Fans pick 100 books like The Road Since Structure

By Thomas S. Kuhn, James Conant (editor), John Haugeland (editor)

Here are 100 books that The Road Since Structure fans have personally recommended if you like The Road Since Structure. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Scientific Revolution

K. Brad Wray Author Of Kuhn's Intellectual Path: Charting The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

From my list on science studies.

Why am I passionate about this?

In Denmark, I teach at the Center for Videnskabsstudier. “Videnskabsstudier” is often translated as Science Studies. It thus connotes a rather broad field, which includes philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of science. And the notion of “videnskab”, which is frequently translated as science is interpreted rather broadly, to include, in addition to the natural science, the social sciences, and the humanities, indeed, basically any field one might study at a university. In fact, my own research intersects with and is influenced by research in all these fields.

K.'s book list on science studies

K. Brad Wray Why did K. love this book?

Shapin makes the audacious claim that there never really was a scientific revolution in Early Modern Europe, despite the fact that “the scientific revolution” has been a central organizing idea in the history of science and the history of Western culture more generally.

His provocative book provides a useful and engaging assessment of the utility of the concept of “the scientific revolution” for making sense of developments in the history of science.  He challenges us to think about the place of radical changes in the history of science, and whether the claims scientists make about such changes are merely rhetorical constructions.

Despite Shapin’s arguments, I am inclined to think something very significant happened in the sciences in the 16th and 17th Centuries, something that deserves to be called “revolutionary”. But Shapin’s book will certainly make readers reflect on what they mean by scientific revolution.

By Steven Shapin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Scientific Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it." With this provocative and apparently paradoxical claim, Steven Shapin begins his bold vibrant exploration of early modern science. In this classic of science history, Shapin takes into account the culture - the variety of beliefs, practices, and influences - that in the 1600s shaped the origins of the modern scientific worldview.


Book cover of Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth

K. Brad Wray Author Of Kuhn's Intellectual Path: Charting The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

From my list on science studies.

Why am I passionate about this?

In Denmark, I teach at the Center for Videnskabsstudier. “Videnskabsstudier” is often translated as Science Studies. It thus connotes a rather broad field, which includes philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of science. And the notion of “videnskab”, which is frequently translated as science is interpreted rather broadly, to include, in addition to the natural science, the social sciences, and the humanities, indeed, basically any field one might study at a university. In fact, my own research intersects with and is influenced by research in all these fields.

K.'s book list on science studies

K. Brad Wray Why did K. love this book?

Psillos defends a view called scientific realism.

Scientific realists generally assume that the growth of scientific knowledge is continuous and cumulative, with no significant setbacks. Discoveries in science generally add on to our current understanding of the world. Scientific realists generally regard scientific revolutions or paradigm changes as a threat to the rationality of science as such changes seem to imply that scientists have had a fundamentally flawed understanding of the world.

Psillos presents one of the most comprehensive and strongest cases for realism. Anyone who is serious about defending a view of the development of science that involves periodic revolutionary changes of theory, as I do, has to take Psillos’ arguments very seriously.

By Stathis Psillos,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scientific Realism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track: that the world really is the way our best scientific theories describe it . In his book, Stathis Psillos gives us a detailed and comprehensive study which restores the intuitive plausibility of scientific realism. We see that throughout the twentieth century, scientific realism has been challenged by philosophical positions from all angles: from reductive empiricism, to instrumentalism and to modern sceptical empiricism.
Scientific Realism explains that the history of science does not undermine the arguments for scientific realism, but instead makes it reasonable to accept scientific…


Book cover of Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States

K. Brad Wray Author Of Kuhn's Intellectual Path: Charting The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

From my list on science studies.

Why am I passionate about this?

In Denmark, I teach at the Center for Videnskabsstudier. “Videnskabsstudier” is often translated as Science Studies. It thus connotes a rather broad field, which includes philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of science. And the notion of “videnskab”, which is frequently translated as science is interpreted rather broadly, to include, in addition to the natural science, the social sciences, and the humanities, indeed, basically any field one might study at a university. In fact, my own research intersects with and is influenced by research in all these fields.

K.'s book list on science studies

K. Brad Wray Why did K. love this book?

Zuckerman provides a comprehensive study of the American scientists who won Nobel prizes between 1907 and 1972.

The book provides a window into the personalities of the people doing Nobel prize-winning research, as well as the sort of environments in which they were socialized and educated. Nobel laureates have tended to study and work with other Laureates or future Laureates. She also discusses the impact that winning a Nobel prize has on scientists, and the effects of the prize are not wholly positive.

The book also demonstrates the potential power of sociological analyses. Zuckerman creatively combines interview data with quantitative analyses. I think Zuckerman’s books are a fantastic example of how to conduct empirical research in sociology and the social sciences more generally.

By Harriet Zuckerman (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scientific Elite as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Scientific Elite is about Nobel prize winners and the well-defined stratification system in twentieth-century science. It tracks the careers of all American laureates who won prizes from 1907 until 1972, examining the complex interplay of merit and privilege at each stage of their scientific lives and the creation of the ultra-elite in science.

The study draws on biographical and bibliographical data on laureates who did their prize-winning research in the United States, and on detailed interviews with forty-one of the fifty-six laureates living in the United States at the time the study was done. Zuckerman finds laureates being successively advantaged…


Book cover of The Book Nobody Read

K. Brad Wray Author Of Kuhn's Intellectual Path: Charting The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

From my list on science studies.

Why am I passionate about this?

In Denmark, I teach at the Center for Videnskabsstudier. “Videnskabsstudier” is often translated as Science Studies. It thus connotes a rather broad field, which includes philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of science. And the notion of “videnskab”, which is frequently translated as science is interpreted rather broadly, to include, in addition to the natural science, the social sciences, and the humanities, indeed, basically any field one might study at a university. In fact, my own research intersects with and is influenced by research in all these fields.

K.'s book list on science studies

K. Brad Wray Why did K. love this book?

Gingerich discusses both the reception of Copernicus’ heliocentric theory, as well as his own extensive research on Copernicus’ book, De Revolutionibus.

Over the course of several decades, Gingerich studied hundreds of copies of the first and second editions of Copernicus’ famous book in an effort to constructive a comprehensive census of the existing copies. These books can now sell for millions of dollars.

Gingerich was motivated in part by earlier studies of the annotations in various copies of the first edition of De Revolutionibus. Some of these contain many detailed annotations, indicating that the book was often studied with great care, contrary to a popular view that the book was seldom read. Further, he was able to reconstruct social networks by noting which copies contained the exact same annotations as other copies.

Gingerich makes the reader feel the excitement of archival research, as his book reads like a…

By Owen Gingerich,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Book Nobody Read as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

1543 saw the publication of one of the most significant scientific works ever written: De revolutionibus (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), in which Nicolaus Copernicus presented a radically different structure of the cosmos by placing the sun, and not the earth, at the centre of the universe. But did anyone take notice? Harvard astrophysicist Owen Gingerich was intrigued by the bold claim made by Arthur Koestler in his bestselling The Sleepwalkers that sixteenth-century Europe paid little attention to the groundbreaking, but dense, masterpiece. Gingerich embarked on a thirty-year odyssey to examine every extant copy to prove Koestler wrong-Logging…


Book cover of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Joe Jackson Author Of A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen

From my list on mystery and chaos of scientific inquiry.

Why am I passionate about this?

My father was a NASA scientist during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, so while most people knew the Space Race as a spectacle of thundering rockets and grainy lunar footage, I remember the very human costs and excitement of scientific progress. My space-cadet years come in snippets–the emotional break in my dad’s voice when Neil Armstrong hopped around the Moon; the strange peace I felt as I bobbed on a surfboard and watched another Saturn 1b flame into the sky. Later, as a journalist and author, I would see that such moments are couched in societal waves as profound and mysterious as the wheeling of hundreds of starlings overhead. 

Joe's book list on mystery and chaos of scientific inquiry

Joe Jackson Why did Joe love this book?

On the surface, this seems a dry treatise on the process of scientific change, but as you get into it, you encounter again and again the stories of hardheaded researchers convinced that the world explained by current theory just doesn’t make sense and shows how they were driven, often reluctantly, to make sense of things. Priestley’s and Lavoisier’s experiments are included with many others but always set within the framework of a discipline in a “crisis” that needs to be resolved.

The personal costs are not neglected–ridicule, isolation from the accepted “establishment,” sometimes far worse. Scientific progress is often portrayed as a triumph of individual imagination confirmed by wider testing and collaboration. Kuhn’s work took that self-serving myth and tossed it out the window.

By Thomas S. Kuhn,

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were-and still are. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. And fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Kuhn challenged long-standing…


Book cover of Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice

Deirdre N. McCloskey Author Of The Rhetoric of Economics

From my list on the rhetoric of science (from a distinguished professor).

Why am I passionate about this?

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics and of History, and Professor Emerita of English and of Communication, adjunct in classics and philosophy, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Trained at Harvard in the 1960s as an economist, she has written twenty-four books and some four hundred academic and popular articles on economic history, rhetoric, philosophy, statistical theory, economic theory, feminism, queer studies, liberalism, ethics, and law.

Deirdre's book list on the rhetoric of science (from a distinguished professor)

Deirdre N. McCloskey Why did Deirdre love this book?

Collins is a brilliant and lucid exponent of the (mainly British) “strong programme” in the sociology of science. He is one of the numerous “children of Kuhn,” in the sense that like Kuhn he understands scientists to be (usually) honest and serious human beings, not machines implementing an alleged Scientific Method.

By Harry Collins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Changing Order as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This fascinating study in the sociology of science explores the way scientists conduct, and draw conclusions from, their experiments. The book is organized around three case studies: replication of the TEA-laser, detecting gravitational rotation, and some experiments in the paranormal. "In his superb book, Collins shows why the quest for certainty is disappointed. He shows that standards of replication are, of course, social, and that there is consequently no outside standard, no Archimedean point beyond society from which we can lever the intellects of our fellows."--Donald M. McCloskey, Journal of Economic Psychology


Book cover of We Have Never Been Modern

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm Author Of The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences

From my list on to shatter the myth of modernity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an award-winning historian and philosopher of the human sciences. But I got here by means of an unusually varied path: working for a private investigator, practicing in a Buddhist monastery, being shot at, hiking a volcano off the coast of Africa, being jumped by a gang in Amsterdam, snowboarding in the Pyrenees, piloting a boat down the canals of Bourgogne, playing bass guitar in a punk band, and once I almost died from scarlet fever. Throughout my journey, I have lived and studied in five countries, acquired ten languages, and attended renowned universities (Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford), all while seeking ways to make the world a better place.

Jason's book list on to shatter the myth of modernity

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm Why did Jason love this book?

The late French philosopher Bruno Latour was infamous for his iconoclastic work in the history and sociology of science and technology.

If you read only one of his books, I’d say go for We Have Never Been Modern because it cuts to the heart of things by disrupting the conventional understanding of modernity as a clear separation between nature and culture. Latour argues that even as “moderns” have been rhetorically invested in this particular bifurcation of the world, nature-culture hybrids are continually proliferating.

So if you’ve ever asked yourself, why are cities not considered natural landscapes? Or why are animals always presumed to be without culture? Or what does it even mean to be modern? Then this is the book for you.

By Bruno Latour, Catherine Porter (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked We Have Never Been Modern as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With the rise of science, we moderns believe, the world changed irrevocably, separating us forever from our primitive, premodern ancestors. But if we were to let go of this fond conviction, Bruno Latour asks, what would the world look like? His book, an anthropology of science, shows us how much of modernity is actually a matter of faith.

What does it mean to be modern? What difference does the scientific method make? The difference, Latour explains, is in our careful distinctions between nature and society, between human and thing, distinctions that our benighted ancestors, in their world of alchemy, astrology,…


Book cover of The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision

Cindy Engel Author Of Wild Health: How Animals Keep Themselves Well and What We Can Learn from Them

From my list on science books that join the dots.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been interested in the overview, the joined-up, the patterns, trends, and directions rather than the details of things. As a biologist, this led me to study animal behaviour rather than molecules. Great things come from the cross-overs between disciplines. Bridges are there to be made between islands of knowledge. Both my books (Wild Health and Another Self) are books that bridge a huge divide between knowledge acquired from reductionist research and that gained by experience. We humans use both.

Cindy's book list on science books that join the dots

Cindy Engel Why did Cindy love this book?

This science book is so joined up that its subtitle is A Unifying Vision.

The authors draw together a broad range of scientific disciplines to present a holistic view of how life emerged and, more importantly, how life is organized. You might be surprised to hear that biologists still don’t know how life organizes itself. The question is usually left to philosophers rather than biologists. So it's good to read all this material brought into one place.

By Fritjof Capra, Pier Luigi Luisi,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Systems View of Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Over the past thirty years, a new systemic conception of life has emerged at the forefront of science. New emphasis has been given to complexity, networks, and patterns of organisation, leading to a novel kind of 'systemic' thinking. This volume integrates the ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life into a single coherent framework. Taking a broad sweep through history and across scientific disciplines, the authors examine the appearance of key concepts such as autopoiesis, dissipative structures, social networks, and a systemic understanding of evolution. The implications of the systems view of life for health care, management,…


Book cover of The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age

Martín López Corredoira Author Of The Twilight of the Scientific Age

From my list on the decline of science.

Why am I passionate about this?

Apart from my professional expertise as a philosopher, I have directly observed science by working as a professional researcher in Physics and Astronomy. In any field, either arts, science, humanities, literature,... I observe the same thing: decline, ugliness, lack of spirit, lack of great intellectual achievements, and stupidity. Of course, we have technology, medicine, engineering, the Internet, and material things… and they are better than ever, but our culture and spirit are dying. Science is part of this culture, which is also in decadence, and working as a scientist and reading Spengler is a good combination to realize it.

Martín's book list on the decline of science

Martín López Corredoira Why did Martín love this book?

In my opinion, Horgan’s book is of great value, and I find it an important reference in considering the subject of “the end of science.”

This book is brave and lucid, with plenty of good ideas on topics related to the limits of knowledge in science. The intuition that the scientific age is declining is prophetic, I guess, but not so the causes Horgan gives. It is possible the limits of knowledge is one of the causes, but there is much more behind the twilight of science, and I think it is more related to being sated with knowledge rather than to the limits of knowledge.

It is more a sociological/anthropological question than a pure debate about whether there remain scientific problems to be solved. 

By John Horgan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The End Of Science as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The End of Science, John Horgan makes the case that the era of truly profound scientific revelations about the universe and our place in it is over. Interviewing scientific luminaries such as Stephen Hawking, Francis Crick, and Richard Dawkins, he demonstrates that all the big questions that can be answered have been answered, as science bumps up against fundamental limits. The world cannot give us a "theory of everything," and modern endeavors such as string theory are "ironic" and "theological" in nature, not scientific, because they are impossible to confirm. Horgan's argument was controversial in 1996, and it remains…


Book cover of Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress

Angela Potochnik Author Of Idealization and the Aims of Science

From my list on exploring strange features of science.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a philosopher before I knew what philosophers were: asking questions to challenge the starting points for conversations. My biggest pet peeve has always been people who were sure they entirely understood something. While scientists conduct science to help learn about the world, philosophers of science like me study science to try to figure out how it works, why (and when) it’s successful, and how it relates to human concerns and society. Humans ultimately invent science, and I think it’s fascinating to consider how its features relate to our interests and foibles and how it’s so successful at producing knowledge and practical abilities. 

Angela's book list on exploring strange features of science

Angela Potochnik Why did Angela love this book?

This book takes what seems to be an incredibly basic feature of the world—temperature—and shows how a tremendous amount of scientific ingenuity and choices made over two centuries contributed to defining and measuring temperatures.

Showing how concepts taken for granted today emerged over time and could have been different helps reveal how little of what we know comes from direct observation. 

By Hasok Chang,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Inventing Temperature as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What is temperature, and how can we measure it correctly? These may seem like simple questions, but the most renowned scientists struggled with them throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In Inventing Temperature, Chang examines how scientists first created thermometers; how they measured temperature beyond the reach of standard thermometers; and how they managed to assess the reliability and accuracy of these instruments without a circular reliance on the instruments themselves.

In a discussion that brings together the history of science with the philosophy of science, Chang presents the simple yet challenging epistemic and technical questions about these instruments, and…


Book cover of The Scientific Revolution
Book cover of Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth
Book cover of Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States

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