La filosofía de la historia de la ciencia de Thomas Kuhn

In this article I argue that Kuhn was a historicist in two respects. First, he was a conservative in Mannheim’s sense—tradition is important for understanding scientific change, and the evaluation of a scientific idea is relative to historical context. Secondly, Kuhn embraced determinism—there is a pattern to scientific change, akin to laws of scientific development. I show that Kuhn’s determinism requires that he is an internalist about the causes of scientific change; Kuhn’s internalism contrasts with the externalism that characterises much post-Kuhnian science studies. I conclude by considering how Kuhn’s historicism relates to the philosophical purposes of Kuhn’s history of science.