2. The then ‘new philosophy of science’, starting in the early 1950s, and intending
to be a plausible alternative to the rapidly declining received view (cf. Suppe
1977). This current first comprised a more ‘internalist’ line, with authors such
as Quine, Putnam and Hanson, and—a few years later—a ‘historicist’ version,
grouping Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos and Stephen Toulmin, among others. A
more recent version of this current, vaguely called ‘post-Kuhnian philosophy of
science’, gives stronger emphasis to the historical and sociological aspects
introduced in the 1960s, and shifts the focus to the study of scientific practices,
values and language.