A pragmatic approach to scientific change: transfer, alignment, influence

European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (3):1-25 (2022)
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Abstract

I propose an approach that expands philosophical views of scientific change, on the basis of an analysis of contemporary biomedical research and recent developments in the philosophy of scientific change. Focusing on the establishment of the exposome in epidemiology as a case study and the role of data as a context for contrasting views on change, I discuss change at conceptual, methodological, material, and social levels of biomedical epistemology. Available models of change provide key resources to discuss this type of change, but I present the need for an approach that models transfer, alignment, and influence as key processes of change. I develop this as a pragmatic approach to scientific change, where processes might change substantially depending on specific circumstances, thus contributing to and complementing the debate on a crucial epistemological issue.

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Stefano Canali
Politecnico di Milano

References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
Conceptual Revolutions.Paul Thagard - 1992 - Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study.Sabina Leonelli - 2016 - London: University of Chicago Press.

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