An Analysis Of Kuhn 's Thought Of "Irreducibility"

Thomas Samuel Kuhn is one of the big four elite in Western science ofPhilosophy in modern,his most basic concept of the philosophy is undoubtedly the"paradigm",which is put forward in The Structure of The Scientific Revolutions.Basedon the paradigm,Kuhn put forward the theory of "normal science","crisis","scientificrevolution","incommensurability" an so on.According to Kuhn’s view,once thescientific theory rose to the status of paradigm, it cannot be abandoned by experience,and it can only be replaced by another paradigm.That is to say, whether it is in the stageof normal science or is still in the period of the scientific revolution, a paradigm cannever be eliminated due to be falsified.So, a new paradigm how to come up andchallenge the old one? In Kuhn’s view, is by the scientific revolution.He further pointedout that, if a theory overthrow another one through scientific revolution,these twotheories are incompatible in logic, in most cases they even cannot be compared, that isto say, due to the fundamental differences in conceptual structure,it cannot be comparedwith each other.This characteristics of incomparable, Kuhn called it"incommensurability".Because of the theory of Incommensurability was put forward, itcause the attention and discussion of the academia, and brought an upsurge of researchto the philosophy of science.American philosopher Brown says,since the term ofincommensurability is put forward, it has caused many famous people’s attention anddiscussion,and has drawn many criticism and misunderstanding, these are sufficient toshow the importance of the term in the philosophy of science. In his view, the theory ofincommensurability is even the point of intersection of some key issues in the history ofscience.:R·M·Briey,another philosopher of science,also pointed out, a lot of problemsfaced in the philosophy of science,is around the difficult brought about by the theory ofincommensurability to appear.Obviously,the theory of incommensurability has playedan important role in the field of philosophy of science. This article attempts from the perspective of incommensurability to grasp Kuhn’sscientific philosophy and the impact on philosophy,even in the wider field of sociology,cultural science, linguistics, etc. Thus, this article is divided into four parts to discussincommensurability:The first part mainly analyzes the theory of incommensurability how to putforward and and its theoretical basis.Why Kuhn can propose the theory ofincommensurability?On the one hand,Kuhn discovered that there are always someintermittent or leap during the development of science in his long-term research of thehistory of science,he has thought and researched about them.On the other hand, Kuhn’stheory of incommensurability is not passive water,and it has a profound and extensivetheoretical basis,the influence of which is Quin’s principle of "no translation",modernwestern psychology,his critique of empirical language of neutral observation and hisanalysis of the theory of meaning.The second part mainly discuss the the basic content of Kuhn’s theory ofincommensurability in detail. In this part,I will explains the meaning ofincommensurability and interpret the change of it In particular.Early, in the Structure ofScientific Revolution,Kuhn pointed out that the incommensurability reflected on theproblem and its solution standard, concept and world view,shows the theory ofincommensurability involves multiple meanings.Then, he emphasized,incommensurability specially display in the choice of theory. Later, after sufferingcriticism, Kuhn in order to seek a way out, on the one hand,he restricted theincommensurability within a local range; on the other hand, the incommensurabilitywas developed to intranslatability by him,it achieve the change from theincommensurability to intranslatability.During this period, due to the influence oflanguage analysis philosophy,Kuhn’s interpretation of incommensurability more focuson the language, he not only distinguishes between interpretation and translation, butalso explores where we can find the invariant in the translation. The third part focuseson analysis and illustrate the internal relations between incommensurability and Kuhn’sphilosophy,and the impact of Kuhn’s philosophy. The term "incommensurability" was introduced to philosophy of science by Kuhn, and occupies an extremely importantposition in Kuhn’s philosophy,it can say throughout the course of the its philosophy,especially in the late, Kuhn give his most attention on it,he use a lot of time and energyto modify and interpretation it.Related to paradigm,Kuhn pointed out that the followersof different paradigms can not achieve the exchange and communication, that is,theycan’t commensuration between each other, incommensurable is the basic attribute toparadigm.Related to the scientific revolution, Kuhn pointed out that on the one hand, asa result of the existence of incommensurability, the occurrence of the scientificrevolution is inevitable, on the other hand, he pointed out that the scientific revolutiongave iincommensurability the foundation of existence. Associated with the conceptof language, incommensurability makes Kuhn towards the whole language theory, andmake him realize the turning from philosophy of science to Philosophy of language.The fourth part mainly introduces the effects of "incommensurability", includinghis criticism and evaluation. Since incommensurability was put forward,it has arousedextensive attention in the academic circle,it is a stone arouses thousand layerwave.Lakatos, Feyerabend who lived in the same age with Kuhn,and Shapere,Putnamand so on in later,were studied this theory. Feyerabend agreed to Kuhn’s view, is one ofthe most powerful supporters incommensurability views, but Lakatos, Putnam andShapere were opposed to this view, think it will lead to relativism andirrationalism.However, whether Kuhn’s supporters or opponents, cannot deny that the ofextensive and profound discussion of incommensurability has a great influence, andthe arguments between different points of this view also left a vast space for furtherresearch.