A distinctive feature of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work after 1930 was his turn to a conception of philosophy as a form of social inquiry, John G. Gunnell argues, and Thomas Kuhn's approach to the philosophy of science exemplified this conception. In this book, Gunnell shows how these philosophers address foundational issues in the social and human sciences, particularly the vision of social inquiry as an interpretive endeavor and the distinctive cognitive and practical relationship between social inquiry and its subject matter. Gunnell (...) speaks directly to philosophers and practitioners of the social and human sciences. He tackles the demarcation between natural and social science; the nature of social phenomena; the concept and method of interpretation; the relationship between language and thought; the problem of knowledge of other minds; and the character of descriptive and normative judgments about practices that are the object of inquiry. Though Wittgenstein and Kuhn are often criticized as initiating a modern descent into relativism, this book shows that the true effect of their work was to undermine the basic assumptions of contemporary social and human science practice. It also problematized the authority of philosophy and other forms of social inquiry to specify the criteria for judging such matters as truth and justice. When Wittgenstein stated that "philosophy leaves everything as it is," he did not mean that philosophy would be left as it was or that philosophy would have no impact on what it studied, but rather that the activity of inquiry did not, simply by virtue of its performance, transform the object of inquiry. (shrink)

El presente trabajo delimita líneas comunes a los enfoques de los historiadores de la ciencia James Conant y Thomas Kuhn. Exceptuando aquellas características y particularidades de sus pensamientos acerca del desarrollo histórico de la ciencia, pueden identificarse aspectos que expresan intereses y preocupaciones comunes.El recurso a la historia de la ciencia, la comparación entre la práctica científica y el desarrollo psicogenético de los niños, el análisis de los factores institucionales que inciden sobre la ciencia, la comprensión del proceso histórico de (...) la ciencia a través de determinados esquemas conceptuales, la caracterización de una dialéctica particular entre hechos y teorías, la consideración del factor técnico en el desarrollo científico, así como la crítica de la función pedagógica de los libros de texto en la formación de los jóvenes investigadores, constituyen líneas de continuidad entre el pensamiento de ambos. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn's, book The Copernican Revolution deserves to be regarded as the best of that small group of longue duree histories that mark postwar historiography of science. In many respects, it is probably the single most influential one. Tightly written and brilliantly argued, it is responsible, together with The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, for the continued popularity of the metaphor of revolution in science among scholars and students alike. Yet, surprisingly, while aspects of the story conceived in Kuhn's original account (...) have been debated, researched, and considerably revised, his overall understanding of a scientific revolution initiated by Copernicus has received no detailed scrutiny. The same may be said of the deployment of Copernican episode in Structure. Finally, a critical appreciation is in order not least because Kuhn's story is so compact and his language at times metaphorical. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn's post-1980 writings have increasingly emphasized the role played by language in the characterization of scientific revolutions and incommensurability. We argue that Kuhn's `linguistic turn' can be understood best against the background of a Whorfian conception of language and certain neo-Kantian themes. While this enables Kuhn to refine and unify his earlier views, it also creates some difficulties.

Presenting a critical history of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century, focusing on the transition from logical positivism in its first half to the ...