Permanent Revolution In Science: A Quantum Epistemology

Steve Fuller

doi:10.1177/0048393120910983

Abstract

This article is the preface to the Russian translation of my Kuhn vs Popper. I use it as an opportunity to re-examine the difference between Kuhn and Popper on the nature of ‘revolutions’ in science. Kuhn is rightly seen as a ‘reluctant revolutionary’ and Popper a ‘permanent revolutionary’. In this respect, Kuhn sticks to the original medieval meaning of ‘revolution’ as restoration of a natural order, whereas Popper adopts the more modern meaning of ‘revolution’ that comes into fashion after the French Revolution, which suggests a radical renewal. A key to understanding this difference in revolutionary mentalities lies in Kuhn’s and Popper’s respective treatment of the ‘Gestalt switch’ phenomenon. Kuhn sees the ambiguous Gestalt figure from the standpoint of the subject, and Popper from that of the experimenter. Behind this difference lies alternative interpretations of the significance of quantum mechanics for scientific epistemology, a preoccupation that Kuhn and Popper shared with the original Gestalt psychologists and is beginning engage the interest of social scientists.

Highlights

What follows is the preface to the Russian translation of my Kuhn vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science (Fuller 2003), which has been published in eight languages and nine editions
Popper was clearly a more radical thinker than Kuhn, but that point never seemed to break through in the debates in which they and their proxies participated—even though Popper’s followers (e.g., Paul Feyerabend, Imre Lakatos, Joseph Agassi) were more radical than Kuhn’s followers, who are the underlaborers and ethnographers of science who nowadays dominate the fields of philosophy of science and science and technology studies
It is easy nowadays to forget the significance of the Gestalt movement in psychology in the middle third of the 20th century, including on the theories of scientific change put forward by both Kuhn and Popper

Summary

Introduction

What follows is the preface to the Russian translation of my Kuhn vs Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science (Fuller 2003), which has been published in eight languages and nine editions. Popper was clearly a more radical thinker than Kuhn, but that point never seemed to break through in the debates in which they and their proxies participated—even though Popper’s followers (e.g., Paul Feyerabend, Imre Lakatos, Joseph Agassi) were more radical than Kuhn’s followers, who are the underlaborers and ethnographers of science who nowadays dominate the fields of philosophy of science and science and technology studies.

Results

Conclusion