Ernst Mayr’s Critique of Thomas Kuhn

Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 59 (4):163-180 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In the early 1960s, American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn contributed to a “crisis of rationality” with his hypothesis that science develops by means of paradigm shifts. He challenged the positivist concept of cumulative and continuous scientific progress. According to Kuhn, the relation between two succeeding scientific traditions ‘separated by a scientific revolution’ is characterized by conceptual incommensurability that constrains the interpretation of science as a cumulative, steadily progressing enterprise. Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy was heavily criticized by German-American biologist Ernst Mayr as unapplicable to the history of biology. Mayr, one of the most outstanding evolutionary biologists of the 20th century and a “co-architect” of the so-called Modern Synthesis (contemporary Darwinism), published extensively on the history and philosophy of biology as he thought that theoretical biology cannot progress without proper philosophy of science. Being convinced of the progressive development of Darwinism, Mayr pointed out that Kuhn’s concept of scientific revolutions does not reflect conceptual changes in evolutionary biology. Here we summarize Mayr’s critiques of Kuhn and, based on our own research, take Mayr’s side in the controversy between two great thinkers.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Kuhn, Thomas S.James A. Marcum - 2015 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Thomas Kuhn.Thomas Nickles (ed.) - 2002 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
THOMAS KUHN’UN FELSEFESİ ve TÜRKİYE’YE YANSIMALARI.Rabia Karaköse - 2020 - Dissertation, Ankara Yildirim Beyazit Üni̇versi̇tesi̇
THOMAS KUHN’UN FELSEFESİ ve TÜRKİYE’YE YANSIMALARI.RABİA KARAKÖSE - 2020 - Dissertation, Yildirim Beyazit Üni̇versi̇tesi̇
Thomas Kuhn.Alexander Bird - 2000 - Routledge.
Thomas Kuhn.Alexander Bird - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) and the new philosophy of biology.Thomas Junker - 2007 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 38 (1):1-17.
Finding Ernst Mayr’s Plato.Jack Powers - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4b):714-723.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-11-17

Downloads
9 (#1,079,720)

6 months
4 (#319,344)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references