Rethinking Thomas Kuhn’s Legacy

Thomas Kuhn is widely considered as one of the most important philosophers of science in the 20th century and his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is regarded as one of the most influential works in the philosophy of science. This book not only revisits his legacy in the history and philosophy of science but also explores and reflects on the prospect of the Kuhnian philosophy. Moreover, it includes the edited text of Kuhn’s ‘Does Knowledge Grow?’, which was never published before. Comprised of 15 newly written chapters by leading Kuhn scholars and philosophers of science across the globe from ten countries, this book is of great interest to researchers and advanced students, but also to general readers.

Acknowledgements.- Chapter 1. Introduction: Kuhn still Matters (Yafeng Shan).- Part I: Exploring Kuhnian Legacy.- Chapter 2. Has There Been a Second Kuhnian Revolution? (Joseph Rouse).- Chapter 3. Kuhnian Lessons for the Social Epistemology of Science (Vincenzo Politi).- Chapter 4. Kuhn, Modern Mathematics and the Dynamics of Reason (David Corfield).- Chapter 5. Kuhn and Knowing-How: A New Conception of Scientific Progress (Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen).- Chapter 6. Worlds, Algorithms, and Niches: The Feedback-loop Idea in Kuhn’s Philosophy (Matteo De Benedetto and Michele Luchetti).- Chapter 7. The Role of Mathematics in the Copernican Revolution (Donald Gillies).- Chapter 8. Normal Science and Tradition in the Non-West: Divergence in Adherence in West and East Asia (M. A. Mujeeb Khan).- Part II: Rereading Kuhn.- Chapter 9. Interpreting Structure (Alexander Bird).- Chapter 10. Kuhn and Philosophy (Vasso Kindi).- Chapter 11. Reappraising Kind Concepts (Paulo Pirozelli).- Chapter 12. Revolutionary Analogies (Francesco Nappo).- Chapter 13. Kuhn on Creativity and Tradition in Education (Hanne Andersen).- Chapter 14. Kuhn, Popper, the Military-Industrial Complex and the Techno-Scientific Revolution (Daniele Cozzoli).-  Chapter 15. Kuhn’s “Does Knowledge ‘Grow’?” (Juan Vicente Mayoral).- Appendix (Juan Vicente Mayoral).- Index.

Yafeng Shan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His recent books include Alternative Approaches to Causation: Beyond Difference-Making and Mechanism (OUP, 2024), Evidential Pluralism in the Social Sciences (Routledge, 2023), Examining Philosophy Itself (Wiley, 2023), and Doing Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: A Case Study of the Origin of Genetics (Springer, 2020).