The Origin of Scientific Revolutions: The Clash Between Pervasive Research Traditions

What are the unequivocal causes of a scientific revolution? In The Origin of Scientific Revolutions, Rinat Nugayev proposes an ideal model that strives to reconcile cognitive and social facets of the advancement of science and to provide analytical tools for studying the social mechanisms by which diverse structures of scientific knowledge evolve and interweave. Like Bruno Latour, Nugayev strengthens efforts in landing the sky-high epistemological models of scientific revolutions. In the wake of Stephen Shapin, Philip Kitcher, and Helen Longino, this book takes a further step on the path of explanation for the mundane reasons for the triumph of the novel paradigm over the old one. Yet a corresponding expansion of the epistemological basis of research requires historical analysis of the forms of rationality in the phenomenological perspective proposed by Husserl and Heidegger. The history of cognition constitutes a series of epochs of' unconcealment, with the integrity of each 'mathematical projection of nature' provided by reconciliation, plexus, and interpenetration of sundry practices. Profound breakthroughs in science were not due to ingenious contrivances of brave novel paradigms or invention of immaculate ideas ex nihilo. The breakthroughs were caused, among other things, by the harrowing piecemeal processes of accommodation, interpenetration, and intertwinement of old research traditions preceding the radical breaks. See more