Abstract

Although Kuhn, Lakatos and Laudan disagree on many points, these three widely accepted accounts of scientific growth do agree on certain key features of scientific revolutions. This minimal agreement is sufficient to place stringent restraints on the historical development of science. In particular it follows from the common features of their accounts that scientific history can never repeat. Using the term 'supertheory' to denote indifferently the large scale historical entitites employed in all three accounts, it is shown that a supertheory cannot succeed itself, or reappear after a number of intervening scientific revolutions. The relation of these arguments to the details of the three accounts is briefly examined.