The notion of inclusive conceptual fitness and its value to explain scientific change

Abstract

One of the characteristics of scientific change that is most impermeable to inclusion in a theoretic model that can account for scientific change is its social character. One interesting attempt to overcome this resistance is the one offered by David Hull, which is partly based upon his notion of inclusive conceptual fitness, a concept that he borrows from evolutionary biology extending it to apply to the conceptual development of science. Here I argue that, in effect, the notion of inclusive conceptual fitness contributes towards overcoming the aforementioned resistance, but only on condition that it is understood in a manner wider than Hull's and in such a way as to explicitly include its social dimension.