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History and Philosophy of Science

Scientific revolutions, methodology, and demarcation criteria

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paradigm_shift 22 terms Aug 18, 2025
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Terms 22

1
Scientific Revolution
Kuhn: period of rapid paradigm change; Copernicus → Galileo → Newton as example
2
Paradigm
Kuhn: shared framework of assumptions, methods, and problems guiding normal science
3
Normal Science
Puzzle-solving within accepted paradigm; anomalies accumulated but ignored
4
Scientific Crisis
Accumulated anomalies destabilize paradigm; alternative frameworks proposed
5
Incommensurability
Kuhn: competing paradigms share no common measure; translation between them incomplete
6
Falsificationism
Popper: science progresses by conjectures and refutations; theories must be falsifiable
7
Demarcation Problem
What distinguishes science from pseudo-science? Falsifiability (Popper), problem-solving (Kuhn), research programs (Lakatos)
8
Lakatos Research Program
Hard core (unfalsifiable) + protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses; progressive vs degenerative
9
Inductivism
Science proceeds by observing, generalizing, and confirming; problem: no finite observations prove universal claim
10
Problem of Induction
Hume: past regularities do not logically guarantee future; all inductive inferences underdetermined
11
Underdetermination
Evidence underdetermines theory; multiple incompatible theories can fit same data
12
Theory-Ladenness of Observation
Observations are colored by theoretical assumptions; pure observation is impossible (Hanson, Kuhn)
13
Scientific Realism
Scientific theories are approximately true descriptions of unobservable entities
14
Instrumentalism (anti-realism)
Theories are useful tools for prediction, not descriptions of reality; unobservables may not exist
15
Structural Realism
Only mathematical structure of theories is real; not the nature of entities described
16
No-Miracles Argument
Realist: scientific success would be miraculous if theories weren't approximately true
17
Pessimistic Meta-Induction
Anti-realist: past successful theories were false; so current ones probably are too
18
Duhem-Quine Thesis
Hypotheses face evidence only as a whole web; any hypothesis can be saved by adjusting auxiliaries
19
Feyerabend's Anarchism
'Anything goes'; no single methodology; science advances by violating rules
20
Social Construction of Science
Scientific knowledge shaped by social factors; Latour, Bloor; strong programme
21
Scientific Explanation
Deductive-Nomological (Hempel): laws + conditions entail explanandum; critiqued for irrelevance
22
Causal Mechanistic Explanation
Explaining by describing underlying causal mechanism; dominant in biology and neuroscience