The Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery Written by Thomas Kuhn

Tarrence Hatten

Professor Dave

Composition 2

1 April 2016

Scientific Information

        The Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery was written by Thomas Kuhn in 1962. Thomas Kuhn was a regarded as a premier philosopher of science in the twentieth century and this was his most influential writing. Kuhn’s idea that scientific knowledge does not progress in a linear fashion, but to ever increasing clarity about the nature of reality. Sometimes as a community think we have all the data, but when new information is discovered we have to rethink a whole new set of assumptions. This was a historical moment in which one view replaced another. Kuhn uses this to explain the ways of scientific discovery.

From Against Method was written by Paul Feyerabend in 1975. Paul Feyerabend is also one of the most controversial philosophers of science. Feyerabend did not care that his writing wasn’t a popular approach because he disagreed with the way methods are. Feyerabend argues, the methods by scientific knowledge actually is missing important key components necessary for growth and development of scientific knowledge. Feyerabend also states if someone takes a closer look at the ways science has progress , than one can conclude when it comes to scientific discovery’s anything goes. This is Feyerabend explaining the method.

Both authors wrote important papers just decades apart but are very similar pointing out problems with the way science and its findings are organized. Kuhn felt like most discoveries completely were not discovery’s because we don’t have enough information to classify them as such. Feyerabend explains methods lack key components that stop growth of more knowledge. These are both problems with the way science and knowledge are composed.  If Organization were changed in the science field it will lead to better development of scientific knowledge.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn explained a problem with historical facts. He disagreed with the way an individual can make a discovery at any time and he drew attention in the structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn identified many different activities that he considered to be preconditions for most findings, but that could not predict themselves to preconditions of discovery. According to Kuhn, to say you have made a discovery is misleading. “Though undoubtedly correct, the sentence, ‘Oxygen was discovered,’ misleads by suggesting that discovering something is a single simple act assailable to our usual (and also questionable) concept of seeing” (Kuhn, Structure,91). Kuhn wanted a certain degree model that would allow a different intellectual process required in order to make a discovery.

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Kuhn concentrates on the structure of scientific development in order to offer a schematic explanation applicable not only to individual disciplines and sub disciplines but also to science as a whole. Kuhn concerns himself with only the pure sciences and not the social sciences or applied sciences, and he specifically addresses the cognitive (or epistemic) function of science. He does not explore science’s ultimate value or truth or its place in human culture.”(Smith). He rejected the idea that a historian can determine who discovered something and when it was discovered, because he didn’t believe it was true.

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