REVOLUTIONS AND RATIONALITY IN HISTORY OF SCIENCE

Abstract

One of the enduring controversies in twentieth-and twenty first century philosophy of science concerns the logic of scientific revolutions. At the heart of this debate is whether scientific revolutions can be adequately explained on a purely rational ground or whether extra-rational factors, such as psychological, sociological as well as institutional influences also play significantly role in scientific development. The two major participants in this debate are the rationalists and non-rationalists.  While the rationalists, both the verificationist and falsificationist traditions maintain that scientific progress can be explained through rational criteria alone, the non-rationalist argue that extra-rational factors and indispensable to understanding scientific revolutions. This paper uses the library research approach and the analytic method to investigate the rationalist-non-rationalist impasse with the aim of reconciling the tension between traditions. Drawing on evidence from the history of science, the paper contends that the rationalists were correct in insisting that scientific inquiry is fundamentally committed to logical and methodological accountability. Equally, the non-rationalists were correct in arguing that these rational standards are neither applied nor developed in historical vacuum but within scientific communities shaped psychological, socio-economic and institutional influences. The paper concludes that scientific revolutions are best understood as dynamic historical processes in which rational evaluation and historical circumstance continuously interact.