Abstract

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn maintains that we must learn to make sense of talk about scientists working in different worlds. He argues that the old epistemological paradigm, according to which scientists attempt to discover theory-independent truths, has severe anomalies and should be replaced with his "relativist" paradigm. The aim of this dissertation is to give a detailed account of the nature of scientist's worlds and to determine whether there are in fact strong reasons to talk about such worlds. ;After discussing several forms of relativism and elucidating Kuhn's key terms "paradigm" and "incommensurability", I argue that Kuhn's talk of worlds should be taken at face value and that, in is early work, he is committed to the strong type of relativism in which incompatible propositions can be true for people with different paradigms. I then turn to the question of how we create worlds in which such propositions can be true. The most plausible answer seems to be that we create them by making observations which are theory-laden because they are interpreted according to the concepts contained in our paradigms. These observations, or descriptions of them, form the data which justify sets of propositions according to the epistemic principles contained in these paradigms. Among the sets of propositions which are best justified according to a paradigm, the one which most closely corresponds to the beliefs of those who hold the paradigm contains the propositions which are true for that paradigm. A world consists of such a set of propositions and the observations which justify them. ;Once I have fleshed out this theory of worlds and relative truth, I show that problems of incommensurability do not prohibit meaningful inter-paradigm debates such as that between relativism and absolutism. There can be arguments which provide good reasons for and against adopting relativism. After considering a number of arguments taken from Kuhn, Goodman, and others, I find only one non-question-begging reason for adopting relativism. We have very strong intuitions that we can determine what is true and that if we want to be rational we should attempt to discover only what we can determine to be true. It turns out that we cannot determine what is absolutely true , but we can determine what is true in our relative worlds. Thus, we must be concerned about our own worlds when we determine that certain propositions are true and we should have this concern, if we want to be rational. ;None of the traditional arguments against relativism prove to be telling, though some do point out anomalies in the relativist's paradigm. When all of the evidence has been assembled, there seems to be no reason to believe that there are not absolute truths: however, the intuitions which justify our postulating relative worlds outweigh the intuitions which pose problems for relativism. Kuhn is right that we must learn to make sense of talk about multiple worlds. We are left with a kind of pragmatic relativism; there is one real world, but for practical purposes we do, and should, concern ourselves with the worlds we create by adopting paradigms.