Abstract

How can dogmatism open itself to the kind of revolutionary critique which claims to comprise science's most dramatic advance? And yet, how can revolutionary critique measure its success, if not against a frame of reference which can bridge the gap opened by the revolutionary break, and which thereby offers points of comparison? Thomas Kuhn's affirmation of the complementarity of dogmatism and criticism represents his attempt to answer these questions. ;Normal science undergoes crisis when it becomes subjected to a criticism that calls its competence into question on particular problems that had been understood to be within its competence. During such crises, the previous paradigm functions both to provoke the emergence of new paradigm-candidates, and sets the standards of achievement for what can qualify as a new paradigm. A new paradigm, therefore, is a response to a provocation. ;This provocation/response nexus distinguishes Kuhn's position from the conjecture/refutation dynamic of Popper. For Popper, frameworks are essentially restrictive, and framework-breaking is a steadily available opportunity. ;Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics rehabilitates this Popperian prejudice against frameworks by pointing out both the enabling function frameworks serve in experience, and the need to 'suffer' through them--as Kuhn argues on behalf of normal science. ;Unfortunately, Gadamer's understanding of the complementarity of dogmatism and criticism does not deploy the idea of revolution--which Kuhn also wants to affirm. Hans Blumenberg's hermeneutic position, however, does. Like Kuhn, Blumenberg believes that the complementarity indicated by the nexus of provocation and response underwrites the idea of revolution. However, he also deploys the concept of 'reoccupation' within the context of revolutionary breaks to reaffirm the requisite continuity--and comparability--that underwrites their claim to be progressive. Not only are new answers provided by a revolution, but questions are determined in new ways. Yet revolutions, for Blumenberg, only succeed when the "answers" projected respond to old questions by 'reoccupying' the answer positions of the old framework--not by re-confirming the questions, as Gadamer would have it, nor by simply canceling them, as Popper would