This dissertation looks at Aristotelian political thinkers of the later Middle Ages
and argues that they meet all of the criteria of a mature Kuhnian science. Scholars of
medieval Europe have spent decades arguing over exactly how one should define
medieval Aristotelianism and which thinkers qualify as Aristotelian. I answer this
question by turning to the philosophy of science literature. By using the criteria laid out
by Thomas Kuhn- a common education, a shared technical language and general
agreement on problem choice- I am able to parse out a group of political thinkers who
qualify as a scientific community. My dissertation then goes on to illustrate how several
different medieval thinkers were able to operate within this Aristotelian paradigm.
This project gives scholars of the Middle Ages a more useful lens through which
to view the phenomenon of medieval Aristotelianism. For those interested in political
science more broadly, I demonstrate that our field has, in fact, experienced a period of
maturity, in which scholars shared a unified paradigm and proceeded with their research in concert. I also show some of the benefits and limitations of a common research
agenda in the study of politics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2010-08-8350 |
| Date | 2010 August 1900 |
| Creators | Sullivan, Mary Elizabeth |
| Contributors | Nederman, Cary J. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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