to be based on studies of science as it had been practiced through history. Despite these immense successes, reservations about Kuhn and the position that he presented in Structure have also been aired in many quarters of academia. Many philosophers have been outraged over the notion of incommensurability. Many historians have been skeptical about the appeal to general structures. This being said, Kuhn himself often had reservations about the ways in which his work was interpreted and used for purposes that he had never intended. Wray’s monograph is an examination of this intriguing tension between the immense success of Structure and the reservations that have remained against it, especially among philosophers and historians.

One important problem concerning incommensurability is how to explain that two theories which are incommensurable and therefore mutually untranslatable and incomparable in a strictly logical, point-by-point way are still competing. The two standard approaches have been to argue either that the terms of incommensurable theories may share reference, or that incommensurable theories target roughly the same object domain as far as the world-in-itself is concerned. However, neither of these approaches to the problem pay due respect to the incommensurability thesis' insights. In this paper I shall first show the inconsistency between the basic premises underlying Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis and the two standard responses to the thesis. I shall then argue that if one adopts Kuhn’s position, the response must build on a notion of overlap between phenomenal worlds. Finally, I shall argue that overlap between complex structures of features can provide the basis for such a notion, and that this makes it possible to explain how incommensurable theories may compete.

The “practice turn” in philosophy of science has strengthened the connections between philosophy and scientific practice. Apart from reinvigorating philosophy of science, this also increases the relevance of philosophical research for science, society, and science education. In this paper, we reflect on our extensive experience with teaching mandatory philosophy of science courses to science students from a range of programs at University of Copenhagen. We highlight some of the lessons we have learned in making philosophy of science “fit for teaching” outside of philosophy circles by taking selected cases from the students’ own field as the starting point. We argue for adapting philosophy of science teaching to particular audiences of science students, and discuss the benefits of drawing on research within science education to inform curriculum and course design. This involves reconsidering teaching resources, assumptions about students, intended learning outcomes, and teaching formats. We also argue that to make philosophy of science relevant and engaging to science students, it is important to consider their potential career trajectories. By anticipating future contexts and situations in which methodological, conceptual, and ethical questions could be relevant, philosophy of science can demonstrate its value in the education of science students.

The phenomenon of shared intention has received much attention in the philosophy of mind and action. Margaret Gilbert (1989, 2000c, 2014b) argues that a shared intention to do A consists in a joint commitment to intend to do A. But we need to know more about the nature of joint commitments to know what exactly this implies. While the persistence of joint commitments has received much attention in the literature, their impersistence has received very little attention. In this paper, we shed light on the impersistence of joint commitments by showing how joint commitments can be dissolved by unexpected events.

With the main work The Revolutions of Science, Thomas S. Kuhn became one of the most read and influential science theorists of the 20th century, and today Kuhn's mindset is part of the majority of science theory courses mandatory at any university course. Kuhn's concepts of paradigms, scientific revolutions and incommensurability have not only changed our view of science but have almost become part of the everyday language and are used far outside the world of science. The legacy of Kuhn paints a picture of the importance Kuhn's thoughts have had to our understanding of the sciences. The authors begin with an introduction to Kuhn's life and work and to the many philosophical discussions that his work has spawned. Next follows a series of chapters outlining Kuhn's influence on the history of science and philosophy of science and his importance in sociology, physics, biology, geography, anthropology, psychology, linguistics and aesthetic sciences. The book is aimed at anyone studying or engaged in one of these subjects, or who wants to understand the debate about the sciences and their evolution over the last half-century.

Mathematicians appear to have quite high standards for when they will rely on testimony. Many mathematicians require that a number of experts testify that they have checked the proof of a result p before they will rely on p in their own proofs without checking the proof of p. We examine why this is. We argue that for each expert who testifies that she has checked the proof of p and found no errors, the likelihood that the proof contains no substantial errors increases because different experts will validate the proof in different ways depending on their background knowledge and individual preferences. If this is correct, there is much to be gained for a mathematician from requiring that a number of experts have checked the proof of p before she will rely on p in her own proofs without checking the proof of p. In this way a mathematician can protect her own work and the work of others from errors. Our argument thus provides an explanation for mathematicians’ attitude towards relying on testimony.

The book examines the emerging approach of using qualitative methods, such as interviews and field observations, in the philosophy of science. Qualitative methods are gaining popularity among philosophers of science as more and more scholars are resorting to empirical work in their study of scientific practices. At the same time, the results produced through empirical work are quite different from those gained through the kind of introspective conceptual analysis more typical of philosophy. This volume explores the benefits and challenges of an empirical philosophy of science and addresses questions such as: What do philosophers gain from empirical work? How can empirical research help to develop philosophical concepts? How do we integrate philosophical frameworks and empirical research? What constraints do we accept when choosing an empirical approach? What constraints does a pronounced theoretical focus impose on empirical work? Nine experts discuss their thoughts and empirical results in the chapters of this book with the aim of providing readers with an answer to these questions.

This paper focuses on Thomas S. Kuhn's work on taxonomic concepts and how it relates to empirical work from the cognitive sciences on categorization and conceptual development. I shall first review the basic features of Kuhn's family resemblance account and compare to work from the cognitive sciences. I shall then show how Kuhn's account can be extended to cover the development of new taxonomies in science, and I shall illustrate by a detailed case study that Kuhn himself mentioned only briefly in his own work, namely the discovery of X-rays and radioactivity.