Difference between revisions of "The Theory of Scientific Change"

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• Can there be delegation authority to tools, or other material objects? Suppose a community takes all of its scientific knowledge from an ancient manuscript. Is the community delegating authority to the long-dead writers of this manuscript, or to the book itself? When scientists use an instrument in an experiment, who are they delegating authority to? Standard research practice says that when using an instrument in an experiment, the scientist should cite the manufacturers of the instrument in their research paper. Does this indicate that authority is being delegated to the manufacturers rather than the tool itself? If authority can be delegated to a material object, does this mean that the object is the bearer of a mosaic? (Nick Overgaard, Hakob Barseghyan, 2016)
 
• Can there be delegation authority to tools, or other material objects? Suppose a community takes all of its scientific knowledge from an ancient manuscript. Is the community delegating authority to the long-dead writers of this manuscript, or to the book itself? When scientists use an instrument in an experiment, who are they delegating authority to? Standard research practice says that when using an instrument in an experiment, the scientist should cite the manufacturers of the instrument in their research paper. Does this indicate that authority is being delegated to the manufacturers rather than the tool itself? If authority can be delegated to a material object, does this mean that the object is the bearer of a mosaic? (Nick Overgaard, Hakob Barseghyan, 2016)
 
|Resource=Barseghyan (2015)
 
|Resource=Barseghyan (2015)
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|Prehistory====Ludwig Fleck===
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|Prehistory====Ludwik Fleck===
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[[Ludwig Fleck]], an epidemiologist, made one of the earliest attempts to understand scientific change as a social process, and to develop a conceptual framework for understanding how scientific communities function.[[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] His most comprehensive work was ''Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact'' published in 1935.[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] For Fleck, cognition was necessarily a collective social activity, since it depends on prior knowledge obtained from other people.  New ideas arise within ''thought collectives'', which are groups of people who participate in the mutual exchange of ideas.  As an emergent consequence of mutual understandings and misunderstandings within such a group a particular ''thought style'' arises.  An established thought style carves the social world into an ''esoteric circle'' of expert members of the thought collective, and an ''exoteric circle'' who are outside the thought collective.  How individual members of a thought collective think and perceive within the relevant domain is determined by the thought style.  Scientific facts are socially constructed by thought collectives.  Reality in itself cannot be known, but the thought style can be compared with reality through observation and experiment, and may be revised or abandoned on the basis of such interactions.[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] [[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] The thought style of a particular collective can, at most, be only partially understood by members of other collectives, and may be completely ''incommensurable'' with the thinking of some other collectives.
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[[Ludwik Fleck]], an epidemiologist, made one of the earliest attempts to understand scientific change as a social process, and to develop a conceptual framework for understanding how scientific communities function.[[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] His most comprehensive work was ''Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact'' published in 1935.[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] For Fleck, cognition was necessarily a collective social activity, since it depends on prior knowledge obtained from other people.  New ideas arise within ''thought collectives'', which are groups of people who participate in the mutual exchange of ideas.  As an emergent consequence of mutual understandings and misunderstandings within such a group a particular ''thought style'' arises.  An established thought style carves the social world into an ''esoteric circle'' of expert members of the thought collective, and an ''exoteric circle'' who are outside the thought collective.  How individual members of a thought collective think and perceive within the relevant domain is determined by the thought style.  Scientific facts are socially constructed by thought collectives.  Reality in itself cannot be known, but the thought style can be compared with reality through observation and experiment, and may be revised or abandoned on the basis of such interactions.[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] [[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] The thought style of a particular collective can, at most, be only partially understood by members of other collectives, and may be completely ''incommensurable'' with the thinking of some other collectives.
  
 
===Thomas Kuhn===
 
===Thomas Kuhn===

Revision as of 22:16, 2 September 2016

Template:Descriptive Theory

References

  1. a b  Sady, Wojciech. (2016) Ludwik Fleck. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/fleck/.
  2. a b  Fleck, Ludwik. (1979) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. University of Chicago Press.
  3. a b Kuhn (1962) 
  4. ^  Bird, Alexander. (2011) Thomas Kuhn. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/thomas-kuhn/.
  5. ^  Feyerabend, Paul. (1975) Against Method. New Left Books.
  6. ^  Lakatos, Imre. (1970) Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. In Lakatos (1978a), 8-101.
  7. ^  Grobler, Adam. (1990) Between Rationalism and Relativism: On Larry Laudan's Model of Scientific Rationality. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 41 (4), 493-507.
  8. a b c d  Laudan, Larry. (1984) Science and Values. University of California Press.
  9. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj  Barseghyan, Hakob. (2015) The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer.
  10. a b  Sebastien, Zoe. (2016) The Status of Normative Propositions in the Theory of Scientific Change. Scientonomy 1, 1-9. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/26947.
  11. ^ Kuhn (1977) 

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