Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:06:53.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Real Virtue of Friedman's Neo-Kantian Philosophy of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Buket Korkut
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Michael Friedman has recently developed a neo-Kantian conception of science as a rival to holistic accounts. According to Friedman, the main virtue of his neo-Kantian philosophy is that it resolves the problem of incommensurability. A close reading of Friedman's work, however, indicates that his account surprisingly accomplishes the opposite of what he believes to have defended. This article will argue that the real virtue of Friedman's neo-Kantian account of scientific theories is not that it resolves the problem of incommensurability but that it provides an elegant philosophical account much needed to substantiate Thomas Kuhn's historical thesis of incommensurability.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

My gratitude goes to Don Howard for his positive comments on the earliest version of this article and to the participants of the History and Philosophy of Science discussion group at the University of Notre Dame for their feedback on a presentation of my main argument. I am particularly grateful to David Solomon, Elijah Millgram, James Barham, Karl Ameriks, Matthew Capdevielle, and Robert Nola for their valuable comments on this article. I would also like to thank the reviewers and editors of Philosophy of Science for their kind assistance.

References

Friedman, Michael. 2001. Dynamics of Reason: The 1999 Kant Lectures at Stanford University. Standford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 2002a. “Geometry as a Branch of Physics: Background and Context for Einstein's ‘Geometry and Experience.’” In Reading Natural Philosophy: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science and Mathematics, ed. Malament, D. B., 193–229. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 2002b. “Kant, Kuhn, and the Rationality of Science.” Philosophy of Science 69 (2): 171–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 2005. “Ernst Cassirer and Contemporary Philosophy of Science.” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 10 (1): 119–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 2008. “Ernst Cassirer and Thomas Kuhn: The Neo-Kantian Tradition in History and Philosophy of Science.” Philosophical Forum 39 (2): 239–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar