Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Research traditions, incommensurability and scientific progress

  • Aufsätze
  • Published:
Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Summary

In hisProgress and its Problems, Laudan dismisses the problem of incommensurability in science by endorsing two general assertions. The first claims there are actually no incommensurable pairs of theories or research traditions; the second maintains that his problem-solving model of scientific progress would be able rationally to appraise even incommensurable pairs of theories or traditions (are compare them for their progressiveness). I argue here that Laudan fails to provide a plausible defence of either thesis, and that this creates some problems for his general approach.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Notably in Laudan's ‘A confutation of convergent realism’,Philosophy of Science 48 (1981), pp. 19–49.

  2. See, e.g., his ‘Why was the logic of discovery abandoned?’, in T. Nickles (ed.),Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  3. For a criticism of one such attempt, see my ‘Stegmüller on Kuhn and incommensurability’,Brit. J. Phil. Sci. 33 (1982), pp. 389–396.

    Google Scholar 

  4. From here on I shall deal exclusively with the views Laudan expresses inProgress and its Problems (University of California Press, 1977), and all quotations below are taken from that volume. I can find no evidence from Laudan's later writings that his opinions on incommensurability have substantially altered.

  5. For some of the difficulties involved in attempting a formal criterion of application, see my ‘Comments on a criterion of theoreticity’,Synthese 48 (1981), pp. 77–86.

  6. For an elaboration of this view, see, e. g., Guttings' review ofProgress and its Problems inErkenntnis 15 (1980), pp. 91–103.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Philosophie der Freien Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 30, D-1000, Berlin 33, Germany

    David Pearce

Authors
  1. David Pearce
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Pearce, D. Research traditions, incommensurability and scientific progress. Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 15, 261–271 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01801361

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01801361

Keywords

Search

Navigation