Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Popper’s reputation was consolidated in the 1950s,they came to be read more as anti-Communisttracts, all without the benefit of Popper’s underlyingepistemological views. Indeed, before Poppertranslated an expanded version of The Logic ofScientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson, 1959)into English, his philosophy of science had beenconfined to either technical philosophical journalsor, interestingly, radio talks and other popularvenues. These pieces were collected together asConjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge,1963), which was followed by Objective Knowledge(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), a moremetaphysically inspired work that attempts to treatknowledge as a single type of thing that applies tomultiple realms of being. In Unended Quest: AnIntellectual Autobiography (London: Fontana, 1976),Popper settles some old scores. In recent years,Routledge has been steadily publishing thematiccollections of Popper’s occasional pieces. Thetwo volumes that are most relevant to the issuesraised in this book are The Myth of the Framework(London: Routledge, 1994) and Lesson of thisCentury (London: Routledge, 1997).Both Kuhn and Popper have been somewhatoverdue in receiving book-length critical treatmentsof their bodies of work. However, over thelast decade, the pace of publication has quickened.218
Rather than listing many texts of variable quality, Ishall recommend the ones that I believe their subjectswould have liked the most: Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions: ThomasS. Kuhn’s Philosophy of Science (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1993); Mark Notturno, Scienceand the Open Society: The Future of Karl Popper’sPhilosophy (Budapest: Central European UniversityPress, 1999).The archives of Kuhn and Popper are readilyavailable to scholars. Popper’s are at the HooverInstitution, a right-wing think-tank on the StanfordUniversity campus. Kuhn’s are at the MIT SpecialCollections for former faculty members. I have alsofound useful the Harvard-based Presidential Papersof James Bryant Conant and the Minutes of theCommittee on General Education.In 2000, two books were published that tookadvantage of the archival material, as well aspublished sources: Steve Fuller, Thomas Kuhn: APhilosophical History for Our Times (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2000) and MalachiHacohen, Karl Popper: The Formative Years, 1902–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2000). Although Hacohen and I worked inignorance of each other, we managed to producecomplementary works: Popper turns out to be morebeholden to the political left and Kuhn to the219
Page 1 and 2:
Kuhn vsPopperThe Struggle for theSo
Page 3:
CONTENTSIntroduction 1Chapter 1: In
Page 9 and 10:
more than ever preoccupied with fac
Page 11 and 12:
paradigmatic pedigree than by its p
Page 13 and 14:
. CHAPTER 1 .IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSE
Page 15 and 16:
second concerns how the debate mana
Page 17 and 18:
Watkins, who relied on the student
Page 19 and 20:
actual precursor but who are no les
Page 21 and 22:
debate, especially as they bear on
Page 23 and 24:
extended encyclopaedia entry, as th
Page 25 and 26:
means by which people become scient
Page 27 and 28:
happened to be an apt vehicle for a
Page 29 and 30:
logic is for. For positivists, logi
Page 31 and 32:
suppressed by the first great autho
Page 33 and 34:
Russell and Popper shared an antipa
Page 35 and 36:
theories. Kuhn’s reception was he
Page 37 and 38:
was Conant who recommended Kuhn to
Page 39 and 40:
Legend has it that while Popper lik
Page 41 and 42:
new paradigm. For Kuhn, a paradigm
Page 43 and 44:
matters of ‘tradition’, ‘trac
Page 45 and 46:
studies practitioners is sufficient
Page 47 and 48:
The series of exchanges alluded to
Page 49 and 50:
already doing, not over whether the
Page 51 and 52:
disciplines, can determine the best
Page 53 and 54:
considerations to influence the cou
Page 55 and 56:
associated with the civic republica
Page 57 and 58:
own aversion to Hegel’s authorita
Page 59 and 60:
digms relates to a public good conc
Page 61 and 62:
looking standard, one based on enti
Page 63 and 64:
the 19th-century roots of modern ma
Page 65 and 66:
Lakatos believed he had improved on
Page 67 and 68:
est track record, a kind of evoluti
Page 69 and 70:
more than Kuhn himself - concluded
Page 71 and 72:
the incommensurable theories are tr
Page 73 and 74:
systematically misunderstood. Consi
Page 75 and 76:
progress. However, Kuhn and Popper
Page 77 and 78:
. CHAPTER 7 .WHY PHILOSOPHERS GET N
Page 79 and 80:
Darwin’s theory of natural select
Page 81 and 82:
But the complete alienation of phil
Page 83 and 84:
having supped on the gruel of norma
Page 85 and 86:
permits the survival of chance muta
Page 87 and 88:
iochemist Lawrence J. Henderson (18
Page 89 and 90:
. CHAPTER 8 .SO, WHY ARE PHILOSOPHE
Page 91 and 92:
Cold War science policy - namely, t
Page 93 and 94:
pure inquiry. Exceptionally disappo
Page 95 and 96:
would seem to require the abandonme
Page 97 and 98:
what an omnipotent deity friendly t
Page 99 and 100:
the rather technical and tedious wo
Page 101 and 102:
narrator considers herself at least
Page 103 and 104:
would now say) awaiting propitious
Page 105 and 106:
were secular Jews who did not exhib
Page 107 and 108:
‘conjectures and refutations’.
Page 109 and 110:
At various points in Western histor
Page 111 and 112:
is how second-order colonialism fee
Page 113 and 114:
external grants, scientists have be
Page 115 and 116:
. CHAPTER 11 .DO WE BELIEVE BY EVID
Page 117 and 118:
case through acquaintance with chur
Page 119 and 120:
showed how Galileo had to resort to
Page 121 and 122:
grounds for what the Jesuits call t
Page 123 and 124:
is rather different. For him, a sci
Page 125 and 126:
Kuhn was that if design in nature i
Page 127 and 128:
except that the venue should provid
Page 129 and 130:
effectively preoccupied with the pr
Page 131 and 132:
whereby our liabilities simulate vi
Page 133 and 134:
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), f
Page 135 and 136:
However, from its inception, the un
Page 137 and 138:
the uncharted domain. This rather l
Page 139 and 140:
producers in their domains. Here it
Page 141 and 142:
original distinction between the tr
Page 143 and 144:
Indeed, what had made the natural s
Page 145 and 146:
influence dissipated in the long te
Page 147 and 148:
philosophical disciplines?) that sh
Page 149 and 150:
Here we see an important difference
Page 151 and 152:
tendency of experimental psychology
Page 153 and 154:
that the Enlightenment has yet to b
Page 155 and 156:
people would need to come to regard
Page 157 and 158:
. CHAPTER 14 .POPPER AND ADORNO DIV
Page 159 and 160:
idealised understanding of scientif
Page 161 and 162:
new evidence), criticism must opera
Page 163 and 164:
oth of which were in evidence in th
Page 165 and 166:
translated into emancipatory action
Page 167 and 168:
egan in the Weimar Republic as a by
Page 169 and 170:
address their own. For the many soc
Page 171 and 172: ment of their ideals. By failing to
Page 173 and 174: . CHAPTER 15 .HOW TO BE RESPONSIBLE
Page 175 and 176: sciences. (Back then, the philosoph
Page 177 and 178: a certain way would have increased
Page 179 and 180: over time. In other words, it is al
Page 181 and 182: A good model for understanding the
Page 183 and 184: . CHAPTER 16 .FAILING THE POPPERIAN
Page 185 and 186: use ‘philosopher’ as the name o
Page 187 and 188: whenever someone infers the validit
Page 189 and 190: The genetic fallacy is not designed
Page 191 and 192: unwitting captives to that context
Page 193 and 194: Heidegger’s ideas from Heidegger
Page 195 and 196: However, this question became diffi
Page 197 and 198: . CHAPTER 17 .IS THOMAS KUHN THEAME
Page 199 and 200: philosophers came to rely on Heideg
Page 201 and 202: alternative contemporaries - have c
Page 203 and 204: say something similar in the case o
Page 205 and 206: 1960s - he did not believe that a p
Page 207 and 208: world-historic spirit has played a
Page 209 and 210: out what is now often called the
Page 211 and 212: mention the analytic philosophy tha
Page 213 and 214: physical sciences than Kuhn, but th
Page 215 and 216: features from two or more historica
Page 217 and 218: I have already raised the examples
Page 219 and 220: self-serving over time, since we ar
Page 221: 1978). Kuhn’s historiographical e
Page 225 and 226: ‘received view’ in the philosop
Page 227 and 228: Franklin, The Science of Conjecture
Page 229 and 230: qualified defence of genomic-based
Page 231: lishers, 1997). Kuhn’s views on h
show all

Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?