?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.title=Review+of+Kitcher%3A+%22The+Advancement+of+Science%3A+Science+without+Legend%2C+Objectivity+without+Illusions%22&rft.creator=Dupre%2C+J.&rft.subject=Philosophy+of+Science&rft.description=Philip+Kitcher's+book+begins+with+a+familiar+historical+overview.+In+the+1940s+and+50s+a+confident%2C+optimistic+vision+of+science+was+widely+shared+by+philosophers+and+historians+of+science.+The+goal+of+science+was+to+discover+the+truth+about+nature%2C+and+over+the+centuries+science+had+advanced+steadily+towards+that+goal%3B+science+discerned+the+real+kinds+of+things+of+which+the+world+was+composed+and+the+causal+relations+between+them%3B+the+methods+of+science+were+rational+and+its+deliverances+objective%3B+and+so+on.+Only+where+science+failed+in+some+of+these+respects+was+there+any+need+to+provide+external%2C+that+is+social%2C+political%2C+or+individual%2C+explanations+of+scientific+belief.+In+the+late+50s%2C+and+especially+subsequent+to+Kuhn's+classic%2C+The+Structure+of+Scientific+Revolutions%2C+all+this+started+to+change.+Historians+increasingly+insisted+that+the+development+of+science+must+be+treated+just+like+any+other+cultural+process%2C+which+meant+embedding+the+narrative+of+the+growth+of+scientific+knowledge+fully+in+the+social+and+political+context+in+which+it+occurred.+This+suggested+that+the+view+of+science+as+deriving+from+a+uniquely+rational+process+could+no+longer+be+sustained.+And%2C+notoriously%2C+Kuhn+argued+that+science+could+not+be+seen+as+cumulative+across+the+most+dramatic+changes+in+scientific+theory.+Though+philosophers+have+never+given+up+entirely+on+the+old+optimistic+picture+(%22Legend%22+as+Kitcher+refers+to+it)%2C+its+influence+has+steadily+waned.+For+various+reasons+philosophers+have+become+increasingly+concerned+over+whether+one+could+believe+scientific+claims+to+be+literally+true.+And+influenced+by+Duhem's+thesis%2C+revived+by+Quine%2C+that+scientific+theory+must+always+be+underdetermined+by+empirical+evidence%2C+they+became+more+sympathetic+to+the+possibility+that+scientific+belief+must+be+explained%2C+at+least+in+substantial+part%2C+by+much+more+than+the+rational+objective+processes+envisioned+by+Legend.+These+philosophical+doubts+existed+in+uneasy+tension+with+more+extreme+tendencies+toward+thoroughgoing+relativism+or+skepticism%2C+and+with+the+movement+in+the+sociology+of+science+to+see+the+whole+concern+with+truth+and+falsity+as+an+irrelevant+diversion.&rft.date=1995&rft.type=Journal+(Paginated)&rft.type=PeerReviewed&rft.format=text%2Fhtml&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fcogprints.org%2F343%2F1%2FKITCHERrev.htm&rft.identifier=++Dupre%2C+J.++(1995)+Review+of+Kitcher%3A+%22The+Advancement+of+Science%3A+Science+without+Legend%2C+Objectivity+without+Illusions%22.++%5BJournal+(Paginated)%5D+++++&rft.relation=http%3A%2F%2Fcogprints.org%2F343%2F