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The Incommensurability Thesis: Has It Lost Its Bite?

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Abstract

Incommensurability constitutes the focal point of Kuhn’s departure from the prevailing traditions in Philosophy of Science. The paper traces the mathematical origin of the concept of “incommensurability” and philosophical environment that constrained the introduction of the idea in the literature. It then discusses the stages through which the concept of “incommensurability” evolved in Kuhn’s thought. The final account of “incommensurability,” viz., Kinds Theory of Incommensurability or Taxonomic Incommensurability, is also expounded, and some associated philosophical problems are discussed. We analyze two case studies, provide textual and historical evidence, and cite the work of scholars supporting the conceptual continuity across the revolutionary divide in both the case studies. Kuhn acknowledges the rigidity of his earlier position and softens his stand on incommensurability in his last formulation of the thesis, justifying the title of the paper that Kuhn’s thesis lost its bite. At the end of the paper, we discuss some of the philosophical problems arising out of it and make certain critical remarks on the final account.

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Notes

  1. Erkenntnis 45: v–viii, 1997.

  2. In Feigl and Maxwell (1962).

  3. Buchwald and Smith (1997), Buchwald (1992), Heilbron (1998), Sankey (1993), Paul Hoyningen-Huene’s account of the development of Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis from the 1970s to the early 1980s in Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions: Thomas S. Kuhn’s Philosophy of Science. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993 and Chen (1997).

  4. Ibid. p. 121.

  5. Ibid. p. 151.

  6. This is what Mary Hesse told Kuhn as he reported in his autobiographical discussion published in The Road Since Structure (2000) shortly after writing his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which he agreed he had not previously seen it that way.

  7. In Lakatos and Musgrave (1970).

  8. Cited in Matthews (2000).

  9. Kuhn (1992). Also, see Kuhn “Discussion” (1997), T. S. Kuhn, foreword to Hoyningen-Huene, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions, p. xi (quotation); and Hoyningen-Huene, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions, pp. 240, 254, Keith (1986), Nola (1990), and Bloor (1991).

  10. See Kuhn (1983b, 1989b, 1991b).

  11. Kuhn, T.S. Structure, ibid, p. 121.

  12. Shearman Memorial Lectures at University College London in 1987 and in “The plurality of worlds: an evolutionary theory of scientific discovery,” a book two-thirds completed at the time of his death. Also, see Hoyningen-Huene, “Thomas S. Kuhn” (cit. n. I), p. 241. Kuhn, “Afterwords” (cit. n. 18), pp. 314–319, 330, Hacking, Ian “Working in a new world” (cit. n. 18), pp. 283–297 and Chien (1997).

  13. Kuhn (1987a); italics mine.

  14. For Kant’s objection and Euler’s redefinition of mass, and other more positivist attempts at the same such as Mach’s, see the history of the concept of mass in Jammer (1961), especially Chaps. 7 and 8.

  15. Kitcher (1978), especially pp. 529–547.

  16. Ibid p. 317.

  17. Ibid, (1993), p. 330.

  18. Ibid, p. 331.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers of the paper and the editor of the journal for their incisive and constructive comments.

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  1. Logic and Philosophy Science, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, Maharashtra State, India

    Amitabha Gupta

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Gupta, A. The Incommensurability Thesis: Has It Lost Its Bite?. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 32, 59–77 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-015-0007-9

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