Determinate negation is a significant principle of Hegel's dialectic. It is believed that all developments of human knowledge undergo the claims under this principle, in that the recognition of an internal contradiction in a community's beliefs leads to a resolution of that contradiction. The resolution is then followed by a positive, unique and necessary result. My thesis examines determinate negation in relation to scientific revolutions. I argue against Michael Rosen criticisms against determinate negation applicability to science and compare the effects of my argument to Thomas Kuhn's perspective on why Kuhn believes normal science is incapable of critically appraising the state of its development toward truth. The responses to Rosen and Kuhn also bring up an interesting question as the whether scientific revolutions could lead to moments of regression and whether a regression is also gives us reason to deny that there actually determinate negations at work in scientific revolutions. In addition, we consider how the question about regressions becomes quite relevant to Stanford's anti-realist argument, the problem of unconceived alternatives. We examine and discuss Stanford's argument as well as a possible response, which Hegel might provide to this anti-realist argument.
