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Summary

Kuhn left many readers with the impression that his version of paradigm choice was not a process governed by reason. That impression was correct. This chapter examines the development of Kuhn’s thinking on paradigm choice during and after Structure, focusing on a philosophical challenge here called the “puzzle of promise”: how can paradigm choice be conceived of as rational if it is, as Kuhn claims, made in defiance of the evidence from problem solving? The chapter argues that later developments of Kuhn’s views elaborate a platform for solving this puzzle, but that he himself always clung to the view that paradigm choice is an arational process.

This Element presents a philosophical exploration of the notion of scientific representation. It does so by focussing on an important class of scientific representations, namely scientific models. Models are important in the scientific process because scientists can study a model to discover features of reality. But what does it mean for something to represent something else? This is the question discussed in this Element. The authors begin by disentangling different aspects of the problem of representation and then discuss the dominant accounts in the philosophical literature: the resemblance view and inferentialism. They find them both wanting and submit that their own preferred option, the so-called DEKI account, not only eschews the problems that beset these conceptions, but further provides a comprehensive answer to the question of how scientific representation works. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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9 - The Puzzle of Promise, aka “Kuhn’s Problem”

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Scientific Representation

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2 results

9 - The Puzzle of Promise, aka “Kuhn’s Problem”

Summary

Scientific Representation