Thomas Kuhn's misunderstood relation to Kripke-Putnam essentialism

Read, Rupert and Sharrock, Wes (2002) Thomas Kuhn's misunderstood relation to Kripke-Putnam essentialism. Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 33 (1). pp. 151-158. ISSN 0925-4560

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Abstract

Kuhn's ‘taxonomic conception’ of natural kinds enables him to defend and re-specify the notion of incommensurability against the idea that it is reference, not meaning/use, that is overwhelmingly important. Kuhn's ghost still lacks any reason to believe that referentialist essentialism undercuts his central arguments in SSR – and indeed, any reason to believe that such essentialism is even coherent, considered as a doctrine about anything remotely resembling our actual science. The actual relation of Kuhn to Kripke-Putnam essentialism, is as follows: Kuhn decisively undermines it – drawing upon the inadequacies of such essentialism when faced with the failure of attempts to instantiate in history or contemporaneously its ‘thought-experiment’ – and leaves the field open instead for his own more ‘realistic’, deflationary way of thinking about the operation of ‘natural kinds’ in science.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	chemistry,essentialism,kripke,kuhn,natural kinds,putnam,reference,twin-earth,water
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Wittgenstein
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	03 Dec 2013 15:16
Last Modified:	21 Jul 2023 09:35
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/45080
DOI:	10.1023/A:1020755503087

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