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Kuhn's Evolutionary Epistemology and Its Being Undermined by Inadequate Biological Concepts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Barbara Gabriella Renzi
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Abstract

Kuhn made two attempts at providing an evolutionary analogy for scientific change. The first attempt, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is very brief and unstructured; in this article I discuss some of its weaknesses. Alexander Bird takes this attempt more seriously and provides a criticism based on oversimplified evolutionary assumptions. These assumptions prove to be inadequate for the second, more articulate, evolutionary analogy suggested by Kuhn in “The Road since Structure.” I argue, however, that this second Kuhnian attempt is undermined by his inadequate view of biological progress and by his misunderstanding of the concept of ecological niche.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 143 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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