Conceptual Revolutions / / Paul Thagard.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Thagard, Paul,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2018]; ©1992
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

In this path-breaking work, Paul Thagard draws on the history and philosophy of science, cognitive psychology, and the field of artificial intelligence to develop a theory of conceptual change capable of accounting for all major scientific revolutions. The history of science contains dramatic episodes of revolutionary change in which whole systems of concepts have been replaced by new systems. Thagard provides a new and comprehensive perspective on the transformation of scientific conceptual systems. Thagard examines the Copernican and the Darwinian revolutions and the emergence of Newton's mechanics, Lavoisier's oxygen theory, Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum theory, and the geological theory of plate tectonics. He discusses the psychological mechanisms by which new concepts and links between them are formed, and advances a computational theory of explanatory coherence to show how new theories can be judged to be superior to previous ones.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Acknowledgments -- CHAPTER 1. The Problem of Revolutionary Conceptual Change -- CHAPTER 2. Concepts and Conceptual Systems -- CHAPTER 3. Conceptual Change -- CHAPTER 4. Explanatory Coherence -- CHAPTER 5. Theory Dynamics, Rationality, and Explanation -- CHAPTER 6. The Darwinian Revolution -- CHAPTER 7. The Geological Revolution -- CHAPTER 8. Revolutions in Physics -- CHAPTER 9. Revolutions in Psychology? -- CHAPTER 10. Conceptual Change in Scientists and Children -- References -- Index