Guidelines:Historical Figure
This is where the introduction will go. We would suggest writing this last, as it will be concise condensation of the main points associated with your chosen philosopher/scientist. It should be no longer than 5 sentences. The point of this section is to function as a hook, so those doing research on scientific change can tell whether or not this philosopher is relevant to said research at first glance.
Contents
Historical Context
In this section, briefly describe the intellectual atmosphere that your philosopher came up in. Useful information would be a succinct mentioning of the prevailing philosophical views of scientific change at the time your thinker formulated their views, or any biographical information specifically relevant to the construction of their main philosophical ideas on scientific change. Remember, the Wiki is meant to function as a philosophical encyclopedia, not a historical one. There is no need to include any information that is superfluous or minimally relevant to your thinker’s particular ideas on scientific change. Also, at this point, do not mention other philosophers’ philosophical programs purely for the sake of comparison. The main goal of this section is to contextualize the foundational ideas that you detail in the next section. Ideally, this section will be collapsed when a viewer enters on the Wiki page, and thus the information in here will only be seen if they choose to expand it.]
Main Contributions to the Philosophy of Scientific Change
This section will make up the bulk of the article. Here you will describe the most renowned philosophical ideas on scientific change attributable to your thinker. It is most likely that your thinker had viewpoints on multiple aspects of scientific change (or in some cases, even changes to their initial views made later in their career). As such, it will be up to your discretion to break this section up to subsections. When categorizing elements of your thinker’s philosophy into subsections, try to use a problem-based approach. For example:
Karl Popper on Demarcation
The views of Popper on Demarcation
Paul Feyerabend on the Changeability of Method
The views of Feyerabend the Changeability of Method
Larry Laudan on Theory Appraisal
Laudan's views on Theory Appraisal
Philosopher X on problem Y
etc.
The main goal of this section is to get a fully unadulterated presentation of your philosopher’s fundamental contributions to the discourse on scientific change. Refrain from instigating a dialogue between your chosen philosopher and another thinker with contrary views. Also avoid going into detail about how your philosopher’s ideas were later built upon by other thinkers. There will be room to make mention of these things in the next section (see below).
Criticisms & New Directions
In this section, you can describe some of the shortcomings of your philosopher’s views on scientific change based on criticisms that were brought against them by other thinkers. From here you can describe how your thinker’s ideas either a) succumbed to those criticisms, and the prevailing views in the philosophy of science accordingly shifted in a new direction or b) were amended in order surmount those criticisms and grew in a modified form. You can leave readers with what is essentially a signpost, directing them toward a new article (or articles) that go into more detail about the new philosophical direction you mention (i.e. “For more information on this development, see [hyperlink to article X]”). Please practice restraint in this section. It is easy to start writing about the full-fledged contrasting views to your thinker’s ideas and before you know it you are writing a whole other article on the critics of your philosopher. The main goal of this section is to give readers an idea of any lasting impressions left by your thinker’s ideas, any obstacles that may or may not have brought their philosophy to a halt, and a sense of where to go next if they want to follow developments of this train of thought further. Like the Historical Context section, we also intend to have this section collapsed upon entry to the article and open to expansion only if the reader needs it.
