Scientific Revolutions and Progress: reflections on Kuhn's and Bhaskar's philosophy of science

Abstract

Scientificprogress is one of the topics that has always been considered in the philosophy of science and various accounts have been presented as regards the occurrence of progress.One of the most important challenges in progress is the radical changes in scientific theories, i.e. scientific revolutions.Kuhn considers these revolutions to be discontinuities in the history of science. Although he acknowledges progress in the normal science period by referring to the puzzle solving, he fails to explain the progress in scientific revolutions by proposing the incommensurability of paradigms.In contrast, Bhaskar by describing the stratified world, considers science as a continuous process with the aim of achieving causal mechanisms and structures, discovers and describes new and deeper layers. He explains progress on this basis and believes that sciencehas the potentiality of both change and progress. The present essay discusses the progress theories offered by Bhaskar and Kuhn. Also we compare the epistemological and ontological aspects of these perspectives in order to investigate Khun's inability to explain progress during the revolution in the light of Bhaskar's views.

Keywords

• roy bhaskar
• thomas kuhn
• scientific progress
• scientific revolution