Many critics have maintained that Kuhn’s philosophy of science after The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has undergone important changes, above all concerning the incommensurability thesis. The following change is particularly important: according to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a scientist that works with a paradigm can not understand and use an incommensurable paradigm, whereas the latest Kuhn acknowledges the possibility of using two incommensurable paradigms at once (as the analogy with a bilingual suggests). However, this change is not so radical as it would seem at first sight. A tertium comparationis must be available to a bilingual, if he/she must be able to understand that a translation is de facto difficult or impossible, but Kuhn continues to deny the possibility of an independent point of view from which one can evaluate incommensurable paradigms. Moreover, the impossibility of translation in some contexts is tantamount to assume tacitly a knowledge that is not communicable in principle, an assumption that contradicts Kuhn’s acceptance of Wittgenstein’s critique of a private language.
Incommensurabilità, traducibilità e statuto del discorso epistemologico in Thomas Kuhn
BUZZONI, Marco
2000-01-01
Abstract
Many critics have maintained that Kuhn’s philosophy of science after The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has undergone important changes, above all concerning the incommensurability thesis. The following change is particularly important: according to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a scientist that works with a paradigm can not understand and use an incommensurable paradigm, whereas the latest Kuhn acknowledges the possibility of using two incommensurable paradigms at once (as the analogy with a bilingual suggests). However, this change is not so radical as it would seem at first sight. A tertium comparationis must be available to a bilingual, if he/she must be able to understand that a translation is de facto difficult or impossible, but Kuhn continues to deny the possibility of an independent point of view from which one can evaluate incommensurable paradigms. Moreover, the impossibility of translation in some contexts is tantamount to assume tacitly a knowledge that is not communicable in principle, an assumption that contradicts Kuhn’s acceptance of Wittgenstein’s critique of a private language.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
