Instrumental Realism by Don Ihde

Ihde begins with a background discussion of various works with philosophical tone or emphasis in scientific fields. In discussing the "Kuhnian model" of science philosophy, based on various books by Thomas Kuhn beginning with The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Ihde explains that taking account of "paradigm shifts," or conditions under which new scientific discoveries emerge and how they are perceived by the intellectual community, represented a paradigm shift of its own in the way modern American sensibility thought about science as an intellectual discipline. However, Ihde sees important parallels and consistencies in the more purely philosophical writing of contemporary Europeans such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Foucault with respect to science, as well as in the direct examination of the role of technology in theoretical science by Martin Heidegger.

Having examined the European philosophical take on the nexus of phi

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ed to the history of science. Ihde says that Foucault is within the phenomenological philosophical tradition for the reason that Foucault's work focuses on the emergence of new ways of looking at and acting within the given universe. Foucault himself denies a connection to phenomenology to the degree that phenomenology locates revolutionary thought and action in subjective life experience (notably in such Hegelian concepts as the World Spirit). However, Ihde makes that case that Foucault's analysis of results of innovative scientific responses, irrespective of their subjective source, to given experience are enough to affiliate him with phenomenology. He quotes Foucault in this regard to support his point: "[T)he historical analysis of scientific discourse should . . . be subject, not to a theory of the knowing subject, but rather to a theory of discursive practice" (p. 33, quoting Foucault's The Order of Things). This is consistent with Kuhn's view that new scientific theory runs into conflict with established theory, and, significantly, with scientists who are allied with established theory. The "radical shifts in the organization of knowledge and the rearrangement of perception" (p. 38) of which Ihde speaks are basic to Fo
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Approximate Word count = 1631
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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