The paper discusses the development of the humanities during the twentieth century in relation to the methodological and epistemological changes in the scholarly field. Particular attention has been ...paid to the so-called Cultural Turns phenomenon, and more specifically to The Linguistic Turn.
Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) is a bibliometric method originally introduced to reveal the historical roots of research topics or fields. RPYS does not identify the most highly cited ...papers of the publication set being studied (as is usually done by bibliometric analyses in research evaluation), but instead it indicates most frequently referenced publications – each within a specific reference publication year. In this study, we propose to use the method to identify important researchers, institutions, and countries in the context of breakthrough research. To do so, we focus on research on physical modeling of Earth’s climate and the prediction of global warming as an example. Klaus Hasselmann (KH) and Syukuro Manabe (SM) were both honoured with the Nobel Prize in 2021 for their fundamental contributions to research on physical modeling of Earth’s climate and the prediction of global warming. Our results reveal that RPYS is able to identify most important researchers, institutions, and countries. In our example, all the relevant authors’ institutions are located in the United States. These institutions are either research centers of two US National Research Administrations (NASA and NOAA) or universities: the University of Arizona, Princeton University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Stony Brook. The limitations of our approach to identify important researchers, institutions, and countries in the context of breakthrough research are discussed.
Abstract
I identify two versions of the scientific anti-realist’s selectionist explanation for the success of science: Bas van Fraassen’s original and K. Brad Wray’s newer interpretation. In Wray’s ...version, psycho-social factors internal to the scientific community – viz. scientists’ interests, goals, and preferences – explain the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success. I argue that, if Wray’s version were correct, then science should resemble art. In art, the artwork-selection practices that explain artwork-success appear faddish. They are prone to radical change over time. Theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science are however not faddish. They are mostly stable; that is, long-lived and consistent over time. This is because scientists (explicitly or implicitly) subscribe to what I will call the testability norm: scientific theories must make falsifiable claims about the external physical world. The testability norm and not psycho-sociology explains the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science. Contra Wray, scientific anti-realists can then maintain that the external physical world (as expressed in the testability norm) explains theory-success.
•We construct two innovative series of knowledge indices, one representing the historical evolution of the flow of Ideas, the other one giving a measure of research productivity.•Three different ...geographical regions are covered: 1) continental Europe, 2) the United Kingdom, and 3) the United States; and two disciplines: a) the physical sciences, and b) the life sciences.•Starting in 1750, our indices reveal waves coinciding with the three industrial and technological revolutions, in particular in the United Kingdom.•Our main result is that scientific knowledge has been in clear decline since the early 1970s for the flow of ideas and since the early 1950s for the research Productivity, in the geographical regions and scientific disciplines covered by the indices.
It is widely held true that fundamental scientific knowledge has been accelerating exponentially over the past centuries and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Moreover, endogenous growth theory postulates that this exponential accumulation of knowledge is the main source of the ubiquitous exponential economic growth. We test these claims by constructing two new series of knowledge indices, one representing the historical evolution of the Flow of Ideas, the other one giving a measure of Research Productivity, by combining Krebs (2008)s’ Encyclopaedia of Scientific Principles and Asimov (1989)’s Chronology of Science and Discovery. Three different geographical regions are covered: 1) Continental Europe, 2) the United Kingdom, and 3) the United States; and two disciplines: a) the physical sciences, and b) the life sciences. Starting in 1750, our indices reveal waves coinciding with the three industrial and technological revolutions, in particular in the United Kingdom. Our main result is that scientific knowledge has been in clear decline since the early 1970s for the Flow of Ideas and since the early 1950s for the Research Productivity, in the geographical regions and scientific disciplines covered by the indices. The decline is observed until the end of the dataset constructed by combining both Krebs’ encyclopaedia and Asimov's Chronology, that is 1988. Using only Krebs (2008)s’ Encyclopaedia of Scientific Principles, valid until 2007, the decline is further confirmed for the Research Productivity until 2007. Given the strong downward trends that we document up to 1988 for the combined dataset and which is also prominent in the Encyclopaedia of Scientific Principles until 2007, there is no visible sign of an inflection that would signal the initiation of a reversal. Overall, our results support the Kuhnian theory of knowledge creation through scientific revolutions, punctuation and paradigm shifts and falsify the gradualism that lies at the basis of the currently prevailing economic paradigm of endogenous growth.
Abstract Stance voluntarism highlights the role of the will in epistemic agency, claiming that agents can control the epistemic stances they assume in forming beliefs. It claims that radical belief ...changes are not compelled by the evidence; they are rationally permitted choices about which epistemic stances to adopt. However, terms like “will”, “choice”, and “stance” play a crucial role while being left as vague notions. This paper investigates what kind of control rational agents can have over epistemic stances. I argue that whether epistemic stances are voluntary depends on what kind of stance is being assessed. Sometimes epistemic stances are taken to be evaluative attitudes about how to produce knowledge. This kind of stance is not directly controllable, since it is essentially connected to beliefs, and believing is not voluntary. But sometimes epistemic stances are taken to be styles of reasoning and modes of engagement, expressing ways of approaching the world in order to produce knowledge, which can be voluntary. Overall, this supports a formulation of stance voluntarism as a dual-systems theory of epistemic agency, where epistemic rationality is compounded by a dynamic interplay between involuntary processes of belief formation and voluntary processes of cognitive guidance.
This paper examines 'The Natures of Conceptual Change', the Notre Dame lectures given by Kuhn in 1980. In particular, I aim to examine the content of these lectures which was not published before. ...This exegetical task will shed light on the sources of the notion of taxonomy used in these lectures for the first time with the explicit philosophical purposes. It also will shed new light on Kuhn's position regarding the causal theory of reference. Reviewing these archival materials paves the way for intertextual comparisons, as Kuhn included part of these lectures in the texts published later and in the book Plurality of Worlds: an Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development. In recent years, the publication of Kuhn's archival material and the research on these texts increased in quantity and quality. Faced with this encouraging landscape, a comparative examination of the different unpublished texts is crucial to refining both our research tools on Kuhn's intellectual biography and the philosophical work inspired by his proposal.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn has influenced scientists for decades. It focuses on a progression of science involving periodic, fundamental shifts—revolutions—from one ...existing paradigm to another. Embedded in this theory is the concept of normal science, that is, scientists work within the confines of established theory, a process often compared to a type of puzzle‐solving. This Kuhnian aspect of scientific research has received little attention relative to the much‐scrutinized concepts of revolutions and paradigms. We use Kuhn's normal science framework to reflect on the way ecologists practice science. This involves a discussion of how theory dependence influences each step of the scientific method, specifically, how past experiences and existing research frameworks guide the way ecologists acquire knowledge. We illustrate these concepts with ecological examples, including food web structure and the biodiversity crisis, emphasizing that the way one views the world influences how that person engages in scientific research. We conclude with a discussion of how Kuhnian ideas inform ecological research at practical levels, such as influences on grant funding allocation, and we make a renewed call for the inclusion of philosophical foundations of ecological principles in pedagogy. By studying the processes and traditions of how science is carried out, ecologists can better direct scientific insight to address the world's most pressing environmental problems.
We use Thomas Kuhn's “normal science” framework to reflect on the way ecologists practice science. This involves a discussion of how theory dependence influences each step of the scientific method, and how past experiences and existing research frameworks guide the way ecologists acquire knowledge. We illustrate these concepts with ecological examples, including perspectives on food web structure and the biodiversity crisis, emphasizing that the way one views the world influences how that person engages in scientific research.
In his mature works, Kuhn abandons the concept of a paradigm and becomes more interested in the analysis of the conceptual structure of scientific theories. These changes are interpreted as resulting ...from a 'linguistic turn' that Kuhn underwent sometimes around the 1980s. Much of the philosophical discussions about Kuhn's post-'linguistic turn' philosophy revolves around his views on taxonomic concepts. Apart from taxonomy, however, the mature Kuhn introduces other concepts, such as conceptual networks and lexicons. This article distinguishes these three concepts and shows that adopting each one of them has different impacts on Kuhn's model of science. After distinguishing and assessing the concepts of taxonomy, network, and lexicon, it will be argued that the latter not only fits the Kuhnian model of science better, but it also helps capture the wide sense of Kuhn's early concept of a paradigm.
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