1st Edition

Thomas Kuhn's 'Linguistic Turn' and the Legacy of Logical Empiricism Incommensurability, Rationality and the Search for Truth

By Stefano Gattei Copyright 2008
292 Pages
by Routledge

292 Pages
by Routledge

Presenting a critical history of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century, focusing on the transition from logical positivism in its first half to the "new philosophy of science" in its second, Stefano Gattei examines the influence of several key figures, but the main focus of the book are Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. Kuhn as the central figure of the new philosophy of science, and... Read more
Contents: Preface; Two revolutions in 20th century philosophy of science; Kuhn and the 'new philosophy of science'; Incommensurability; Kuhn's 'linguistic turn'; The shadow of positivism; Bibliography; Index.

Biography

Stefano Gattei researches the history and philosophy of science at the University of Pisa. He is the author of several books and articles, including La rivoluzione incompiuta di Thomas Kuhn (Turin: UTET, 2007), Introduzione a Popper (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2008) and Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science: Rationality without Foundations (Routledge, New York). He is currently working on a reader's guide to Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery for Continuum Press, New York, and, together with Joseph Agassi, he is editing Physics and Philosophy, the fourth volume of Feyerabend's philosophical papers for Cambridge University Press. He also has in preparation an annotated critical edition of Kepler's Strena seu De nive sexangula (1611).

’This book is written by a philosopher who understands the issues and the nuances of key ideas, and who has also taken time to engage with the material from an historical perspective... All in all an insightful read for anyone interested in the question of incommensurability.’ Metapsychology ’... Gattei has written a book that sets a standard on scholarship on Kuhn’s work.’ Philosophy in Review 'Thomas Kuhn's 'Linguistic Turn' and the Legacy of Logical Empiricism, which stems from Gattei’s doctoral dissertation, will be of wider interest to historians with a side interest in the philosophy of science itself or in one strand of the intellectual response to science and culture in the tumultuous twentieth century - and to anyone seeking an answer to the question ’Whatever happened to Thomas Kuhn?’.' ISIS