Two books have been particularly influential in contemporary philosophy of science: Karl R. Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery, and Thomas S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Both agree upon the importance of revolutions in science, but differ about the role of criticism in science's revolutionary growth. This volume arose out of a symposium on Kuhn's work, with Popper in the chair, at an international colloquium held in London in 1965. The book begins with Kuhn's statement of his position followed by seven essays offering criticism and analysis, and finally by Kuhn's reply. The book will interest senior undergraduates and graduate students of the philosophy and history of science, as well as professional philosophers, philosophically inclined scientists, and some psychologists and sociologists.

In "Michael Polanyi and His Generation", Mary Jo Nye investigates the role that Michael Polanyi and several of his contemporaries played in the emergence of the social turn in the philosophy of science. This turn involved seeing science as a socially based enterprise that does not rely on empiricism and reason alone but on social communities, behavioral norms, and personal commitments. Nye argues that the roots of the social turn are to be found in the scientific culture and political events of Europe in the 1930s, when scientific intellectuals struggled to defend the universal status of scientific knowledge and to justify public support for science in an era of economic catastrophe, Stalinism and Fascism, and increased demands for applications of science to industry and social welfare. At the center of this struggle was Polanyi, who Nye contends was one of the first advocates of this new conception of science. Nye reconstructs Polanyi's scientific and political milieus in Budapest, Berlin, and Manchester from the 1910s to the 1950s and explains how he and other natural scientists and social scientists of his generation - including J.D. Bernal, Ludwik Fleck, Karl Mannheim, and Robert K. Merton - and the next, such as Thomas Kuhn, forged a politically charged philosophy of science, one that newly emphasized the social construction of science.

在这本书中，薛定谔提出了生命密码和生命过程负熵的概念。并特别强调用物理和化学的方法研究生命现象的重要性。他的思想影响了一代生物学家，开创了信息生物学研究之先河，对20世纪的生物学革命起到了不可估量的作用。

目录
序
导言
第一章　归纳主义：科学是从经验事实推导出来的知识
1. 广泛持有的常识科学观
2. 朴素归纳主义
3．逻辑和演绎推理
4. 归纳主义科学观中的预见和解释
5. 朴素归纳主义的吸引力
第二章　归纳问题
1．归纳原理能被证明是正确的吗？
2．向概率退却
3．对归纳问题的可能回答
第三章 观察依赖于理论
1．对观察的一般看法
2．视觉经验不决定于视网膜上的映像
3．理论是观察陈述的前提
4．理论指导观察和实验
5．归纳主义并未被最后驳倒
第四章　介绍证伪主义
1．支持证伪主义者的逻辑论点
2．可证伪性是理论的标准
3．可证伪性的程度、明晰性和精确性
4．证伪主义和进步
第五章　精致的证伪主义，新颖的预见和科学的成长
1．相对而不是绝对的可证伪程度
2．越来越增大的可证伪性和特设性修改
3．证伪主义科学观的确证
4．大胆、新颖和背景知识
5．归纳主义和证伪主义的确证观比较
第六章　证伪主义的局限性
1．观察对理论的依赖性和证伪的易缪性
2．波普尔的不适当的辩护
3．实际检验情况的复杂性
4．从历史的角度看证伪主义的不当
5．哥白尼革命
第七章　作为结构的理论：1．研究纲领
1．应该把理论看作有结构的整体
2．拉卡托斯的研究纲领
3．研究纲领内的方法论
4．研究纲领的比较
第八章　作为结构的理论：2．库恩的规范
1．导言
2．规范和常规科学
3．危机和革命
4．科学的进步
5．常规科学和革命的功能
第九章　科学：没有主体的过程
1．区别对科学的三种研究法
2．库恩著作中混淆了三种观点
3．科学是一种复杂的社会活动
4．对客观方法的进一步支持
第十章　真理、实在论和工具主义
1．朴素实在论
2．朴素工具主义
3．实在论和真理的符合理论（1）语义学问题
4．实在论和真理的符合理论（2）认识论问题
第十一章　激进工具主义或多元实在论
第十二章 两类激进的批评—唯物主义和认识论的无政府状态
1．唯物主义
2．唯物主义的彻底客观性
3．科学史理论
4．再论归纳问题
5．费耶阿本德的认识论无政府状态

德文版(1959年)前言
收在这本书里的文章,本来是为一本篇幅更大的著作所写,若是我能够完成,它讨论的将是近代以来理性的滥用和衰落的历史。前两篇文章是第二次世界大战初期在伦敦较为悠闲的时光中写成。我无力对抗落下的炸弹不时打断的环境,便把精力都用在了这个远离现实的题目上。这两篇文章曾发表在1941到1944年的《经济学》杂志(Economica)上。第三篇是后来据同一时期的一次演说笔记写成,1951年6月刊发于《标尺》(Measure)。承蒙这些杂志的出版人及伦敦经济学院和芝加哥亨利·瑞格纳里公司允许我基本未做改动重印这些文章,在此向他们致以谢忱。
在这同一个领域的另一些并非随后立刻着手的研究,打断了我按原来的计划从事工作。那时我有一种迫切的愿望,要给自己的分析——它们是我对理性衰落的一项更大的研究中的第二部分的主要论证——做一总结。但是我日益清楚地意识到,把原来的计划完成得让人满意,需要以广泛的哲学研究为前提,于是在中断的那几年里,我便把大部分时间用在这种研究上。我愿意接受美国的出版社重印这些文章的友好建议,既是因为公众对它们有兴趣,也是因为我希望出版整部著作的时间已不那么紧迫。
当然,这些零散的思想训练是由其背景决定的。因此读者也许乐于让我简单介绍一下那项更大任务的目标。在写这些文章之前,我研究过十八世纪的个人主义学说。这项研究的若干初步成果,当时发表在我的《个人主义和经济秩序》(芝加哥大学出版社,1948)的第一章。目前这本书的第一部分所讨论的,便是对这种个人主义的敌视态度的思想来源。这些我认为反映着滥用理性的观点的历史发展,会在将来分为四部分的研究中加以讨论。本书阐述的这一发展之早期法国阶段的第二部分,本来打算作为这四部分研究中的第一部分。第三部分本应作为讨论这场源于法国的运动在德国的继续的第二部分的开场白。然后是相似的一部分,它将讨论十九世纪末发生在英国的自由主义的退却——这首先要归咎于来自法国和德国的影响。最后一部分打算谈谈美国的类似发展。
在对理性受到的日甚一日的滥用的全面考察之后,是对极权主义统治下理性衰落的讨论。这第二项重要工作的基本思想,最初以通俗的形式出现在我的《通往奴役之路》(芝加哥大学出版社,1944)一书中。
在重印这些摘编而成的文章时,也许我不该保留原有的顺序。这本小书有可能给后面较易于理解的领域设下不必要的障碍,有关“唯科学主义和社会研究”的一篇详细的理论导读,或许能够提供比它更出色的系统分析。因此,对抽象讨论不感兴趣的读者,完全可以先阅读讨论“科学的反革命”的第二部分。然后他会觉得更容易理解第一部分对同一个问题的较为抽象的讨论。
我还想补充说,以本书作为其中一部分的那本著作,不会以原先设想的方式继续撰写了。我现在打算在另一本书中阐述这个思想体系,它减少了历史色彩,但更为系统了。
F. A. 哈耶克
美国版(1952年)前言
收在本书中的文章,最初虽然发表于不同的年份,却是一个整体计划的一部分。为了这次再版,对阐述的内容做了稍许改动,弥补了几处缺陷,不过主要的论证未变。文章的顺序现在更有条理了,与论证的展开相一致,而不再像它们初次发表时那样随意。因此,本书先是对一般问题做了理论探讨,然后考察了相关观念的历史作用。这不是为了卖弄学问,也不仅是为了避免不必要的重复,因为在我看来,这对于证明那种特殊发展的真正意义至关重要。不过我也十分清楚,这样做的结果是,本书的前几章较之其他内容更难理解;把较为具体的讨论放在前面也许更恰当一些。然而我依然认为,关心这个题目的大多数读者,会觉得现在这种顺序更为恰当。至于那些对抽象讨论无多大兴趣的读者,可以先读冠以本书标题的第二部分。我希望他然后会发现,第一部分对这个问题的一般性讨论更有意义。
本书的两部分主要内容,最初部分地分别发表在1942—1944年和1941年的《经济学》杂志上。第三篇研究是后来写的一篇演说稿,最初发表于1951年6月号的《标尺》,同时也是从给前两篇论文所准备的笔记中整理而成。这些杂志以及伦敦经济和政治学院的编辑,还有它们可敬的出版商、芝加哥的亨利·瑞格纳里公司,允许我重印当初在其赞助下发表的文章,在此必须向他致谢。
F. A. 哈耶克

Since the publication of this book in 1962, Kuhn's writings (and many of his ideas, such as "paradigm shift") have been highly influential in academic and popular discourse. This book is must-reading for anyone studying the history and philosophy of science specifically, or cultural or technological change generally.
Since Kuhn does not permit truth to be a criterion of scientific theories, he would presumably not claim his own theory to be true. But if causing a revolution is the hallmark of a superior paradigm, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been a resounding success.

Originally published in German in 1935, this monograph anticipated solutions to problems of scientific progress, the truth of scientific fact and the role of error in science now associated with the work of Thomas Kuhn and others. Arguing that every scientific concept and theory--including his own--is culturally conditioned, Fleck was appreciably ahead of his time. And as Kuhn observes in his foreword, "Though much has occurred since its publication, it remains a brilliant and largely unexploited resource."
"To many scientists just as to many historians and philosophers of science facts are things that simply are the case: they are discovered through properly passive observation of natural reality. To such views Fleck replies that facts are invented, not discovered. Moreover, the appearance of scientific facts as discovered things is itself a social construction, a "made" thing. A work of transparent brilliance, one of the most significant contributions toward a thoroughly sociological account of scientific knowledge."--Steven Shapin, "Science"

Scientific discovery is often regarded as romantic and creative - and hence unanalyzable - whereas the everyday process of verifying discoveries is sober and more suited to analysis. Yet this fascinating exploration of how scientific work proceeds argues that however sudden the moment of discovery may seem, the discovery process can be described and modeled.
Using the methods and concepts of contemporary information-processing psychology (or cognitive science) the authors develop a series of artificial-intelligence programs that can simulate the human thought processes used to discover scientific laws. The programs - BACON, DALTON, GLAUBER, and STAHL - are all largely data-driven, that is, when presented with series of chemical or physical measurements they search for uniformities and linking elements, generating and checking hypotheses and creating new concepts as they go along.
Scientific Discovery examines the nature of scientific research and reviews the arguments for and against a normative theory of discovery; describes the evolution of the BACON programs, which discover quantitative empirical laws and invent new concepts; presents programs that discover laws in qualitative and quantitative data; and ties the results together, suggesting how a combined and extended program might find research problems, invent new instruments, and invent appropriate problem representations. Numerous prominent historical examples of discoveries from physics and chemistry are used as tests for the programs and anchor the discussion concretely in the history of science.
Pat Langley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. Herbert Simon is a Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Computer Science, and Philosophy at Carnegie-Mellon University. Gary L. Bradshaw is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Jan M. Zytkow is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Wichita State University.

Thirty-five years ago, C. P. Snow, in a now famous essay, wrote about the polarization of the "two cultures" -- literary intellectuals on the one hand, and scientists on the other. Although he hoped for the emergence of a "third culture" that would bridge the gap, it is only recently that science has changed the intellectual landscape.Brockman's thesis that science is emerging as the intellectual center of our society is brought to life vividly in "The Third Culture, " which weaves together the voices of some of today's most influential scientific figures, including: Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins on the implications of evolution Steven Pinker, Marvin Minsky, Daniel C. Dennett, and Roger Penrose on how the mind worksMurray Gell-Mann and Stuart Kauffman on the new sciences of complexity"The Third Culture" is an honest picture of science in action. It is at once stimulating, challenging, and riveting.

Proofs and Refutations is essential reading for all those interested in the methodology, the philosophy and the history of mathematics. Much of the book takes the form of a discussion between a teacher and his students. They propose various solutions to some mathematical problems and investigate the strengths and weaknesses of these solutions. Their discussion (which mirrors certain real developments in the history of mathematics) raises some philosophical problems and some problems about the nature of mathematical discovery or creativity. Imre Lakatos is concerned throughout to combat the classical picture of mathematical development as a steady accumulation of established truths. He shows that mathematics grows instead through a richer, more dramatic process of the successive improvement of creative hypotheses by attempts to 'prove' them and by criticism of these attempts: the logic of proofs and refutations.