Scientific rationality and the search for “hidden affordances” (original) (raw)

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges for the theories of scientific rationality is to provide an account of the continuities underlying scientific change. Innovation, as opposed to gradual improvement, can be particularly difficult to tackle in this regard. A typical solution to this problem is to look for a set of rational criteria that would regulate any successful scientific advance, including “ground-breaking” innovation. As an alternative, I propose to understand scientific innovation as the discovery of hidden affordances in the cognitive technologies that support scientific production, and scientific rationality as a series of rational strategies oriented towards that goal.

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