Kuhn's paradigm as a parable for the Cold War: incommensurability and its discontents from Fuller's Tale of Harvard to Fleck's Unsung Lvov

Part of a special journal issue devoted to critical comments on Steve Fuller's book, Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History of Our Times (2000), argues that Thomas Kuhn renounced the fame & influence he won through his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970 [1962]) not so much be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social epistemology 2003-04, Vol.17 (2-3), p.99-109
Main Author: Babich, Babette
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cold War
Intellectual History
Kuhn, Thomas Samuel
Scientific Community
Scientific Development
Scientific Knowledge
Sociology of Science
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Summary:Part of a special journal issue devoted to critical comments on Steve Fuller's book, Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History of Our Times (2000), argues that Thomas Kuhn renounced the fame & influence he won through his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970 [1962]) not so much because the power of the ideas exceeded his individual genius, but because the ideas were not entirely his alone. It is argued that Fuller's work underestimates the influence of Ludwik Fleck on Kuhn, arguing that Kuhn's own lack of acknowledgement of Fleck's influence was based on a foundational incommensurability between the philosophical studies of science & Fleck's historico-social & praxis-oriented approach. Kuhn studied Fleck's The Genesis & Development of Scientific Fact (1935) during the intensifying constellation of ideological circumstances caused by the Cold War. Scholars missed the parallels between Fleck's & Kuhn's opinions on the communal dynamic of scientific practice. 58 References. L. A. Hoffman
ISSN:0269-1728
1464-5297
DOI:10.1080/0269172032000144018