Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and table
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Revolutions, paradigms, and incommensurability
- Part II Kuhn’s evolutionary epistemology
- Part III Kuhn’s social epistemology
- Chapter 9 Kuhn’s constructionism
- Chapter 10 What makes Kuhn’s epistemology a social epistemology?
- Chapter 11 How does a new theory come to be accepted?
- Chapter 12 Where the road has taken us
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 9 - Kuhn’s constructionism
from Part III - Kuhn’s social epistemology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and table
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Revolutions, paradigms, and incommensurability
- Part II Kuhn’s evolutionary epistemology
- Part III Kuhn’s social epistemology
- Chapter 9 Kuhn’s constructionism
- Chapter 10 What makes Kuhn’s epistemology a social epistemology?
- Chapter 11 How does a new theory come to be accepted?
- Chapter 12 Where the road has taken us
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Many of Kuhn’s critics think that Kuhn is the philosopher most responsible for emphasizing the impact of non-cognitive factors in science, and thus threatening the rationality of theory choice (see Lakatos 1970/1972; Laudan 1984; Boghossian 2006). Both the sociologists of science who were inspired by his work and many of his philosophical critics regard Kuhn’s view as a form of constructionism. But as Ian Hacking (1999) notes, “constructionism” connotes different things to different people. Many sociologists and historians of science self-consciously approach their subject as constructionists (see Latour and Woolgar 1986; Shapin 1996, 9–10; Golinski 1988/2005). Many philosophers of science, on the other hand, believe that constructionism entails a pernicious form of relativism (see, for example, Brown 1989, 37; Boghossian 2006, 118–22). Hence, for many philosophers of science calling someone a constructionist amounts to a refutation of their view.
In this chapter, I aim to clarify the relationship between Kuhn’s view of science and constructionism. In clarifying the nature of Kuhn’s constructionism, I also aim to clarify Kuhn’s relationship to both philosophy of science and sociology of science.
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- Information
- Kuhn's Evolutionary Social Epistemology , pp. 149 - 169Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011