Beyond Kuhn: Scientific Explanation, Theory Structure, Incommensurability and Physical Necessity (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy)

Thomas Kuhn's celebrated work, 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' revolutionized thinking in the philosophy of science and to a large extent his 'paradigm shift' view has replaced logical positivism and the philosophy of Karl Popper. This book goes beyond Kuhn by explicating the non-deductive notion of 'paradigm shift' in terms of the new concept of representational space. In doing so, Edwin H.-C. Hung is able to produce the first-ever unitary theory that solves the five central problems in the philosophy of science: scientific explanation, the structure of scientific theories, incommensurability, scientific change and physical necessity. The book identifies the main task of science as representing reality. This involves the construction of a representational space and the subsequent modeling of reality with configurations of 'objects' in that space. Newton's mechanics, Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics, then, all serve as representational spaces. 'Beyond Kuhn' is a significant progression in scientific methodology. Other than serving as a sequel to Kuhn's 'Scientific Revolutions', it will be of great use in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology and education. Relativism is but one way, and not the best, to interpret Kuhn, claims Hung (philosophy, U. of Waikato, New Zealand). He explicates and develops the paradigm view of science that Thomas Kuhn loosed upon the world in 1962, not as a subjectivist and relativist view, but as a philosophy that interpret science as an objective and rational study of nature. He introduces the concept of representational spaces to describe generic theories such as the corpuscular theory and the wave theory of light, as a substitute for Kuhn's concept of paradigm, which he finds rather vague and subjective. Time will tell whether representational-spaces shift will find its way into automobile commercials. Annotation © 2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR "The book identifies the main task of science as representing reality. This involves the construction of a representational space and the subsequent modeling of reality with configurations of 'objects' in that space. Newton's mechanics, Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics, then, all serve as representational spaces. Beyond Kuhn is a significant progression in scientific methodology. Other than serving as a sequel to Kuhn's Scientific Revolutions, it will be of great use in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology and education."--Jacket Introduction: the road to Kuhn and beyond A new logic of explanation Structure of conceptual theories I: category systems Structure of conceptual theories II: representational spaces Structure of conceptual theories III: languages Incommensurability Scientific growth Physical necessity : a cross-theoretic notion Projective explanation : deduction lost, deduction regained. In search of truth, science has progressed through two stages: the empirical stage and the theoretic stage.