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Reconstruction of the Optical Revolution: Lakatos vs. Laudan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Xiang Chen
Xiang Chen*
Affiliation:
Zhongshan University, People’s Republic of China
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Extract

The optical revolution, that is, the replacement of corpuscular optics by wave optics at the beginning of the nineteenth century, has attracted the attention of philosophers of science for a long time. For a long period the cause of the optical revolution was attributed to “crucial experiments” such as Foucault’s experiment on the velocity of light (Sabra 1954, pp.149-51). Later Frankel argued that social and political factors were necessary for the victory of the wave theory (Frankel 1976, p.142). These accounts, however, were severely criticized by recent theorists of scientific change, especially Lakatos and Laudan. Lakatos calls the opinion that accounted for the optical revolution solely by “crucial experiments” naive “instant rationality” (Lakatos 1978, p.68 & 72n). Laudan also regards the attempt to explain scientific revolution mainly by social and political elements as “jumping to a premature conclusion” (Laudan 1977, p.4).

Type
Part IV. History of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1988 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1988 , 1988 , pp. 102 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1988

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Footnotes

1

Earlier version of this paper was a term paper for the class of Professor Peter Barker. I am grateful to Barker for his criticism and encouragement

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