Historian and Philosopher of Science

Mark Nader Basafa

I work on Thomas S. Kuhn, twentieth-century philosophy of science, scientific historicism, and the intellectual formation of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. My research reconstructs Kuhn’s pre-Structure development through archival evidence, with special attention to Harvard’s philosophical milieu, critical realism, historicism, Cassirer, Fleck, Lovejoy, Koyré, Sarton, and Conant.

My recent work combines archival research and systematic philosophy to reconstruct scientific rationality as historically generated, collectively stabilized, symbolically mediated, and professionally transmitted. My current research extends this framework to artificial intelligence through the concepts of digital thought collectives, co-thinking, and constrained rational normativity.

Selected Publications

Thomas Kuhn’s Early Engagement with Ludwik Fleck: An Archival Reconstruction

JGPS: Journal for General Philosophy of Science. Accepted. Forthcoming 2027.

Kuhn’s Marginal Cassirer: From Symbolic Forms to Scientific Revolutions

HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science. Accepted. Forthcoming 2027.

Fleck’s Legacy in Kuhn’s Historicism

Book chapter for Ludwik Fleck and the Historiography of Science: The Theory of Thought Styles and Thought Collectives at the Centennial. Accepted. Forthcoming 2027.

Reading History Backward: Kuhn's Marginal Cassirer and the Epistemology of Historical Reconstruction

In Book of Abstracts, Learning from History: The Philosophies of Historiography and the Historical Sciences, Ostrava, Czech Republic, November 2026.

Download Abstract

Why Susanne K. Langer Needed Wittgenstein: An Early Challenge to Analytic Philosophy

In 50 Years Wittgenstein Symposium, Beiträge der Österreichischen Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft / Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Vol. XXXII, edited by Christian Kanzian, Volker Munz, Joseph Wang-Kathrein. Kirchberg/W.: ALWS. 2026. Download paper

Susanne K. Langer between Cassirer, Mannheim, Sutton, Fleck, and Kuhn: Interpreting Symbols, Ideology, and Scientific Change

In Book of Abstracts Susanne K. Langer Conference, Vienna, 2026. Download paper

Historicizing the Invisible: Cognition and Transformation in Thomas Kuhn

Religions 17(2): 210. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17020210. 2026.

Susanne K. Langer, The Vienna Circle, and The Practice of Philosophy

In Feminist Philosophy — Language, Knowledge, and Politics, Beiträge der Österreichischen Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft / Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Vol. XXXI, edited by Isabel G. Gamero, Amadeusz Just, and Jasmin Trächtler in cooperation with Joseph Wang-Kathrein. Kirchberg/W.: ALWS. 2025. Download paper

Thomas Kuhn’s “pre-Structure” Affinities with Arthur Lovejoy’s Critical Realism

HoST – Journal of History of Science and Technology, 19(1), 2025.DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/host-2025-0007

Preprints

Before Paradigms: Mannheim and the Perspectival Origins of Constrained Rational Normativity

Preprint, 2026. Download abstract

When Best Science Becomes Opaque: Hybrid Science and the Non-Naturalistic Metaphysics of Scientific Practice

Preprint, 2026. Download abstract

Close to Progress, Every Step of the Way: Project Mohole and the Noarmativity of Scientific Committment

Preprint, 2026.

Digital Thought Collectives and the Reconfiguration of Scientific Rationality

Preprint, 2026. Download abstract

Copyedited books in 2024 & 2025

Carnap Handbook

Download: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-72937-3

Edited by Christian Damböck and Georg Schiemer.

Ways of the Scientific World-Conception: Rudolf Carnap and Otto Neurath

Download: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/94504

Edited by Johannes Friedl, Christian Damböck, and Ulf Höfer.

CV

Ph.D. Philosophy

University of Vienna. Dissertation: Kuhn’s Harvard and the Resolution of a Historicist Scientific Era in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions supervised by Christian Damböck and Friedrich Stadler. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25365/THESIS.80455

M.A. History and Philosophy of Science

University of Vienna. Thesis: A Theory of Types of Scientific Change and its Application to String Theory supervised by Richrd Dawid. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25365/thesis.42578

B.A. Philosophy

California State University, Long Beach, mentored by Paul C. L. Tang.

Download public CV

Contact

For academic correspondence, collaboration, or requests concerning publications and manuscripts, please use the form below.

You may also write directly to: markbasafa@gmail.com