科学革命发生的语境解释及其现实意义

Contextual Explanation on the Occurrence of Scientific Revolution and Its Realistic Significance

科学革命是科学发展过程中的重大变革。历史上不少学者对其进行了研究,其中科学史学家科恩提出的科学革命发生的四个判据很有代表性,对判断科学革命提供了理论依据。但是,这些判据不能解释曾发生的理论革命或较小的科学革命,使人们对是否发生过科学革命产生怀疑。文章通过对历史上关于科学革命研究的梳理与分析,重新界定了科学革命概念的内涵,审视了内外史解释的不足,分析了"科恩解释"的局限性,提出了科学革命发生的"语境解释"及语境转化模型,说明了此模型对于提升我国科技创新能力和创建自主创新型国家的现实意义。

Scientific revolutions are important changes in the development of science. In history, quite a number of scholars have studied the scientific revolutions. Among them there is Cohen, who put forward four criterions for judging the occurrence of scientific revolutions. But these criterions can＇t explain that theoretical or minor revolutions ever happened, so that people are inclined to doubt whether the scientific revolutions actually took place. Through an overall analysis of the scientific revolutions in the history, the authors of this paper give a new definition of scientific revolution. Examining the indequacy of internalist and externalist explanation, they put forward a contextual explanation for the occurrence of scientific revolutions as well as their transformation model. The contextual explanation accounts for not only the theorical problem of the occurrence of scientific revolutions, but also the enhancement of the ability of science and technology in China.