Abstract
Philosophical theories of scientific change abound and, for the most part, they have one thing in common: they are theories of rational justification for changing scientific theories. That is, they are not about science per se, where science is construed as a social process whose main activity is the generation and testing of ideas about the composition and structure of the material universe. The kinds of theories of scientific change I have in mind are exemplified by the work of Popper (1959), Lakatos (1970), Kuhn (1962), and Laudan (1977).
Appeared in Techné: The Society for Philosophy and Technology Quarterly Journal, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1998. Reprinted by permission of the Editor.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Franklin, A. 1997. “Calibration”. Perspectives on Science, 5, 1.
Kuhn, T. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Lakatos, I. 1970. “The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes”. In Lakatos I. and Musgrave A. eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Laudan, L. 1977. Progress and Its Problems. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Pitt, J.C. 1992. Galileo, Human Knowledge, and the Book of Nature: Method Replaces Metaphysics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Pitt, J.C. 2000. Thinking About Technology. New York, NY: Seven Bridges Press. 2006 http://www.phil.vt.edu/Pitt/jpitt.html
Popper, K. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.
Sellars, W. 1963. Science, Perception and Reality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pitt, J.C. (2011). Explaining Change in Science. In: Doing Philosophy of Technology. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0820-4_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0820-4_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-0819-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-0820-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)