Changes

|Prehistory=In the first half of the 20th Century, philosophers of science were mainly concerned with individual scientists. Logical positivists and logical empiricists focused on the logic behind the scientific change which mainly involved probability. By contrast, [[Karl Popper ]] was concerned with falsification and constant testing of the scientific theories. Falsification requires other members of the scientific community to test the theories. As a result, Popper was one of the first philosophers of science to give a place to the role of the community.

In the 60’s, [[Thomas Kuhn ]] brought the importance of the scientific community to the forefront. He argued that scientific change took place at the communal level from one paradigm to another. One of the feature of Kuhn’s view was to examine actual historical episodes rather than a priori theorizing. This included studying actual scientific communities and how the community actually changed their beliefs. He talked about the role of social influence such as the conversion of scientists from one paradigm to another in revolutionary science periods.

Social epistemologists have also argued that traditional philosophy of science did not take the social dimensions of knowledge seriously. For example, [[Helen Longino ]] has given central importance to the role of transformative criticism in the scientific progress.