Kuhn, Naturalism, and the Social Study of Science (original) (raw)

September 7, 2012) I have argued that the Kuhn of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions promotes a naturalistic study of science. The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge is also seen by many of its proponents as a naturalistic approach to science, and as such may be seen as part of the Kuhnian legacy. Nonetheless, I argue that it has been an inadequate successor to Kuhn. In particular, its emphasis on externalist explanations of scientific change are inconsistent with Kuhn's model of scientific development. A more faithful and fruitful heir to Kuhn's legacy is the cohort of psychological and cognitive studies into scientific reasoning as based on exemplars and their like.