scholarly journals Kuhn’s Theory of Incommensurability: A Special Reference to Theory of Meaning

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Shabin Varghese
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Scientific Language ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
Epistemological Analysis ◽  
Meaning Variance ◽  
Traditional Understanding

The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962) is the famous work by Thomas Kuhn which challenged traditional understanding of science and philosophy of science. His research activities are wide-ranging; central to his notion of incommensurability are the ideas of meaning variance and lexicon, and the impossibility of translation of terms across different theories. It is closely related to the linguistic analysis of scientific language. The schematic nature of Kuhn’s work and his ongoing clarification of its key concepts fostered additional problems of understanding, interpretation, and attribution. This paper analyses the notion of scientific language in the context of incommensurability with special reference to the theory of meaning. Linguistic experts have not attempted to incorporate Kuhn’s incommensurability to address the issues related to epistemology. This Paper shows how Kuhn’s theory of incommensurability can be applied to linguistics to overcome the problems that arise due to similar lexical terms. It argues that Kuhn’s epistemological analysis of incommensurability, particularly the challenge of understanding the process of symbolization in scientific theories, when applied to linguistics can revolutionize the discipline itself which fills the existing knowledge gap.

A New Conceptual Context for the Sacramentality of Marriage

Horizons ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-236
Author(s):  
Joseph Martos
Keyword(s):  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Conceptual Frame ◽  
Traditional Understanding

AbstractThe traditional understanding of the sacramentality of marriage, introduced by Augustine, systematized by the medieval scholastics, and still central to Catholic institutional thought, has in recent years been criticized as being internally incoherent and externally counterfactual. These difficulties may be perceived within the frame of reference provided by Thomas Kuhn to be anomalies such as those that can be expected to appear during a transition from normal science to a new paradigm for explaining the data once satisfactorily accounted for by that science. A new paradigm or conceptual frame of reference is proposed for the sacramentality of marriage, and evidence is presented that this new paradigm is in fact emerging in the theological literature on marriage. The reader is cautioned, however, that the emerging paradigm of marriage's sacrmentality is not what it is usually thought to be.

scholarly journals Relevansi Pemikiran Thomas Khun Terhadap Penerapan Ijma’

Aqlania ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Mamnunah Mamnunah ◽  
Sufyan Sauri
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Islamic Science

Thomas Khun's famous thought is about the paradigm, in which Khun states that all knowledge possessed by a person must be based on a paradigm that is believed. If there is a new thing that cannot be solved by this paradigm, then it happens that Thomas Khun is called the scientific revolution. Thomas Khun's thoughts on the Ilmiyah Revolution have concepts and characteristics of thinking and new philosophical models that lead to new knowledge. It is in this phase that Thomas Kuhn calls it the historical phase of the birth of new knowledge, which starts with normal science, then anomalies and crises occur, after which a scientific revolution emerges as a form of birth of new knowledge. If examined more deeply, then Thomas Kuhn's thought has relevance to Islamic science, especially in the application of sources of Islamic laws, namely the application of ijma ', which is the paradigm that is possessed by Muslims in carrying out amaliyah and ubudiyah certainly based on the Qur'an and hadith , this is what Kuhn called normal science. However, when there are problems in daily life in matters of ubudiyah and amaliyah for Muslims who do not have texts or texts in the Koran and hadiths then from here anomaly and crisis will occur which will result in much debate among the scholars before obtaining a solution from the problems faced by Muslims, and then they do ijma 'which after the ijma results' have been obtained then there is the so-called scientific revolution, which reflects the shift of the paradigm of the Muslims from the old to the new paradigm, in the sense of where the Muslims in run amaliyah ubudiyah if there is no text or text in the alqu'an they will look for it in ijma 'ulama that has been done.

‘Nullius in verba’ and ‘nihil in verbis’: public understanding of the role of language in science

1994 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clive Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
School Science ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Public Understanding Of Science ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Scientific Language ◽  
The Public ◽  
Understanding Of Science

This paper is about how the motto of the Royal Society has sometimes been misread, but it is also about how such a misreading could arise at all, and why it persists. I argue that the error is intimately associated with a traditional view of scientific language as a medium for descriptive reporting, a view which has been very influential in schools, and is consequently perpetuated in the public understanding of science. Much new scholarship confirms that this ‘straightforward’ view of what scientists do can no longer be accepted at face value, and that the role of language in science is more intimate and subtle in its interpretive and persuasive qualities. A renewed study of the motto is interesting in itself, but it will also serve to introduce these wider matters. Perhaps it may help some more teachers to escape from those received ideas about language which have restricted the range of learning activities in school science, and discouraged a full attention to the words in which scientists choose to express their ideas.

scholarly journals Scientist As Parrhesiastes

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (25) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Francesco Scotognella
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
The World ◽  
Paul Feyerabend ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
First World

The scientific community of the XX and XXI centuries is a very large companionship, very fragmented and spread all over the world. Moreover, the status of the scientist, which in most cases is a member of the States’ apparati, is significantly different concerning the one of the scientists up to the First World War.The concepts of the scientific revolution of Thomas Kuhn and the scientific anarchy of Paul Feyerabend should be reconsidered in this contest. In particular, the anarchist modus operandi should be shifted from the scientific method, which has become significantly standardized with protocols, to the sociology of the scientific community. Pluralism of the scientific method is possible, but anarchy in the relationships among scientists emerges as more important. The scientist is in many cases a parrhesiastes, a person that says the truth even when he is going to pay because of that, that defends the developed theory or model, by respecting the protocols established in the scientific community. On the other side, each scientist should be a patient beholder that accepts the more solid, and intersubjectively recognized, theories of other scientists.

scholarly journals Scientist as Parrhesiastes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Scotognella
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
The World ◽  
Paul Feyerabend ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
First World

The scientific community of the XX and XXI centuries is a very large companionship, very fragmented and spread all over the world. Moreover, the status of the scientist, which in most cases is a member of the States’ apparati, is significantly different with respect to the one of the scientists up to the First World War.The concepts of scientific revolution of Thomas Kuhn and scientific anarchy of Paul Feyerabend should be reconsidered in this contest. In particular, the anarchist modus operandi should be shifted from the scientific method, that has become significantly standardized with protocols, to the sociology of the scientific community. A pluralism of the scientific method is possible, but an anarchy in the relationships among scientists emerges as more important. The scientist is in many cases a parrhesiastes, a person that says the truth even when he is going to pay because of that, that defends the developed theory or model, by respecting the protocols established in the scientific community. On the other side, each scientist should be a patient beholder that accepts the more solid, and intersubjectively recognized, theories of other scientists.

scholarly journals “Understanding opens a wide realm of possibilities ...”. Humanities and education in a functionalized world

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-640
Author(s):  
Christoph Hubig ◽  
Zeljko Radinkovic
Keyword(s):  
University Teaching ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Wilhelm Dilthey ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Understanding Of Science

Starting from Wilhelm Dilthey?s concept of understanding, the article inquires into modes of forming competencies within the experience of reflexive education. In line with moder?nity?s understanding of science, the text designates the role of sciences as instances of po?ssible real values (of optional values), whereby the spiritual sciences are ascribed the role of giving meaning by broadening horizons. The article questions the ground that allows for spiritual and pedagogical sciences within the commercialization of university teaching and research activities. In all this, functionalization conducts a process leading to the weakening of the constructive role of these sciences in the formation of competencies.

Incommensurability

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dudley Shapere
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Newtonian Mechanics ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
The World ◽  
Paul Feyerabend ◽  
Rival View

When one scientific theory or tradition is replaced by another in a scientific revolution, the concepts involved often change in fundamental ways. For example, among other differences, in Newtonian mechanics an object’s mass is independent of its velocity, while in relativity mechanics, mass increases as the velocity approaches that of light. Earlier philosophers of science maintained that Einsteinian mechanics reduces to Newtonian mechanics in the limit of high velocities. However, Thomas Kuhn (1962) and Paul Feyerabend (1962, 1965) introduced a rival view. Kuhn argued that different scientific traditions are defined by their adherence to different paradigms, fundamental perspectives which shape or determine not only substantive beliefs about the world, but also methods, problems, standards of solution or explanation, and even what counts as an observation or fact. Scientific revolutions (changes of paradigm) alter all these profoundly, leading to perspectives so different that the meanings of words looking and sounding the same become utterly distinct in the pre- and post-revolutionary traditions. Thus, according to both Kuhn and Feyerabend, the concepts of mass employed in the Newtonian and Einsteinian traditions are incommensurable with one another, too radically different to be compared at all. The thesis that terms in different scientific traditions and communities are radically distinct, and the modifications that have stemmed from that thesis, became known as the thesis of incommensurability.

scholarly journals Science Communication in South Africa: Reflections on Current Issues

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Weingart ◽  
Marina Joubert ◽  
Bankole Falade
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Language ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Understanding Of Science

Why do we need to communicate science? Is science, with its highly specialised language and its arcane methods, too distant to be understood by the public? Is it really possible for citizens to participate meaningfully in scientific research projects and debate? Should scientists be mandated to engage with the public to facilitate better understanding of science? How can they best communicate their special knowledge to be intelligible? These and a plethora of related questions are being raised by researchers and politicians alike as they have become convinced that science and society need to draw nearer to one another. Once the persuasion took hold that science should open up to the public and these questions were raised, it became clear that coming up with satisfactory answers would be a complex challenge. The inaccessibility of scientific language and methods, due to ever increasing specialisation, is at the base of its very success. Thus, translating specialised knowledge to become understandable, interesting and relevant to various publics creates particular perils. This is exacerbated by the ongoing disruption of the public discourse through the digitisation of communication platforms. For example, the availability of medical knowledge on the internet and the immense opportunities to inform oneself about health risks via social media are undermined by the manipulable nature of this technology that does not allow its users to distinguish between credible content and misinformation. In countries around the world, scientists, policy-makers and the public have high hopes for science communication: that it may elevate its populations educationally, that it may raise the level of sound decision-making for people in their daily lives, and that it may contribute to innovation and economic well-being. This collection of current reflections gives an insight into the issues that have to be addressed by research to reach these noble goals, for South Africa and by South Africans in particular.

scholarly journals Bioethics as the ‘Third Culture’: Integrating Science and Humanities, Preventing ‘Normative Violence’

Conatus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
George Boutlas
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Third Culture ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of Scientific Revolutions ◽  
The Two Cultures

Integrative Bioethics engages in descriptive and normative fields, or in two cultures, as Snow puts it in The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, announcing though, in his later writings the emergence of a third culture that can mediate between the two. Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions exposes the practice of a new paradigm of the teaching of history describing in fact the relation of science and humanities in the positivist era. The long standing reasons-causes debate that lay the groundwork of the implied incompatibility of the two cultures, as it reflects on the Collingwoodian anti-causalism of the philosophy of history, against Davidsonian causalism, may elucidate the problem of the ‘marriage’ of cultures. Taking a look on Collingwood’s absolute presuppositions and Carnap’s external to linguistic frameworks questions, will help us investigate the possibility of a coherent framework for integrated Bioethics. Can we frame a transdisciplinary field, where science and humanities as collaborating social practices, or as a new ‘cultural policy’ (according to Richard Rorty), will abstain from normative violence against each other?

scholarly journals The Scientific Revolution of Thomas Kuhn and Their Relevances for Humanization of Islamic Law

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 213-226
Author(s):  
Muhamad Ali Mustofa Kamal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Functional Interpretation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Times

This paper tries to explore the views of Thomas Kuhn that science is moving through the stages that will culminate in normal conditions and then "rot" because it has been replaced by science or new paradigm. So next. The new paradigm threatens the old paradigm that had previously become the new paradigm. With this thinking concept, Thomas Kuhn is not just a major contribution in the history and philosophy of science, but more than that, he has initiated the theories that have broad implications in the social sciences, arts, politics, education and even religious sciences , provide an important contribution in order to project humanization Islamic sciences. in showing Islamic humanist deconstruction re the primary sources of Islam, namely the Qur'an and Tafseer already should keep abreast of the needs of Muslim humanist paradigm so that the functional interpretation theories and theories of literacy is very possible to grow, to challenge the needs of the times.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document