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SUMMARY:The structure of structure: how Kuhn establishes that science requ
 ires historical explanation - Paul A. Roth (University of California\, San
 ta Cruz)
DTSTART:20171116T130000Z
DTEND:20171116T140000Z
UID:TALK85071@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Staley
DESCRIPTION:As is well known\, Kuhn restricts a designation of 'normal sci
 ence' to those disciplines with accepted research practices. What makes fo
 r normal science\, of course\, shifts with changes in paradigms on Kuhn's 
 account. Now this way of specificying normal science has a whiff of circul
 arity inasmuch as it defines normal science by reference to 'scientific re
 search'\, but that can be overlooked. Sufficient for my purpose will be to
  take as a 'science' whatever comes to pass as such. In this respect\, giv
 en the century old controversy regarding history's status as a science\, I
  propose focusing rather on the question of how whatever passes as 'normal
  science' comes to achieve that status. My argument will be that any answe
 r to a question about how normal science comes to be\, i.e.\, one that dev
 elops a non-a priori causal/explanatory account\, will have to utilize wha
 t I term an 'essentially narrative explanation'. In other words\, my accou
 nt shows how in SSR Kuhn crafts a narrativized account of normal science. 
 This will count as naturalistic in a minimalist sense inasmuch as it does 
 not begin with any philosophical definition of what is or is not a science
 \, and utilizes in its explanation nothing more than facts narratively ord
 ered so as to explain (in the sense of revealing how a later point time re
 sults from earlier ones) how what comes to be called science achieves that
  status. Understanding Kuhn's work in this way helps naturalize narrative 
 explanation through a form of mutual containment — since narrative helps
  constitute any understanding of what counts as normal science\, that narr
 ative becomes a part of any account that comes to be viewed as science. It
  would be highly ironic then to reject an explanation form that in fact pr
 oves unavoidable for purposes of revealing why what passes as science at a
  particular time does so.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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