RATIONALITY AND RELATIVISM IN STRUCTURE?

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7443/problemata.v14i4.66827

Keywords:

scientific rationality, epistemological relativism, incommensurability, Thomas Kuhn, Gerald Doppelt

Abstract

This paper examines Gerald Doppelt’s relativistic interpretation of the conception of scientific rationality in Thomas Kuhn’s The structure of scientific revolutions. I show that his reading implies that, in a dispute for paradigm, judgments of cognitive superiority are relative to views of science. I defend that this kind of relativism precludes any explanation of individual revolutionary changes from previous research guidelines to a new one based on epistemic reasons. I also argue that it does not capture phases of the revolutionary period. Finally, considering aspects of the phlogiston-oxygen controversy, I show that the epistemological incommensurability in the revolutionary period is not between paradigms that guided the scientific community in successive periods of normal science. Alternatively, I indicate that Kuhn's pronouncements can be construed from a pragmatist point of view to how scientists are not prisoners of their research commitments and relativistic situations in scientific controversies are transient.

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Published

2023-11-10

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 4 (2023): Thomas Kuhn: Science, History and the Scientific Community

Section

Papers

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