Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:12:18.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

INCOMMENSURABILITY, RELATIVISM, AND THE EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY OF SCIENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2014

Steven Bland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our rational inquiries necessarily take place within conceptual and epistemic frameworks, including our rational inquiries into the frameworks themselves. This fact, together with the existence of incommensurable frameworks, is exploited by a Kuhnian argument for conceptual and epistemic relativism which can be used to threaten the epistemic authority of science. It will be argued, however, that this move can be blocked by means of dialectical arguments that provide non-circular rational support for scientific frameworks, both conceptual and epistemic. These arguments proceed by means of conceptual and methodological analyses that reveal the presuppositions that are shared by those who subscribe to incommensurable frameworks. The frameworks that are better able to capture these presuppositions are objectively better than their competitors, and it will be argued that the conceptual and epistemic frameworks of science have precisely this advantage.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 463 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnes, B. 1982. T.S. Kuhn and Social Science. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bird, A. 2011. ‘Thomas Kuhn's Relativistic Legacy.’ In Hales, S.D. (ed.), A Companion to Relativism, pp. 475–88. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bland, S. 2013. ‘Scepticism, Relativism, and the Structure of Epistemic Frameworks.’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A, 44: 539–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boghossian, P. 2006. Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, R. 1966. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Gardner, M. (ed.). New York, NY: Dover, 1995.Google Scholar
Coffa, J.A. 1991. The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, R. 1999. The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene. Revised Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DiSalle, R. 2002 a. ‘Conventionalism and Modern Physics: A Re-assessment.’ Noûs, 36: 169–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiSalle, R. 2002 b. ‘Newton's Philosophical Analysis of Space and Time.’ In Cohen, I.B. and Smith, G. (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Newton, pp. 33–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
DiSalle, R. 2006. Understanding Spacetime: The Philosophical Development of Physics from Newton to Einstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Feferman, S. 2008. ‘Tarski's Conceptual Analysis of Semantical Notions.’ In Patterson, D. (ed.), New Essays on Tarski and Philosophy, pp. 72–93. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, G. 1884. The Foundations of Arithmetic. Second Revised Edition. Trans. Austin, J.L.. Oxford: Blackwell, 1980.Google Scholar
Hoyningen-Huene, P. and Sankey, H. (eds) 2001. Incommensurability and Related Matters. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P. 2001. ‘Real Realism: The Galilean Strategy.’ The Philosophical Review 110: 151–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T.S. 1977. The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T.S. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Third Edition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakatos, I. 1978. ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.’ In Worrall, J. and Currie, G. (eds), The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1, pp. 8–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Luper, S. 2004. ‘Epistemic Relativism.’ Philosophical Issues, 14: 271–95.Google Scholar
Maddy, P. 2007. Second Philosophy: A Naturalistic Method. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R.E. and Wilson, T.D. 1977. ‘Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes.’ Psychological Review, 84: 231–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poincaré, H. 1902. Science and Hypothesis. Trans. Greenstreet, W.J.. New York, NY: Dover, 1952.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. 1938. Experience and Prediction: An Analysis of the Foundations and the Structure of Knowledge. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. 1989. Contingency, Irony, Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sankey, H. 2011. ‘Incommensurability and Theory Change.’ In Hales, S.D. (ed.), A Companion to Relativism, pp. 456–74. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sankey, H. 2013. ‘Methodological Incommensurability and Epistemic Relativism.’ Topoi, 32: 33–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheffler, I. 1967. Science and Subjectivity. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Schlick, M. 1925. General Theory of Knowledge. Second Edition. Trans. Blumberg, A.E.. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1985.Google Scholar
Shapere, D. 1984. Reason and the Search for Knowledge. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Siegel, H. 1987. Relativism Refuted. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Torretti, R. 1983. Relativity and Geometry. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar