Revolutions in Science: Science and Philosophy

Abstract

When we take a position contrary to the stance of radical empiricism, and accept the view that every scientific statement is theoretical in character, we cannot, then, accept the thesis that semantic correspondence remains preserved through all changes in the content of knowledge. Certain authors who accept this conclusion speak of the incommensurability of successive theories and treat such changes in the content of knowledge as the specific feature of scientific revolutions. Thus, for example, according to Kuhn, pre- and post-revolutionary paradigms provide just such non-corresponding, incommensurable world-perspectives. But if there is not, and cannot be, any supra-paradigmatic instance which could serve as a ‘neutral’ frame of reference for the appraisal of competing paradigms, then the revolutionary transition from the old to the new point of view cannot be a fully rational process. (The old paradigm no longer provides any criteria of rationality, while the new one is as yet incapable of providing them.) In order to explain revolutionary change, we must reach out beyond methodology and refer to the psychology of research.