Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Historiography of Scientific Revolutions: A Philosophical Reflection

Handbook for the Historiography of Science

Part of the book series: Historiographies of Science ((HISTSC))

  • 186 Accesses

Abstract

Scientific revolution has been one of the most controversial topics in the history and philosophy of science. Yet there has been no consensus on what is the best unit of analysis in the historiography of scientific revolutions. Nor is there a consensus on what best explains the nature of scientific revolutions. This chapter provides a critical examination of the historiography of scientific revolutions. It begins with a brief introduction to the historical development of the concept of scientific revolution, followed by an overview of the five main philosophical accounts of scientific revolutions. It then challenges two historiographical assumptions of the philosophical analyses of scientific revolutions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Bateson W (1902) Mendel’s principles of heredity: a Defence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bowler PJ (1989) The Mendelian revolution: the emergence of Hereditarian concepts in modern science and society. The Athlone Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Burtt EA (1925) The metaphysical foundations of modern physical science. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., London

    Google Scholar 

  • Butterfield H (1949) The Origins of Modern Science 1300–1800. G. Bell & Sons, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Cawdrey R (1604) A table alphabeticall, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Chang H (2012) Is water H2O? Evidence, realism and pluralism. Springer, Dordrecht

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chang H (2014) Epistemic activities and Systems of Practice: units of analysis in philosophy of science after the practical turn. In: Soler L, Zwart S, Lynch M, Israel-Jost V (eds) Science after the practice turn in the philosophy, history and social studies of science. Routledge, New York/London, pp 67–79

    Google Scholar 

  • Clairaut A-C (1754) Du Systeme Du Monde, Dans Les Principes de La Gravitation Universelle. Suite Des Memoires de Mathematique, et Dephysique, Tires Des Registres de l’Academie Royale Des Sciences de l’annee 2:465

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen IB (1985) Revolution in science. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Correns C (1900) G. Mendels Regel Ãœber Das Verhalten Der Nachkommenschaft Der Rassenbastarde. Berichte Der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft 18(4):158–168

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crombie AC (1994) Styles of scientific thinking in the European tradition. Gerald Duckworth & Company, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Dampier WC (1929) A history of science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Darden L (1991) Theory change in science: strategies from Mendelian genetics. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Darden L (2005) Relations among Fields: Mendelian, Cytological and Molecular Mechanisms. Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci Stud Hist Phi Part C 36(2 Spec. Iss.):349–371

    Google Scholar 

  • Darden L, Craver CF (2002) Strategies in the Interfield discovery of the mechanism of protein synthesis. Stud Hist Phil Biol Biomed Sci 33(1):1–28

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darden L, Maull N (1977) Interfield theories. Philos Sci 44(1):43–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Vries H (1889) Intracellulare Pangenesis. Gustav Fischer, Jean

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • de Vries H (1900a) Das Spaltungsgesetz Der Bastarde (Vorlaufige Mittheilung). Berichte Der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft 18(3):83–90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Vries H (1900b) Sur La Loi de Disjonction Des Hybrides. Comptes Rendus de I’Academie Des Sciences (Paris) 130:845–847

    Google Scholar 

  • Delage Y (1903) L’hérédité et Les Grands Problèmes de La Biologie Générale, 2nd edn. Schleicher Frères, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Diderot D (1754) Pensées Sur l’interpretation de La Nature

    Google Scholar 

  • Encyclopaedia Britannica (1771) Vol 3. Edinburgh: A. Bell and C. MacFarquhar

    Google Scholar 

  • Enfantin P, Saint-Simon H (1858) Science de l’homme, Physiologie Religieuse. Librairie Victor Masson, Paris

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fleck L (1935) Entstehung Und Entwicklung Einer Wissenschaftlichen Tatsache: Einführung in Die Lehre Vom Denkstil Und Denkkollektiv. Benno Schwabe & Co., Basel

    Google Scholar 

  • Florio J (1611) Queen Anna’s New World of words, or, Dictionarie of the Italian and English tongues. Melch. Bradwood, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Galton F (1889) Natural inheritance. Macmillan & Company, London/New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Giere RN (2006) Scientific Perspectivism. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hacking I (1994) Styles of scientific thinking or reasoning: a new analytic tool for historians and philosophers of the sciences. In: Gavroglu K, Christianidis J, Nicolaidis E (eds) Trends in the historiography of science. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 31–48

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hall AR (1954) The Scientific Revolution 1500–1800. Longmans Green and CO, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson S (1755) Dictionary of the English language. Longman, Hurts, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kitcher P (1984) 1953 and all that: a tale of two sciences. Philos Rev 93(3):335–373

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kitcher P (1989) Explanatory unification and the causal structure of the world. In: Kitcher P, Salmon WC (eds) Scientific explanation. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, pp 410–505

    Google Scholar 

  • Koyré A (1939) Études Galiléennes. Hermann, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn TS (1962) The structure of scientific revolutions, 1st edn. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn TS (1970a) Logic of discovery or psychology of research? In: Lakatos I, Musgrave A (eds) Criticism and the growth of knowledge. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–23

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn TS (1970b) The structure of scientific revolutions, 2nd edn. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakatos I (1968) Criticism and the methodology of scientific research Programmes. Proc Aristot Soc 69:149–186

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lakatos I (1970) History of science and its rational reconstructions. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1970:91–136

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakatos I (1978) Falsification and the methodology of scientific research Programmes. In: Worrall J, Currie G (eds) The methodology of scientific research Programme. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 8–101

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Laudan L (1977) Progress and its problems: toward a theory of scientific growth. University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles

    Google Scholar 

  • Laudan L (1981) A confutation of convergent realism. Philos Sci 48(1):19–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lavoisier AL (1790) Elements of chemistry (trans: Robert K). William Creech, London

    Google Scholar 

  • MacLaurin C (1748) An account of sir Isaac Newton’s philosophical discoveries, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Massimi M (2018) Four kinds of perspectival truth. Philos Phenomenol Res 96(2):342–359

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mendel G (1866) Versuche Ãœber Pflanzenhybriden. Verhandlungen Des Naturforschenden Vereins Brünn IV (1865) (Abhandlungen): 3–47

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan TH (1926) The theory of the gene. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Müller-Wille S (2021) Gregor Mendel and the history of heredity. In: Dietrich MR, Borrello ME, Harman O (eds) Handbook of the historiography of biology. Springer, Cham, pp 105–126

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Musgrave A (1976) Why did oxygen supplant phlogiston? Research Programmes in the chemical revolution. In: Howson C (ed) Sciences, method and appraisal in the physical sciences. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 181–209

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Nagel E (1961) The structure of science: problems in the logic of scientific explanation, vol 29. Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, p 716

    Google Scholar 

  • Olby RC (1985) Origins of Mendelism, 2nd edn. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL

    Google Scholar 

  • Ornstein M (1913) The role of the scientific societies in the seventeenth century. Columbia University

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearson K (1903) The law of ancestral heredity. Biometrika 2(2):211–229

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Popper K (1959) The logic of scientific discovery, 1st edn. Hutchinson & Co., London

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper K (1963) Truth, rationality, and the growth of scientific knowledge. In: Conjectures and refutations: the growth of scientific knowledge. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp 215–250

    Google Scholar 

  • Priestley J (1796) Experiments and observations relating to the analysis of Atmospherical air: also, farther experiments relating to the generation of air from water. To which are added, considerations on the doctrine of phlogiston, and the decomposition of water. Philadelphia

    Google Scholar 

  • Psillos S (1999) Scientific realism: how science tracks truth. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Randall JH (1926) The making of the modern mind. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Renouvier C (1864) Essais de Critique Générale. Troisième Essai. Les Principes de La Nature. Ladrange, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson JH (1921) The scientific revolution. In: The mind in the making. Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York/London, pp 151–157

    Google Scholar 

  • Sankey H (1994) The incommensurability thesis. Avebury, Aldershot

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmaus W (2023) Cournot and Renouvier on scientific revolutions. J Gen Philos Sci 54:7–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Shan Y (2020a) Doing integrated history and philosophy of science: a case study of the origin of genetics, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 1st edn. Springer, Cham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shan Y (2020b) Kuhn’s ‘wrong turning’ and legacy today. Synthese 197(1):381–406

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shan Y (2021) Beyond Mendelism and biometry. Stud Hist Phil Sci 89:155–163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shan Y (2022) The functional approach: scientific Progress as increased usefulness. In: Shan Y (ed) New Philosophical Perspectives on scientific Progress. Routledge, New York, pp 46–61

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Smith P (1930) The scientific revolution. In: A history of modern culture. George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., London, pp 144–178

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanford PK (2006) Exceeding our grasp. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Temple W (1731) Of Health and Long Life. In: The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart, London, pp 272–289

    Google Scholar 

  • Waters CK (2004) What was classical genetics? Stud Hist Philos Sci Part A 35(4):783–809

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weismann A (1892) Das Keimplasma: Eine Theorie Der Vererbung. Gustav Fischer, Jena

    Google Scholar 

  • Weldon WFR (1905) Theory of inheritance (unpublished). UCL Library, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Whewell W (1847) The philosophy of the inductive sciences. A new edit, vol 2. John W. Parker, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodbridge HE (1940) Sir William Temple: the man and his work. Modern Language Association, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Worrall J (1989) Structural realism: the best of both worlds? Dialectica 43(1–2):99–124

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wray KB (2011) Kuhn’s evolutionary social ppistemology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

An early draft of this chapter was presented at Evidence Seminar, University of Kent on 24 May 2022. I thank the audience there for the helpful comments and discussion.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China

    Yafeng Shan

Authors
  1. Yafeng Shan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yafeng Shan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Mauro L. Condé

  2. Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil

    Marlon Salomon

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Shan, Y. (2023). The Historiography of Scientific Revolutions: A Philosophical Reflection. In: Condé, M.L., Salomon, M. (eds) Handbook for the Historiography of Science. Historiographies of Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_12-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_12-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-99498-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-99498-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Humanities, Soc. Sciences and Law

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Chapter history

  1. Latest

    The Historiography of Scientific Revolutions: A Philosophical Reflection
    Published:
    15 July 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_12-2

  2. Original

    The Historiography of Scientific Revolutions: A Philosophical Reflection
    Published:
    16 May 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_12-1

Search

Navigation