RATIONALITY AND RELATIVISM IN STRUCTURE?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7443/problemata.v14i4.66827Keywords:
scientific rationality, epistemological relativism, incommensurability, Thomas Kuhn, Gerald DoppeltAbstract
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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