SOC SCI H1G Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Thomas Kuhn, Battle Of Basian, Empiricism

• School: UC-Irvine
• Department: Social Science
• Course: SOC SCI H1G
• Professor: S T A N F O R D, P.B A R R E T T, J.

Document Summary

Transitions from beliefs is a sociological and psychological process. Review and quine: young people are excited about the new idea, old people have invested a lot in the old belief, kuhnian description of change in science, can"t claim that we believe in deliverances of scientific explanations. Kuhn gave explanation of change in science: claims about incommensurability essential for rest of his story. Decisions to give up on one set of theoretical beliefs in science: always reasons for adopting new paradigm. No objective or neutral standpoint from which to evaluate. Standards of good reasons are themselves paradigm-dependent if kuhn is right, no more than prejudice to say i prefer the way that maier formed his beliefs just a prejudice: doesn"t have empirical confirmation. Some of the grounds for incommensurability have more ground than others: claims about how we live in different worlds is over exaggeration.