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Full Idea
In transitions between theories words change their meanings or applicability. Though most of the signs are used before and after a revolution - force, mass, cell - the ways they attach to nature has changed. Successive theories are thus incommensurable.
Gist of Idea
In theory change, words shift their natural reference, so the theories are incommensurable
Source
Thomas S. Kuhn (Reflections on my Critics [1970], §6)
Book Ref
'Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge', ed/tr. Lakatos,I. /Musgrave,A. [CUP 1974], p.266
A Reaction
A very nice statement of the view, from the horse's mouth. A great deal of recent philosophy has been implicitly concerned with meeting Kuhn's challenge, by providing an account of reference that doesn't have such problems.
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| 5940 | Two goods may be comparable, although they are not commensurable [Ross] |
| 17650 | We lack frames of reference to transform physics, biology and psychology into one another [Goodman] |
| 12128 | In theory change, words shift their natural reference, so the theories are incommensurable [Kuhn] |
| 6162 | Kuhn has a description theory of reference, so the reference of 'electron' changes with the descriptions [Rowlands on Kuhn] |
| 22184 | Incommensurability assumes concepts get their meaning from within the theory [Kuhn, by Okasha] |
| 7619 | Galileo's notions can't be 'incommensurable' if we can fully describe them [Putnam on Kuhn] |
| 3866 | If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith] |
| 4732 | One may understand a realm of ideas, but be unable to judge their rationality or truth [O'Grady] |
| 22185 | Two things can't be incompatible if they are incommensurable [Okasha] |