Kuhn's changing concept of incommensurability

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (4):759-774 (1993)
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Abstract

Since 1962 Kuhn's concept of incommensurability has undergone a process of transformation. His current account of incommensurability has little in common with his original account of it. Originally, incommensurability was a relation of methodological, observational and conceptual disparity between paradigms. Later Kuhn restricted the notion to the semantical sphere and assimilated it to the indeterminacy of translation. Recently he has developed an account of it as localized translation failure between subsets of terms employed by theories.

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Howard Sankey
University of Melbourne

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References found in this work

Ontological relativity.W. V. O. Quine - 1968 - Journal of Philosophy 65 (7):185-212.
Realism and truth.Michael Devitt - 1991 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
The Structure of scientific theories.Frederick Suppe (ed.) - 1974 - Urbana,: University of Illinois Press.

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