Kuhn's darwinism - From a Darwinian point of view

Abstract

The purpose of Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR) is twofold. On the one hand, he aims to displace the goal-directed science-development model of the neopositivists, and on the other, he wants to retain the idea of progress in science. He states that the latter is analogous to that of Darwinian evolution. Here I will claim that Kuhn thinks about the issue of evolution in a neopositivistic/Neo-Darwinian way and thus interprets the phenomenon of change in science as a (non- developmental, non-goal-directed) temporal process. Nevertheless, trying to support Kuhn's own science-development model with a genuinely Darwinian theory (as I am putting forward here) might be a fruitful and coherent project. In order to do so, one has to interpret the theory of evolution in a nonneopositivistic/ non-Neo-Darwinian, indeed 'Kuhnian' way, as it is done in cybernetic and system-theoretical approaches which displaced the neopositivistic/Neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolutionary theory at about the same time when Kuhn and others displaced neopositivism in the philosophy of science. But, since Kuhn is committed to the neopositivistic/Neo-Darwinian interpretation of the theory of evolution, we cannot regard his work as a proper "evolutionary view of science". © 2007 Periodica Polytechnica.