The Challenge of Scientific Revolutions: Van Fraassen's and Friedman's Responses

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25 (4):327-349 (2011)
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Abstract

This article criticizes the attempts by Bas van Fraassen and Michael Friedman to address the challenge to rationality posed by the Kuhnian analysis of scientific revolutions. In the paper, I argue that van Fraassen's solution, which invokes a Sartrean theory of emotions to account for radical change, does not amount to justifying rationally the advancement of science but, rather, despite his protestations to the contrary, is an explanation of how change is effected. Friedman's approach, which appeals to philosophical developments at a meta-theoretical level, does not really address the problem of rationality as posed by Kuhn's work. Instead of showing how, despite revolutions, scientific development is, indeed, rational, he gives a transcendental account of rational scientific progress.

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Vasso Kindi
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Critique of Pure Reason.Immanuel Kant - 1998 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edited by J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Translated by Paul Guyer & Allen W. Wood.
Critique of Pure Reason.I. Kant - 1787/1998 - Philosophy 59 (230):555-557.
The Empirical Stance.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2004 - New York: Yale University Press.

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