Abstract
As a graduate student it was with great pleasure that I learned that John Watkins had decided to thank me publicly for helping him with a paper on Kuhn’s view.1 The help, such as I could give, was in Popper’s seminar, twenty-five years ago. Watkins himself, and several others, contributed much more to the seminar than I did. (The seminar was run on the principle — to repeat J.O. Wisdom’s quip — “thou shalt not speak whilst I interrupt”). Watkins was not just kind but generous in thanking me and I appreciated it very much then, as a mere graduate student. But over the years, I find that I appreciate it even more, especially as I compare it with practice common among philosophers. It is ironic that by the time Watkins’ paper appeared (something resembling his view had by then already become the official reading of Kuhn’s views among philosophers of science) my own views about Kuhn’s book had changed.
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Notes
J.W.N. Watkins, ‘Against Normal Science’, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1975), p. 25. The seminars were held in October, 1963 in the series of fortnightly seminars that Popper chaired.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (Chicago, Ill.: U. of Chicago Press, 1962).
Most mentioned as precursors are L. Fleck and M. Polanyi.
Seen. 1.
‘Consolations for the Specialist’, p. 200, op. cit.
T.S. Kuhn, The Essetial Tension, (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1977).
Edward Davenport, ‘Literature as Thought Experiment’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 13,1983.
Jagdish N. Hattiangadi, How is Language Possible? An Account of the Evolution of Language and Knowledge. (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1987), Chapter 8, ‘Empiricism from a Biological Perspective’.
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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Hattiangadi, J.N. (1989). Kuhn Studies. In: D’Agostino, F., Jarvie, I.C. (eds) Freedom and Rationality. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 117. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2380-5_12
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