THIS PAPER IS A COMMENTARY ON LUDWIK FLECK'S ESSAY ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WHAT HE CALLS "THOUGHT-STYLES" AND SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL CONCEPTS. THE IDEA OF A "THOUGHT-STYLE" APPLIED TO CONCEPTS OF DISEASE IS THAT THEY ARE NOT ONLY VALUE-LADEN IN THE SENSE OF INCLUDING NORMATIVE DIMENSIONS. THEY ALSO EMBRACE BROAD SOCIAL FACTORS, AS WELL. I ARGUE THAT THOUGHT-STYLES SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD TO BE "OPEN-TEXTURED," ADMITTING A PLURALITY OF VALUE CONSIDERATIONS TO CONCEPTS OF DISEASE.

According to Fleck, a fact is not something objectively given but rather a social event. Scientific facts are no exception, as can be seen through the annals of medicine. Fleck argues that if the physical sciences initially appear to be immune to such social conditioning, this misconception can be corrected by recognizing the similarities between the natural sciences and medicine both historically and epistemologically. Fleck's ideas are not new, having been presented by him in 1935, but it is only recently (...) that they have begun to strike a responsive chord. Kuhn was aware of Fleck's work when he began to promulgate his own ideas in the 1960s. But there are important differences as well as similarities which can only be appreciated once Fleck's own work has had a proper hearing. To this end the University of Chicago Press has published a translation-edition of the full monograph in 1979. In ‘On the question of the foundations of medical knowledge’, Fleck's own precis to this major work, he correctly foretold the dawning of the sociology of cognition. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Few philosophers of science have influenced as many readers as Thomas S. Kuhn. Yet no comprehensive study of his ideas has existed--until now. In this volume, Paul Hoyningen-Huene examines Kuhn's work over four decades, from the days before The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to the present, and puts Kuhn's philosophical development in a historical framework. Scholars from disciplines as diverse as political science and art history have offered widely differing interpretations of Kuhn's ideas, appropriating his notions of paradigm shifts and (...) revolutions to fit their own theories, however imperfectly. Hoyningen-Huene does not merely offer another interpretation--he brings Kuhn's work into focus with rigorous philosophical analysis. Through extended discussions with Kuhn and an encyclopedic reading of his work, Hoyningen-Huene looks at the problems and justifications of his claims and determines how his theories might be expanded. Most significantly, he discovers that The Structure of Scientific Revolutions can be understood only with reference to the historiographic foundation of Kuhn's philosophy. Discussing the concepts of paradigms, paradigm shifts, normal science, and scientific revolutions, Hoyningen-Huene traces their evolution to Kuhn's experience as a historian of contemporary science. From here, Hoyningen-Huene examines Kuhn's well-known thesis that scientists on opposite sides of a revolutionary divide "work in different worlds," explaining Kuhn's notion of a world-change during a scientific revolution. He even considers Kuhn's most controversial claims--his attack on the distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification and his notion of incommensurability--addressing both criticisms and defenses of these ideas. Destined to become the authoritative philosophical study of Kuhn's work, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions both enriches our understanding of Kuhn and provides powerful interpretive tools for bridging Continental and Anglo-American philosophical traditions. (shrink)