Cross-scientific study and the complexity of psychology
pp. 165-172
in: Hans van Rappard, Pieter van Strien, Leendert Mos, William J. Baker (eds), Annals of theoretical psychology, Berlin, Springer, 1993Abstrakt
Woodward and Devonis wish to raise a number of developments in the philosophy of science over the past decade to the attention of historians of psychology. New models of science's structure and development may substantially alter historiography in their field. Eschewing both the logical empiricists, preoccupations with the axiomatization of theories in their rational reconstructions of scientific knowledge, and the Kuhnians' subsequent preoccupation with the radical incommensurability that scientific revolutions allegedly inject into science, philosophers such as Bechtel, Darden, Laudan, Maull, Nickles, and others have promoted analyses that focus variously on (1) construing scientific progress in terms of ongoing problem solving power, (2) examining the role of scientific discovery in the justification of scientific accomplishments, and (3) analyzing the character and complexity of cross-scientific relations (beyond mere intertheoretic considerations) that contribute to both problem solving and discovery. It is the third of these items that most occupies the authors' attention.