Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the
best known and most influential books of the twentieth century. Whether
they adore or revile him, critics and fans alike have tended to agree on
one thing: Kuhn's ideas were revolutionary. But were they?
Steve Fuller argues that Kuhn actually held a profoundly conservative
view of science and how one ought to study its history. Early on, Kuhn
came under the influence of Harvard President James Bryant Conant (to
whom Structure is dedicated), who had developed an educational program
intended to help deflect Cold War unease over science's uncertain future
by focusing on its illustrious past. Fuller argues that this rhetoric
made its way into Structure, which Fuller sees as preserving and
reinforcing the old view that science really is just a steady
accumulation of truths about the world (once paradigm shifts are
resolved).
Fuller suggests that Kuhn, deliberately or not, shared the tendency in
Western culture to conceal possible negative effects of new knowledge
from the general public. Because it insists on a difference between a
history of science for scientists and one suited to historians, Fuller
charges that Structure created the awkward divide that has led
directly to the Science Wars and has stifled much innovative research.
In conclusion, Fuller offers a way forward that rejects Kuhn's fixation
on paradigms in favor of a conception of science as a social movement
designed to empower society's traditionally disenfranchised elements.
Certain to be controversial, Thomas Kuhn must be read by anyone who
has adopted, challenged, or otherwise engaged with The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions.
Structure will never look quite the same again after Fuller. In that
sense, he has achieved one of the main aims of his ambitious and
impressively executed project.--Jon Turney, Times Higher Education
Supplement
Philosophies like Kuhn's narrow the possible futures of inquiry by
politically methodizing and taming them. More republican philosophies
will leave the future open. Mr. Fuller has amply succeeded in his
program of distinguishing the one from the other.--William R. Everdell,
Washington Times
