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Oxford Readings in Philosophy
Scientific Revolutions
Bringing together important writings not easily available elsewhere, this volume provides a convenient and stimulating overview of recent work in the philosophy of science. The contributors include Paul Feyerabend, Ian Hacking, T.S. Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Laurens Laudan, Karl Popper, Hilary Putnam, and Dudley Shapere. In addition, Hacking provides an introductory essay and a selective bibliography.
- GenresPhilosophy
186 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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About the author
Ian Hacking
53 books150 followersIan Hacking is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, specialised in the History of Science.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 1, 2018
An interesting collection of articles for the admittedly small contingent of people curious about philosophy of science and/or history of science. All of the big names on the subject are present here: Kuhn, Lakatos, Popper, etc.
Before I go any further, I think that it is important to clarify that 1) Scientific Revolutions is not an introductory text, and 2) the title of the book does not exactly represent the content. If you have not read Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Logic of Scientific Discovery, or any of these propaedeutic texts, I don't think you will get much out of this book. Ian Hacking assumes that the reader has considerable background knowledge and the introduction serves more as a recap than a proper contextualization. Regarding the second point, I think that a the fundamental question percolating all the articles is whether science is "different." Many authors in here talk about revolutions, sure, but all with the purpose of deciding if science really has a special characteristic which sets it apart from other human endeavors. To me this is still a very intriguing subject, I just find the title a bit misleading.
With that out of the way, I can say that most of the articles in this collection are informative and, most importantly, eye-opening. The diversity of perspectives astounding. You will be reading about the stiff, rationalistic progression of science proposed by Popper and a few chapters later hear from Laudan that there is no unifying method present in all sciences. Lively debates between will come to life in these pages, with Lakatos claiming that the history of science should be exclusively focused on how ideas evolve, and Feyerabend retorting science mainly progresses by clashing with other institutions and assimilating ideas from outside. Due to the complexity of the concepts and the dry writing, going through this book is sometimes a slog. Nonetheless, whatever hurdles you may face, the perspective broadening that Ian Hacking offers with this collection is valuable.
In sum: do not go into this book blind; the difficulty inherent to the subject will make you hate it. If you already have some previous experience with philosophy of science/history of science, this is a great supplement. Delicious side dishes written by prominent names and thoughtfully arranged by Hacking.
Before I go any further, I think that it is important to clarify that 1) Scientific Revolutions is not an introductory text, and 2) the title of the book does not exactly represent the content. If you have not read Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Logic of Scientific Discovery, or any of these propaedeutic texts, I don't think you will get much out of this book. Ian Hacking assumes that the reader has considerable background knowledge and the introduction serves more as a recap than a proper contextualization. Regarding the second point, I think that a the fundamental question percolating all the articles is whether science is "different." Many authors in here talk about revolutions, sure, but all with the purpose of deciding if science really has a special characteristic which sets it apart from other human endeavors. To me this is still a very intriguing subject, I just find the title a bit misleading.
With that out of the way, I can say that most of the articles in this collection are informative and, most importantly, eye-opening. The diversity of perspectives astounding. You will be reading about the stiff, rationalistic progression of science proposed by Popper and a few chapters later hear from Laudan that there is no unifying method present in all sciences. Lively debates between will come to life in these pages, with Lakatos claiming that the history of science should be exclusively focused on how ideas evolve, and Feyerabend retorting science mainly progresses by clashing with other institutions and assimilating ideas from outside. Due to the complexity of the concepts and the dry writing, going through this book is sometimes a slog. Nonetheless, whatever hurdles you may face, the perspective broadening that Ian Hacking offers with this collection is valuable.
In sum: do not go into this book blind; the difficulty inherent to the subject will make you hate it. If you already have some previous experience with philosophy of science/history of science, this is a great supplement. Delicious side dishes written by prominent names and thoughtfully arranged by Hacking.
October 3, 2024
Very solid and dense collection of essays constituting a “second course” in 20th century philosophy and historiography of science, for reading after basic texts by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos.
Quite a wide variety in scope and tone: some like Popper and Laudan sketch scientific metaphors for the growth of science; others like Kuhn analyze fairly specific, minor concepts; others run through their entire philosophy in brief (Lakatos, Feyerabend); others like Putnam and Shapere focus on criticizing the big dogs.
Definitely a good follow-up if you enjoyed Kuhn’s famous book, this complicates that picture. It’s interesting really that so many of these philosophers have such a detailed historiography of science without much in the way of history writ large. Putnam mentions Marxism approvingly; Feyerabend mentions it most negatively; but most authors seem to think society goes on in the background and its influence on science is not crucial (Lakatos proposes writing the ideal “internal” history of science in main text and relegating all the actual “external” history to footnotes). I think the lack of a strong subversive mechanism to guide the critique prevents any of them from being truly “suspicious” in Ricoeur’s sense. The goal for many authors seems to be a dramatization of the history of science which removes its proudest claims to objectivity, theory-free empiricism, etc without tarnishing the genuine accomplishments of the bigger name-brand scientists.
Lots of great funny stuff particularly in Lakatos and really particularly Feyerabend. Despite some remembered fondness for the latter, I shouldn’t have been surprised by his madness here — a contrarian conservative, he would have e.g. loved Florida overruling CDC anti-covid protocols.
Quite a wide variety in scope and tone: some like Popper and Laudan sketch scientific metaphors for the growth of science; others like Kuhn analyze fairly specific, minor concepts; others run through their entire philosophy in brief (Lakatos, Feyerabend); others like Putnam and Shapere focus on criticizing the big dogs.
Definitely a good follow-up if you enjoyed Kuhn’s famous book, this complicates that picture. It’s interesting really that so many of these philosophers have such a detailed historiography of science without much in the way of history writ large. Putnam mentions Marxism approvingly; Feyerabend mentions it most negatively; but most authors seem to think society goes on in the background and its influence on science is not crucial (Lakatos proposes writing the ideal “internal” history of science in main text and relegating all the actual “external” history to footnotes). I think the lack of a strong subversive mechanism to guide the critique prevents any of them from being truly “suspicious” in Ricoeur’s sense. The goal for many authors seems to be a dramatization of the history of science which removes its proudest claims to objectivity, theory-free empiricism, etc without tarnishing the genuine accomplishments of the bigger name-brand scientists.
Lots of great funny stuff particularly in Lakatos and really particularly Feyerabend. Despite some remembered fondness for the latter, I shouldn’t have been surprised by his madness here — a contrarian conservative, he would have e.g. loved Florida overruling CDC anti-covid protocols.
June 4, 2023
Muy buena recopilación de ensayos sobre la evolución de la ciencia y las formas en que se avanza y retrocede.
Mis ensayos favoritos, por su claridad y para personas que no tienen un entendimiento tan profundo en la filosofía de la ciencia son: "Como defender a la sociedad contra la ciencia" de Feyerabend
"Un enfoque de solución de problemas al progreso científico " de Laudan
" La racionalidad de las revoluciones cientificas" de Popper
El ensayo más complicado y que menos me llamó la atención fue el primero de la recopilación de T.S Kuhn.
Mis ensayos favoritos, por su claridad y para personas que no tienen un entendimiento tan profundo en la filosofía de la ciencia son: "Como defender a la sociedad contra la ciencia" de Feyerabend
"Un enfoque de solución de problemas al progreso científico " de Laudan
" La racionalidad de las revoluciones cientificas" de Popper
El ensayo más complicado y que menos me llamó la atención fue el primero de la recopilación de T.S Kuhn.
January 13, 2019
Great collection of papers! Reading Putnams critique of Popper right before Popper’s contribution was quite discouraging, I ended up skiping Poppers paper and reading after I had finished the rest of the collection.
January 19, 2025
Pues está muy bien! Recopila varios artículos de autores clave y da una buena visión de conjunto de la filosofía de la ciencia contemporánea. La única pega es que algunos, como el de Lakatos, se me han hecho demasiado cortos.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews