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Philosophers have long tried to understand scientificchange in terms of a dynamics of revision within ‘theoretical frameworks,’ ‘disciplinary matrices,’ ‘scientific paradigms’ or ‘conceptual schemes.’ No-one, however, has made clear precisely how one might model such aconceptual scheme, nor what formchange dynamics within such a structure could be expected to take. In this paper we take some first steps in applying network theory to the issue, modelingconceptual schemes as simple networks and the (...) dynamics ofchange as cascades on those networks. The results allow a new understanding of two traditional approaches—Popper and Kuhn—as well as introducing the intriguing prospect of viewing scientificchange using the metaphor of selforganizing criticality. (shrink)

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Historians and philosophers of science have, in recent decades, offered evidence in support of several influential models ofconceptualchange in science. These models have often drawn on and in turn driven research onconceptualchange in childhood and in science education. This nexus of reciprocal influences is held together by several largely unexamined analogies and by several assumptions concerning analogy itself. In this chapter, we aim to shed some light on these hidden premises and subject (...) them to critical scrutiny. Our critical survey suggests the following hypothesis:conceptualchange in both childhood and science is driven by the epistemic subject’s quest for coherence. (shrink)

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In this book, David Stump traces alternative conceptions of the a priori in the philosophy of science and defends a unique position in the current debates overconceptualchange and the constitutive elements in science. Stump emphasizes the unique epistemological status of the constitutive elements of scientific theories, constitutive elements being the necessary preconditions that must be assumed in order to conduct a particular scientific inquiry. These constitutive elements, such as logic, mathematics, and even some fundamental laws of (...) nature, were once taken to be a priori knowledge but canchange, thus leading to a dynamic or relative a priori. Stump critically examines developments in thinking about constitutive elements in science as a priori knowledge, from Kant’s fixed and absolute a priori to Quine’s holistic empiricism. By examining the relationship betweenconceptualchange and the epistemological status of constitutive elements in science, Stump puts forward an argument that scientific revolutions can be explained and relativism can be avoided without resorting to universals or absolutes. (shrink)

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Open peer commentary on the article “I Can’t Yet and Growth Mindset” by Fiona Murphy & Hugh Gash.: What Murphy and Gash are attempting to do is to solve a significant problem some students have being successful in school, one that is not often addressed in any significant way. The language used to describe the lessons has some significant departures from radical constructivism. It is, no doubt, beneficial that the students in the study may have developed improvements in self-image, but, (...) as seen in other work, the application of radical constructivism to develop and extend the work started in the study could result in more and more lasting improvements. (shrink)

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I argue that Sarah Sawyer's and Herman Cappelen's recent accounts of how speakers talk and think about the same concept or topic even when their understandings of that concept or topic substantially diverge risk multiplying our metasemantic categories unnecessarily and fail to prove explanatory. When we look more closely at our actual practices of samesaying, we find that speakers with seemingly incompatible formulations of a subject matter take one another to samesay when they are attempting to arrive at a correct (...) understanding of that subject matter. These speakers adopt what I call a prospective externalist perspective on the subject matter in question. I then argue that there are contexts where judgments of samesaying are more routinely defeated because speakers are taking up a perspective I call retrospective internalism. From this perspective, speakers are aiming to render maximally intelligible the linguistic behavior of other speakers that appear to them to deviate from their own. Whether or not we count speakers as samesaying with us will therefore depend on the kind of the perspective we adopt. Different perspectives, it will turn out, often yield different verdicts. On my perspective-based approach, there is no need to hypostatize or inflate our metasemantic taxonomies. (shrink)

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The determining role that tool development plays in neuroscientific progress poses special challenges to the Kuhnian-rooted philosophy of scientificchange. Some philosophers of neuroscience argue that revolutions in neuroscience do not involve paradigm shifts, but instead depend exclusively on technical or experimental innovation. By studying the historical episode of the discovery of the neuron (1873-1909), I argue that revolutions in neuroscience, like many other laboratory revolutions, are frequently driven by the intertwining of technical innovations andconceptualchange.

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I analyseconceptualchange andconceptual engineering in the special case of colour concepts. The case raises the prospects ofconceptual engineering because a precise standard for measuring the amelioration of the structure of concepts is available. On the other hand, the study highlights the problems with controllingconceptual engineering pointed out by Cappelen. I argue that in the case ofconceptualchange of colour concepts varying degrees of optimization, design and control are (...) possible. I submit that this observation can be generalized to other classes of concepts. As a result, the scope ofconceptual engineering is reduced considerably;conceptual engineering appears as a limit case ofconceptualchange. (shrink)

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in Stella Vosniadou, Aristides Baltas and Xenia Vamvakoussi (eds) Reframing theConceptualChange Approach in Learning and Instruction 2007 by Elsevier Ltd.

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The pragmatist faces the challenge of accounting for the possibility of rationalconceptualchange. Some pragmatists have tried to meet this challenge by appealing to Neurathian imagery—imagery that risks being too figurative to be helpful. I argue that we can develop a clearer view of what rationally constrainedconceptual revision looks like for the pragmatist. I do so by examining the work of the pragmatist who in recent years has addressed this issue most directly, Richard Rorty. His (...) attempts to solve the puzzle ultimately fall short, but prove instructive. Rorty characterizes inter-language transitions in exclusively causal terms because, along with the very philosophical traditions he criticizes, he uncritically privileges the role of truth claims or assertions in our pragmatics. I show that if we instead broaden our pragmatic imaginations, we encounter various non-assertoric speech acts involved in speakers aiming tochange how we make sense of our language and concepts. With these acts in view, we are able to arrive at a demystified view of rationalconceptualchange from a pragmatist perspective and identify future lines of inquiry for pragmatist projects. (shrink)

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I focus on the concept of the receptive field of a sensory neuron, taking it as a prominent case to addressconceptualchange in the history of neuroscience. I argue for an interpretation of its ro...

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Much of the attention of philosophy of science, history of science, and psychology in the twentieth century has focused on the nature ofconceptualchange.Conceptualchange in science has occupied pride of place in these disciplines, as either the subject of inquiry or the source of ideas about the nature ofconceptualchange in other domains. There have been numerousconceptual changes in the history of science, some more radical than others. One (...) of the most radical was the chemical revolution. In the seventeenth century, chemists believed that the processes of combustion and calcination involved the absorption or release of a substance called phlogiston. On this theory, when an ore is heated with charcoal, it absorbs phlogiston to produce a metal; when a metal is burned, it releases phlogiston and leaves behind a residue, or calx. The concept of phlogiston derived from a quite complex Aristotelian/medieval structure that included three concepts central to chemical theory: sulphur, the principle of inflammability; mercury, the principle of fluidity; and salt, the principle of inertness. All material substances were believed to contain these three principles in the form of earths. The phlogiston theory held that in combustion, the sulphurous earth (phlogiston) returns to the substance from which it escaped during some earlier burning process in its history, and that in calcination the process is reversed. However, chemists also knew that a calx is heavier than the metal from which it was derived. So, the theory implies that phlogiston has a negative weight, or a positive lightness. This did not present a problem, though, because it was compatible with the Aristotelian elements of fire and air (the others being earth and water), which were not attracted towards the center of the earth. The development of the oxygen theory of combustion and calcination by Lavoisier in the late eighteenth century has been called the chemical revolution because it required replacing the wholeconceptual structure with, for example, different concepts of substance and element and new concepts of oxygen and caloric. In the new system, it was no longer possible to believe in the existence of substances with negative weight. According to the oxygen theory, oxygen gas is released in combustion and absorbed in calcination. Thus calx is metal (substance) plus oxygen, rather than metal minus phlogiston. The concept of phlogiston was eliminated from the chemical lexicon. The reconceptualization of chemical phenomena that took place in the chemical revolution made possible the atomic theory of matter, which, as we know, posits quite different constituents of material substances from the principles central to the earlierconceptual structure. Just what constitutesconceptualchange, how it relates to theorychange, and how it relates to changes in belief continues to be a subject of much debate. Clearly, though, as the preceding example demonstrates, the three are significantly interrelated. (shrink)

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This volume brings together a distinguished, international list of scholars to explore the role of the learner's intention in knowledgechange. Traditional views of knowledge reconstruction placed the impetus for thoughtchange outside the learner's control. The teacher, instructional methods, materials, and activities were identified as the seat ofchange. Recent perspectives on learning, however, suggest that the learner can play an active, indeed, intentional role in the process of knowledge restructuring. This volume explores this new, innovative (...) view ofconceptualchange learning using original contributions drawn from renowned scholars in a variety of disciplines. The volume is intended for scholars or advanced students studying knowledge acquisition andchange, including educational psychology, developmental psychology, science education, cognitive science, learning science, instructional psychology, and instructional and curriculum studies. (shrink)

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There is substantial evidence that traditional instructional methods have not been successful in helping students to restructure their commonsense conceptions and learn theconceptual structures of scientific theories. This paper argues that the nature of the changes and the kinds of reasoning required in a majorconceptual restructuring of a representation of a domain are fundamentally the same in the discovery and in the learning processes. Understandingconceptualchange as it occurs in science and in learning (...) science will require the development of a common cognitive model ofconceptualchange. The historical construction of an inertial representation of motion is examined and the potential instructional implications of the case are explored. (shrink)

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This volume explores questions aboutconceptualchange from both scientific and philosophical viewpoints by analyzing the recent history of evolutionary developmental biology. It features revised papers that originated from the workshop "ConceptualChange in Biological Science: Evolutionary Developmental Biology, 1981-2011" held at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin in July 2010. The Preface has been written by Ron Amundson. In these papers, philosophers and biologists compare and contrast key concepts in evolutionary (...) developmental biology and their development since the original, seminal Dahlem conference on evolution and development held in Berlin in 1981. Many of the original scientific participants from the 1981 conference are also contributors to this new volume and, in conjunction with other expert biologists and philosophers specializing on these topics, provide an authoritative, comprehensive view on the subject. Taken together, the papers supply novel perspectives on how and why theconceptual landscape has shifted and stabilized in particular ways, yielding insights into the dynamic epistemic changes that have occurred over the past three decades. This volume will appeal to philosophers of biology studyingconceptualchange, evolutionary developmental biologists focused on comprehending the genesis of their field and evaluating its future directions, and historians of biology examining this period when the intersection of evolution and development rose again to prominence in biological science. (shrink)

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The 1981 Dahlem conference was a catalyst for contemporary evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo). This introductory chapter rehearses some of the details of the history surrounding the original conference and its associated edited volume, explicates the philosophical problem ofconceptualchange that provided the rationale for a workshop devoted to evaluating the epistemic revisions and transformations that occurred in the interim, exploresconceptualchange with respect to the concept of evolutionary novelty, and highlights some of the themes (...) and patterns in the different contributions to the present volume,ConceptualChange in Biology: Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives on Evolution and Development. (shrink)

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In this article, I will use the frame-model to analyze different kinds of conceptchange. Mainly, I will use frames to distinguish between what I will call inter-conceptualchange and intra-conceptualchange as well as betweenconceptual structurechange andconceptual contentchange. Further, I will introduce the notion ofconceptual enrichment as opposed toconceptualchange. To achieve these goals, I will expand the frame-model where necessary and (...) exemplify the proposed extensions by means of a frame-based analysis of John L. Austin’s distinction between constative and performative utterances. (shrink)

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This paper aims to consider some semantic aspects of the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice overlooked in recent literature. First, we examine different cases of hermeneutical injustices and we propose to classify them according to their semantic structure. The core of this classification lies in the distinction between cases related to problems of content and cases related to problems of circulation of social concepts. Second, we criticize a semantic conception, implicit in much of the literature concern- ing hermeneutical injustice, according to (...) which concepts are mere labels. We show that this conception cannot provide an adequate understanding of the different cases of hermeneutical injustice that we identify: first, because it fails to capture the dynamics ofconceptualchange or refinement that these cases involve and, second, because it leads to diagnosing them as mere problems of concept application. (shrink)

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I examine the historical development of the concept ``temperature'' from the point of view of questions about the stability of concepts during episodes of theorychange. It is argued that the concept retains its identity and meaning through two quite radical developments in surrounding theory, even while these developments uncover novel fundamental characteristics of ``temperature'' and allow new associated definitions for the concept. I then indicate some of the differing underlying philosophical views which have caused others to view this (...) kind of case very differently, and finally suggest a number of features that I think a theory of concepts would need to possess in order to account for the important aspects of the presented case-study. (shrink)

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Biology is the study of life, psychology is the study of mind, and medicine is the investigation of the causes and treatments of disease. This chapter describes how the central concepts of life, mind, and disease have undergone fundamental changes in the past 150 years or so. There has been a progression from theological, to qualitative, to mechanistic explanations of the nature of life, mind and disease. This progression has involved both theoreticalchange, as new theories with greater explanatory (...) power replaced older ones, and emotionalchange as the new theories brought reorientation of attitudes toward the nature of life, mind, and disease. After a brief comparison of theological, qualitative, and mechanistic explanations, I will describe how shifts from one kind of explanation to another have carried with them dramatic kinds ofconceptualchange in the key concepts in the life sciences. Three generalizations follow about the nature ofconceptualchange in the history of science: there has been a shift from conceptualizations in terms of simple properties to ones in terms of complex relations;conceptualchange is theorychange; andconceptualchange is often emotional as well as cognitive. The contention that historical development proceeds in three stages originated with the nineteenth-century French philosophers, Auguste Comte, who claimed that November 9, 2006 human intellectual development progresses from a theological to a “metaphysical” stage to a “positive” (scientific) stage (Comte, 1988). The stages I have in mind are different from Comte’s, so let me say what they involve. By the theological stage I mean systems of thought in which the primary explanatory entities are supernatural ones beyond the reach of science, such as gods, devils, angels, spirits, and souls. For example, the concept of fire was initially theological, as in the Greek myth of Prometheus receiving fire from the gods.. (shrink)

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There has been little investigation to date of the way metacognition is involved inconceptualchange. It has been recognised that analytic metacognition is important to the way older children acquire more sophisticated scientific and mathematical concepts at school. But there has been barely any examination of the role of metacognition in earlier stages of concept acquisition, at the ages that have been the major focus of the developmental psychology of concepts. The growing evidence that even young children (...) have a capacity for procedural metacognition raises the question of whether and how these abilities are involved inconceptual development. More specifically, are there developmental changes in metacognitive abilities that have a wholescale effect on the way children acquire new concepts and replace existing concepts? We show that there is already evidence of at least one plausible example of such a link and argue that these connections deserve to be investigated systematically. (shrink)

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Of this article's seven experiments, the first five demonstrate that virtually no Americans know the basic global warming mechanism. Fortunately, Experiments 2–5 found that 2–45 min of physical–chemical climate instruction durably increased such understandings. This mechanistic learning, or merely receiving seven highly germane statistical facts, also increased climate-change acceptance—across the liberal-conservative spectrum. However, Experiment 7's misleading statistics decreased such acceptance. These readily available attitudinal andconceptual changes through scientific information disconfirm what we term “stasis theory”—which some researchers and (...) many laypeople varyingly maintain. Stasis theory subsumes the claim that informing people about climate science may be largely futile or even counterproductive—a view that appears historically naïve, suffers from range restrictions, and/or misinterprets some polarization and correlational data. Our studies evidenced no polarizations. Finally, we introduce HowGlobalWarmingWorks.org—a website designed to directly enhance public “climate-change cognition.”. (shrink)

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In this paper we attempt to identify which peer collaboration characteristics may be accountable forconceptualchange through interaction. We focus on different socio‐cognitive aspects of the peer dialog and relate these with learning gains on the dyadic as well as the individual level. The scientific topic that was used for this study concerns natural selection, a topic for which students’ intuitive conceptions have been shown to be particularly robust. Learning tasks were designed according to the socio‐cognitive conflict (...) instructional paradigm. After receiving a short instructional intervention on natural selection, paired students were asked to collaboratively construct explanations for certain evolutionary phenomena while engaging in dialectical argumentation. Two quantitative coding schemes were developed, each with a different granularity. The first assessed discrete dialog moves that pertained to dialectical argumentation and to consensual explanation development. The second scheme characterized the dialog as a whole on a number of socio‐cognitive dimensions. Results from analyses on the dyadic as well as the individual level revealed that the engagement in dialectical argumentation predictedconceptual learning gains, whereas consensual explanation development did not. These findings open up new venues for research on the mechanisms of learning in and from peer collaboration. (shrink)

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During Hallowe'en of 1970, the Department of Philosophy of the Univer sity of Western Ontario held its annual fall colloquium at London, On tario. The general topic of the sessions that year wasconceptualchange. The thirteen papers composing this volume stem more or less directly from those meetings; six of them are printed here virtually as delivered, while the remaining seven were subsequently written by invitation. The programme of the colloquium was to have consisted of major papers (...) delivered by Professors Wilfrid Sellars, Stephan Korner, Paul Ziff and Hilary Putnam, with shorter commentary thereupon by Professors Robert Binkley, Joseph Ullian, Jerry Fodor and Robert Barrett, respec tively. And that is the way it happened, with one important exception: at the eleventh hour, Sellars and Binkley exchanged roles. This gave Binkley the rather unusual and challenging task of providing a suitable Sellarsian answer to a question not of his own asking - for Binkley's paper was written under Sellars' original title. Sellars' own contribution to the vo lume is perhaps more nearly what he would have presented as main speaker than a direct response to Binkley. However, it has seemed best, on balance, to attempt no further stylistic accommodation of the one paper to the other; their mutual philosophical relevance will be evident in any case. The editors would here like to extend special thanks to both Sellars and Binkley for their extraordinary efforts under the circumstances. (shrink)

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Inquiry-based learning has the potential to fosterconceptualchange, but whether it can induce an advancement in strategy use is not yet known. Such an advancement seems plausible, becauseconceptualchange can be reflected in the use of new strategies. Whether inquiry-based learning leads to advancement in strategy use can be tested with strategy-based tests, such as the balance beam test. Distinct strategies have been proposed and identified for this test. Therefore, the present study compared response (...) patterns on the balance beam test before and after an inquiry-based lesson. The experimental condition completed a digital inquiry-based lesson about the balance beam ( n = 113), and the control condition completed a similar inquiry-based lesson but investigated a different topic ( n = 44). The participants were aged 8–13 years old and were unfamiliar with the law of moments. The balance beam test (pretest and posttest) consisted of 25 items. Overall accuracy in solving balance beam problems improved after the inquiry-based lesson in the balance beam (BB) condition but not in the control condition. Classes, identified with latent transition analysis (LTA), appeared to be globally in line with previously identified strategies in the balance beam test. Condition was entered as a covariate in the LTA to identify which changes in strategy use could be attributed to the experimental intervention. First, changes from pretest to posttest were found, which supported that achange in strategy use occurred in some children. Second, there were more improvements in the BB condition, and these improvements indicated larger gains compared to the control condition. This means that in science education, it is important to map out prior knowledge and its effect on learning paths. Overall, results suggested thatconceptualchange could be measured as achange in strategy use and modeled with LTA to reveal that 26% of the children showedconceptualchange after a single inquiry-based lesson. (shrink)

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The theoretical status of ‘niche construction’ in evolution is intensely debated. Here we substantiate the reasons for different interpretations. We consider two concepts of niche construction brought to bear on evolutionary theory; one that emphasizes how niche construction contributes to selection and another that emphasizes how it contributes to development and inheritance. We explain the rationale for claims that selective and developmental niche construction motivateconceptualchange in evolutionary biology and the logic of those who reject these claims. (...) Our analysis shows how the contention arises from alternative assumptions regarding the causal independence of the processes that generate variation, differential fitness and inheritance. (shrink)

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Although mind-brain identity remains controversial, many other identities of ordinary things with scientific ones are well established. For example, air is a mixture of gases, water is H2O, and fire is rapid oxidation. This paper examines the history of 15 important identifications: air, blood, cloud, earth, electricity, fire, gold, heat, light, lightning, magnetism, salt, star, thunder, and water. This examination yields surprising conclusions about the nature of justification, explanation, andconceptualchange.

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What are the limits of Left Wittgensteinianism's point- and need-based account ofconceptualchange? Based upon Wittgenstein's account of certainty and the riverbed analogy forconceptualchange in On Certainty, the question is raised whether Queloz and Cueni's redevelopment of Left Wittgensteinianism can account for the multiplicitous forms ofchange these concepts are subject to. I argue that Left Wittgensteinianism can only partially do so, because it overemphasises the role of criticism-drivenconceptualchange, (...) due to its focus on the reason-based contingency of the practices of a local ‘we’. In response, it is argued that Left Wittgensteinianism should be fortified with (i) gradual changes to concepts' sociocultural constraints that concept-users are unaware of and (ii) evolutionary and environmental changes to the biological determinants of natural constraints ofconceptual cores. In the end, there areconceptual practices like holding for certain that are generally, and fully contingent, but simultaneously inevitable not only for ‘us’ but also for many other delimitations of ‘we’. Subsequently, the compatibility of this Wittgensteinian account ofconceptualchange with pragmatic genealogy is discussed. It is concluded that thinking aboutconceptual changes to practices cannot be about the possibility of criticism alone nor succeed without the inclusion thereof. (shrink)

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A major theme of recent philosophy of science has been the rejection of the empiricist thesis that, with the exception of terms which play a purely formal role, the language of science derives its meaning from some, possibly quite indirect, correlation with experience. The alternative that has been proposed is that meaning is internal to eachconceptual system, that terms derive their meaning from the role they play in a language, and that something akin to "meaning" flows from (...) class='Hi'>conceptual framework to experience. Much contemporary debate on the nature ofconceptualchange is a direct outgrowth of this holistic view of concepts, and much of the inconclusiveness of that debate derives from the lack of any clear understanding of what aconceptual system is, or of howconceptual systems confer meaning on their terms. (shrink)

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