Almost no one of significance argued that Kant was wrong about predicative existence until Miller. No one argued that knowledge was not justified true belief until Gettier. There is such a thing as philosophical consensus.
For science, however, there are many different philosophies of science just in terms of schools of thought, including Kuhn, Popper, Feyerabend, Lakatos, and lots of renegade thinkers like Stove. It is by definition the case that plenty of people think Kuhn is wrong, and on that we seem to agree. (At least, Gorsnak and I do.)
Those who think Kuhn was quackish do so, not so much because of his influence in the philosophy of science, but because of his influence in the social pseudosciences. Almost any traditional political conservative would view Kuhnian applications in everything from psychoanalysis to feminism as the work of a quack. Whether that view is popular on this board is irrelevant with respect to whether it has any consensus generally.
Well, that some people who’ve followed Kuhn are quacks I’d certainly agree, particularly some in…ah…less rigorous disciplines who’ve taken a few of his ideas and run off the edge of various cliffs with them. I don’t agree that the man himself was, though, nor do I see how anyone could make a case that he was. Plenty of people who’ve followed the writings of Nietzsche, Sartre, or Marx have been quackish as well. Doesn’t mean that they were themselves. Frankly, Stove is far more of a quack than Kuhn, even if I am more sympathetic to his position on scientific epistemology than I am to Kuhn’s.
And it’s certainly not the case that by definition there are people who think Kuhn was wrong. That’s obviously a synthetic truth, not an analytic one.
I am not American but I know this from memory ( excuse any mistakes please).
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’.
Ah, Lib, methinks you should backpeddle a little more.
By (your) definition, plenty of people think Popper and the rest of your list are wrong – but being “wrong” in philosophy isn’t that big a deal (a more serious charge is that one is nonsensical).
Still, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry notes that although Kuhn was, “one of most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, perhaps the most influential”… “there is no characteristically Kuhnian school that carries on his positive work”. The discipline absorbed his POV, Kuhn himself back-tracked somewhat, and everyone moved on.
As for the work of feminist and post-colonial writers, “Kuhn himself, however, showed only limited sympathy for such developments.”
Sure. Like I said, he was influential. But it is not uncommon for a quack to see the unintended consquences of his work and Alan Smithee the whole thing. Sometimes, as with Kant (another quack), the damage is widespread over generations. Thank God Miller had the balls to say, wait a minute! — a person may be individuated by the bounds of his existence.
Yikes: I’m way too empirical to admire Kant, but I still think he was a serious scholar.
Still, I this may be a matter of definition or calibration. Permit me to propose some definitions:
Quacks - Practitioners of poor scholarship by insiders.
Cranks - Practitioners of poor scholarship by outsiders.
(I’ll note here that quacks and cranks often suffer from differing symptoms - the former are often overly insular, the latter paranoid (in a colloquial sense)).
Let me defend Kuhn for a moment. Firstly, he put the final nail into logical positivism. Secondly, within the social sciences, the term “Paradigm” is a somewhat indispensable: “Schools of thought” doesn’t really cut it, as it doesn’t reflect the tendency for theoretical structure and observation to commingle.
Furthermore, it’s not too difficult to dispel the nonsense: simply distinguish among mainstream, fringe, crank and quack paradigms. There was little in Kuhn to support poor scholarship: indeed, he emphasized the importance of puzzle solving in normal science.
But there’s a third category to consider: they are, “Practitioners of solid or adequate scholarship who are, well, wrong”. Or worse, their framework leads to a dead end or -er- quackery. I’m not sure what to call these types. And at any rate being confused is typically worse than being merely mistaken. Hm. Or is it? Muddled thinking is certainly worse for a scholar’s reputation…
I pretty routinely cite Kant’s formulation of the categorical imperative in my everyday life. To wit, and grossly paraphrased, I attempt to act in a manner consistent with rules that I would make universal.
Here’s an ultra-mundane example: The use or non-use of turn signals. Many people choose not to use their turn signals for a particular turn or lane change because it appears to be safe to make the maneuver without a signal. There does not appear to be any other car or pedestrian who needs to receive notice of this maneuver.
I would not endorse a universal rule that “A driver shall determine whether the use of a turn signal is necessary in a particular circumstance, and shall use such turn signal only when the driver deems it necessary.” I would not make that a universal rule because people make mistakes, and I don’t trust everyone to make the right judgment about when the turn signal is necessary.
I would make the universal rule: “A driver shall always use his or her turn signal when making a turn or lane change, regardless of the driver’s judgment as to the necessity of such use under the particular circumstances.” Because I endorse that universal rule, I follow it myself, even though there are many situations in which I am quite sure that the use of my turn signal is unnecessary.
Had I not been a philosophy major and learned of Kant’s formulation of the categorical imperative, I might act differently. Or, I might act the same way but be unsure as to why.
Or you might have just figured it out. It’s a simple thing, really. But if you want a moral imperative to cover all the bases, then the one from Jesus is pretty good: “Be perfect.”
As to who’s a quack and who’s a crank and who’s just plain wrong, I don’t mind adopting the definitions Measure has offered. And in that case, I think Kuhn and Kant are both just plain wrong. Now Stove, he’s a quack. And me, I’m a crank.
[ul]
[li] That the poster might have just figured it out?[/li][li] That it’s a simple thing, really?[/li][li] That Jesus’ moral imperative covers all the bases?[/li][li] That as a moral imperative, it’s pretty good?[/li][li] That Jesus said to be perfect?[/li][li] All of the above?[/li][li] None of the above? (If so, then what.)[/li][li] Some combination of the above? (Please specify.)[/li][/ul]
[…backpedal…]