996005 Post-Kuhnian models of scientific change (S) (SoSe 2026)

The notion of a scientific revolution as a shift in the dominant scientific paradigm of a discipline was made famous by Thomas Kuhn and fundamentally shaped debates on the nature of scientific change and progress up to today. This course interrogates the limits of these Kuhnian notions by focusing on challenges and alternative approaches to explaining scientific change that foreground institutional influences, material practices, power, and the co-production of science and social order. These critical approaches were developed in response to Kuhn’s work by scholars in in Science and Technology Studies (STS), the sociology of scientific knowledge, and the history of science.
During the course, we will explore post-Kuhnian models offering explanations of how scientific change is shaped by social struggles, professional interests, socio-economic infrastructures, and forms of exclusion. During the class, we will focus on questions such as the following:
- Have scientific revolutions actually occurred, from a historical perspective?
- Can scientific revolutions be slow, partial, or geographically uneven?
- How do power, values, funding, and geopolitics shape what counts as scientific change?
- Is the concept of scientific paradigm still a useful unit of analysis?
- What are the benefits of alternative units, such as networks, practices, regimes, or infrastructures, compared to Kuhn’s paradigms?
The seminar will be based on group discussions of pre-circulated texts and on practical activities in small groups that will relate the main topics of discussion to the individual research and cases of participants. The seminar will have an interdisciplinary approach, in that the course will feature selected readings from the tradition of STS, the philosophy of science, and the history of science.
During the preparatory meeting at the start of the Summer Semester, participants will give a 5-minute presentation of their current academic research. During the meeting, participants will also be asked to share their specific interests with respect to the proposed course topic, and how they think their individual research could benefit from taking this course. This will be helpful to further specify the class focus and the selection of readings.