Repository | Journal | Volume | Articles
(2017) Synthese 194 (7).
By briefly reviewing three well-known scientific revolutions in fundamental physics (the discovery of inertia, of special relativity and of general relativity), I claim that problems that were supposed to be crying for a dynamical explanation in the old paradigm ended up receiving a structural explanation in the new one. This claim is meant to give more substance to Kuhn’s view that revolutions are accompanied by a shift in what needs to be explained, while suggesting at the same time the existence of a pattern that is common to all of the discussed case-studies. It remains to be seen whether also quantum mechanics, in particular entanglement, conforms to this pattern.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-014-0546-7
Full citation:
Dorato, M. (2017). Dynamical versus structural explanations in scientific revolutions. Synthese 194 (7), pp. 2307-2327.
This document is unfortunately not available for download at the moment.