Open thread, Nov. 02 - Nov. 08, 2015

MrMind

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I haven’t read it, and I’m not sure it’s really on the same topic, but a lot of people like the Golem (de) by Collins and Pinch (1993/1998).

How can a work on the history and philosophy of science be outdated? I suppose new information could rewrite history, but I don’t think that happened. Philosophy is more likely to change, particularly as scientists respond to Kuhn, but largely, they didn’t.

I suppose new information could rewrite history, but I don’t think that happened.

New information and representations and analysis of old information are both possible. I don't remember if Kuhn himself focused on the case of Galileo, but a lot of people took him to be a paradigmatic case (sorry!) and Feyerabend undermined a lot of that through close re-examination of primary sources, in support of his own particular philosophy of science.

0ChristianKl11y

Mainly 50 years of new history happened. People came up with concepts like "evidence-based medicine" and a bunch of concepts about how science is supposed to progress. [...] After dealing a bit more with HPS (history and philosophy of science) I get the impression like logical positivism simple ignored the arguments made against it. The New Atheist crowd simply reject criticism of logical positivism as obstruce postmodernism but I never heard someone actually engage the kind of arguments that Kuhn makes. After I wrote the post I found a lectures series by Hakob Barseghyan. He makes a lot of sense and yet, for some reason HPS isn't in popular culture. I don't understand why HPS doesn't get taught in high schools.