A Study On The Mode Of Thinking Relating To Neo-Historicism & Old Historicism Of Philosophy Of Science

The mode of thinking coexists with humans. Its emergence is accompanied by the appearance of human beings. And the latter requires updating their thinking mode and improves the thinking capability to go forward. As F. V. Engels mentioned 100 years ago, the only approach to achieve this is to study philosophy. And consequently, to probe the mode of thinking has been one of the eternal topics. The mode of thinking is a product of history and therefore keeps change with time. From the angle of thinking mode, this work carries out a systematic study and comparison analysis on two main branches in modern philosophy of science, the neo-historicism and old historicism of philosophy of science, systematically, to make some novel conclusions. Based on this, their significance on the creativity thinking and post-modernism of philosophy of science are clearly illustrated, and their drawbacks are clarified as well. To be concrete, it can be presented as the following 5 parts:Chapter 1 briefly introduces the formation and development of neo-historicism and old historicism of philosophy of science.Chapter 2 investigates three thinking modes of the old historicism of philosophy of science, that is, T. Kuhn's paradigm theory, I. Lakatos's thinking mode of scientific study creed, and P. Feyerabend's pluralistic methodology (recently called Flexible Mode of Thought), and illustrates its properties such as being historical, dynamic, organic, irrational, and relative.Chapter 3 discusses the thinking mode of neo-historicism of philosophy of science, such as Shapere's reason thinking mode, L. Laudan's research traditions theory, and demonstrates its properties like being historical, dynamic, organic, and rational.Chapter 4 compares those properties of the neo-historicism and old historicism of philosophy of science under the guideline of materialist dialectics. It is remarked that they are both the unity of the dynamic and static, of the historical and the logical, and of the whole and the elements. However, they differentiate in the core concepts, rationality and the view of scientific knowledge and truth.Chapter 5 illustrates the active effect of the thinking mode of historicism of philosophy of science on the creativity thinking, and on modern philosophy of science, and finally, points out its drawbacks.