Kuhn’s initial concept of incommensurability attracted heavy criticism, leading him to shift focus toward untranslatability and unmappability of scientific terms across traditions.
Evidence
The Incommensurability of Scientific Theories (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
- XREF: connects to: Existing theories of gravity and quantum mechanics are inconsistent. — Hawking, Stephen, A Brief History of Time, 37; Quine’s indeterminacy of translation and Kuhn’s incommensurability are logically distinct yet intellectually related, blurring the line between mere translation difficulty and true incommensurability. — Language Log: Incommensurability and indeterminacy
Related
- Quine’s indeterminacy of translation and Kuhn’s incommensurability are logically distinct yet intellectually related, blurring the line between mere translation difficulty and true incommensurability. (similarity 0.94)
- Without empirical refutation of either general relativity or quantum mechanics, it is the incommensurability between the theories that has most driven theoretical physics forward. (similarity 0.80)