[M-ZZ41] Studies of Geoscience : historical, philosophical and STS studies

[MZZ41-P07] Philosophy of Earth and Planetary Sciences after Kuhn

*Shigeyuki Aoki¹ (1.Faculty of Letters, Chuo University)

Keywords:history of science, history of earth and planetary science, philosophy of earth and planetary science, scientific revolutions, the structure of scientific revolutions

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1st ed. 1962, 4th ed. 2012) by Thomas Kuhn, himself originally a historian of science, is a monumental work which was to establish the field of History and Philosophy of Science, as is known from the fact that the famous philosopher of science Ian Hacking presented the preface to the 4th edition. Philosophy of science after Kuhn is called “the historical turn”, and the academic field drastically changed before/after Kuhn. However the case studies on Kuhn elaborated were mainly from planetary sciences or classical mechanics, with only Lyell mentioned in geological or earth science history – although there were some hot debates in the 1980s to 1990s over the nature of Plate Tectonics Revolution. This talk focuses on the movements of philosophy of earth sciences after Kuhn.