Vasso Kindi

National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Philosophy & History of Science, University of Athens., Faculty Member

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Papers by Vasso Kindi

Kuhn's Controversial Legacy

Revue Roumaine de Philosophie, 67:2, 197-210, 2023

Kuhn and the History of Sciece

Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions at 60, K. Brad Wray (ed.), 254-274. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 2024

KUHN'S CONTROVERSIAL LEGACY

Rev. Roum. Philosophie, 67, 2, p. 197–210, 2023

In the paper I will, first, address certain apparent tensions in relation to Kuhn's legacy in the... more In the paper I will, first, address certain apparent tensions in relation to Kuhn's legacy in the history of science. Kuhn was a historian before he became a philosopher of science. He had done and published historical work, he only had history graduate students, he imbued philosophy of science with historical considerations. And, yet, his widely acknowledged influence on the history of science came mostly through his philosophical work which is, nevertheless, brushed off by historians of science as making dated overarching and generalizing claims when their own attention has been increasingly focusing on the local and the particular. Secondly, I will discuss how Kuhn used history, the facts of the past, in his historical philosophy of science and will present a reading that takes his model of science as a Wittgensteinian object of comparison. Lastly, I will argue that Kuhn's philosophical work impacted developments in the historiography of science and the corresponding discipline.

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A spectre is haunting history – the spectre of science

Rethinking History, May 12, 2010

Alluding to the ghost of Communism which, according to the Communist Manifesto, hovered over Euro... more Alluding to the ghost of Communism which, according to the Communist Manifesto, hovered over Europe as both a threat and a much desired prospect, I contend in the paper that, in like manner, an ideal image of science looms over history as both an enforcer of discipline and a motivational ambition. By revisiting recent writings, mainly by Hayden White, I

Kuhn's conservatism

Social Epistemology, 2003

Steve Fuller in his book Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History of Our Times 1 attempts to place in... more Steve Fuller in his book Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History of Our Times 1 attempts to place in historical context Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2 and provide through and around it what he calls a 'philosophical history of our times'. By this term Fuller understands a Hegelian kind of endeavour, which lays more emphasis on philosophy rather than history. History, in this context, is used to assist in the promotion of a philosophical agenda, which, in the case that interests Fuller, is that of bringing 'the politics of knowledge production to the center of public arena' (p. 11). Kuhn is seen as 'decisively contribut[ing] to reversing' such a project, which, according to Fuller, has a history of 150 years and has been carried out by figures like Hegel, Comte, Weber, Peirce, Duhem, Russell, Popper and Feyerabend, among others (ibid.). These figures managed to '[weave] their abstract arguments around a historical narrative punctuated by recognisable landmark episodes in "Western civilization," (.. .) enabl[ing] a relatively large intellectual (.. .) public to find points of contact and contestation with what they had to say' (p. 12). Kuhn and Conant Kuhn, it is maintained, not only shut the public out of the assessment of science by insulating in his work the production of scientific knowledge from external determinations, but also played, inadvertently, in the hands of James Bryant Conant. Conant, according to Fuller, had assumed the responsibility of carrying out a politically realist Cold War mission, namely, to defend American democracy against the New Dealers and the Communists by establishing and protecting the autonomy of science from the rest of society (pp. 33-34, 180). Conant saw the destabilising effect of making exaggerated demands on science-which, in the course of the twentieth century, had developed into an industrial behemoth-and, in Fuller's view, came to promote a 'matter of fact image' of scientific practice (p. 214). He expected to bring the public closer to science, but also curb the public's high expectations for fear that science might be perverted, as it had happened in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia (pp. 182-183). The public was supposed to get accustomed to science (p. 182), but not from too near. Future managers of science policy, the students of Conant's General Education course, were kept at a respectful distance. 3 They were not supposed to meddle into scientific affairs and second-guess

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The Relation of History of Science to Philosophy of Science in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Kuhn's later philosophical work

Perspectives on Science, Dec 1, 2005

Perspectives on Science 499 7. "We have portrayed Kuhn as continuously concerned largely with one... more

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Is Wittgenstein's Resort to Ordinary Language an Appeal to Empirical facts?

Metaphilosophy, 1998

There are two widely held views in the literature as regards Wittgenstein's philosophy. One s... more There are two widely held views in the literature as regards Wittgenstein's philosophy. One says that Wittgenstein in his later work appeals to ordinary language in his effort to show how the philosophical problems can be dissolved, and the other says that his investigation is a grammatical one. This paper undertakes to examine what is meant by a grammatical investigation, especially in view of the fact that this investigation relies on empirical facts that have to do with linguistic usage. The examination is carried out by concentrating on what Wittgenstein has to say on the issue of knowledge - in particular, how the way we use the word contributes to the dismissal of Moore's answer to the challenge of scepticism. The conclusion is that Wittgenstein's resort to ordinary language is not typically empirical. The examples of ordinary usage that he cites may be contingent, but they could not have been different given the language games they are part of. The correct use of words Wittgenstein appeals to is not fixed by some kind of essence, but neither is it decided by a majority rule. It gets entrenched in a complex nexus of practices. Wittgenstein's reference to use instead of usage and to linguistic facts instead of sociological facts lends support more to a logical than to an empirical investigation.

Paradigms in Process Integration a Technical and Epistemological Appraisal

Energy Efficiency in Process Technology, 1993

Two main schools of thought are identified within the field of Process Integration: (a) Pinch Tec... more Two main schools of thought are identified within the field of Process Integration: (a) Pinch Technology and (b) Mathematical Programming Approach. Their development is briefly presented, along with their basic methodological characteristics. It is argued that, in addition to their technical-methodological differences, the two trends are characterised by different notions, criteria, and committed followers to the extent that each one may be considered what philosophers of science call a Paradigm. The consequent scientific, technical, and sociological issues are examined.

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Collingwood, Wittgenstein, Strawson: Philosophy and Description

Collingwood and British Idealism Studies, 2016

Paradigm

Incommensurability, incomparability, irrationality

L'A. defend et explique linguistiquement la theorie scientifique de Kuhn selon laquelle les p... more L'A. defend et explique linguistiquement la theorie scientifique de Kuhn selon laquelle les paradigmes, qui sont les porteurs de la raison, ne peuvent etre depasses. Il montre que cette incommensurabilite n'implique pas systematiquement une incomparabilite des differents paradigmes, ni leur ineffabilite, sans quoi tout discours scientifique serait arbitraire

Kuhn, the Duck, and the Rabbit – Perception, Theory-Ladenness, and Creativity in Science

A Reconsideration of the Relation Between Kuhnian Incommensurability and Translation

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2017

ABSTRACT Up to the introduction of the term and concept of incommensurability by T. S. Kuhn and P... more ABSTRACT Up to the introduction of the term and concept of incommensurability by T. S. Kuhn and P. K. Feyerabend in the early 1960s, scientific texts were supposed to pose no problem as regards their translation, unlike literature, which was thought very difficult to translate. After the introduction of the term, translation of scientific language became equally problematic because, due to conceptual and perceptual incommensurability, there was no common observation basis to ground linguistic equivalences between languages of incommensurable paradigms. This article highlights the presuppositions that link incommensurability to dramatic consequences (impossibility of communication, translation, and comparative evaluation of paradigms) and tries to sketch an alternative way of understanding incommensurability and translation drawing on Kuhn’s work. From this perspective, translation is not an all-or-nothing affair for either science or literature and becomes a problem to be solved for each particular set of circumstances.

Kuhn’s Lowell lectures

Metascience, 2021

of Science in The Structure of Scientiªc Revolutions and Kuhn’s later philosophical work

In this essay I argue that Kuhn’s account of science, as it was articulated in The Structure of S... more In this essay I argue that Kuhn’s account of science, as it was articulated in The Structure of Scientiªc Revolutions, was mainly defended on philosophical rather than historical grounds. I thus lend support to Kuhn’s later claim that his model can be derived from ªrst principles. I propose a transcendental reading of his work and I suggest that Kuhn uses historical examples as anti-essentialist Wittgensteinian “reminders ” that expose a variegated land-scape in the development of science. T. S. Kuhn was a physicist who became a historian, but who also wrote a book, the Structure of Scientiªc Revolutions (1970),1 that proved seminal in philosophy of science. In that book, unlike what was typical in philosophy of science before the so-called historical turn, there are quite a few refer-ences to particular cases from the history of science. After the Structure, and all the praise and controversy that it evoked, Kuhn published Black-Body Theory and Quantum Discontinuity (1987), a book ...

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Kuhn’s Paradigms

The Role of Evidence in Judging Kuhn’s Model: On the Mizrahi, Patton, Marcum Exchange

I would like to thank James H. Collier, executive editor of Social Epistemology, for the invitati... more I would like to thank James H. Collier, executive editor of Social Epistemology, for the invitation to contribute to the most interesting dialogue which has been occasioned by Moti Mizrahi's paper “Kuhn’s Incommensurability Thesis: What’s the Argument?” My view is very different from the dominant one in the dialogue regarding Kuhn’s account of science as developed in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and in his later work.

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James Marcum, Thomas Kuhn's Revolutions

Presuppositions and the Logic of Question and Answer

Collingwood on Philosophical Methodology

Vasso Kindi examines, first, whether Collingwood’s logic of question and answer, which was to rep... more Vasso Kindi examines, first, whether Collingwood’s logic of question and answer, which was to replace the symbolic logic of the logical positivists, does indeed bear similarities to Bacon’s and Kant’s use of questions, as Collingwood claims. She argues that Collingwood’s emphasis on questions is more similar to Kant’s concern with presuppositions that make knowledge possible than to Bacon’s interest in pursuing and questioning nature to divulge her secrets. She, then, explains how Collingwood’s emphasis on questions is tied to his view that propositions are not abstract entities with intrinsic meaning in isolation from the network of presuppositions in which they are embedded. Finally, she suggests that the metaphysician’s task, according to Collingwood, is to ‘excavate’ different complexes of questions and answers until the absolute presuppositions which govern them are reached. It is this historical methodology that gives Collingwood’s metaphysics its distinctive character.

Editorial Report 2020

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science

Kuhn's Controversial Legacy

Revue Roumaine de Philosophie, 67:2, 197-210, 2023

Kuhn and the History of Sciece

Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions at 60, K. Brad Wray (ed.), 254-274. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 2024

KUHN'S CONTROVERSIAL LEGACY

Rev. Roum. Philosophie, 67, 2, p. 197–210, 2023

Download

A spectre is haunting history – the spectre of science

Rethinking History, May 12, 2010

Kuhn's conservatism

Social Epistemology, 2003

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The Relation of History of Science to Philosophy of Science in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Kuhn's later philosophical work

Perspectives on Science, Dec 1, 2005

Perspectives on Science 499 7. "We have portrayed Kuhn as continuously concerned largely with one... more

Download

Is Wittgenstein's Resort to Ordinary Language an Appeal to Empirical facts?

Metaphilosophy, 1998

Paradigms in Process Integration a Technical and Epistemological Appraisal

Energy Efficiency in Process Technology, 1993

Download

Collingwood, Wittgenstein, Strawson: Philosophy and Description

Collingwood and British Idealism Studies, 2016

Paradigm

Incommensurability, incomparability, irrationality

Kuhn, the Duck, and the Rabbit – Perception, Theory-Ladenness, and Creativity in Science

A Reconsideration of the Relation Between Kuhnian Incommensurability and Translation

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2017

Kuhn’s Lowell lectures

Metascience, 2021

of Science in The Structure of Scientiªc Revolutions and Kuhn’s later philosophical work

Download

Kuhn’s Paradigms

The Role of Evidence in Judging Kuhn’s Model: On the Mizrahi, Patton, Marcum Exchange

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James Marcum, Thomas Kuhn's Revolutions

Presuppositions and the Logic of Question and Answer

Collingwood on Philosophical Methodology

Editorial Report 2020

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science

“Kuhn, the duck and the rabbit — Perception, theory-ladenness and creativity in science"

Interpreting Kuhn. Critical Essays, K. Brad Wray (ed.), 169-184, Cambridge University Press., 2021

Το μοντέρνο στη σκέψη και τις τέχνες του 20ού αιώνα (συνεπιμέλεια)

by Kostas Tsiambaos and Vasso Kindi

Η γεωγραφία του μοντέρνου στη διάρκεια του 20ού αιώνα περιλαμβάνει πόλεις όπως η Βιέννη, το Βερολ... more Η γεωγραφία του μοντέρνου στη διάρκεια του 20ού αιώνα περιλαμβάνει πόλεις όπως η Βιέννη, το Βερολίνο, το Παρίσι, η Πράγα, η Μόσχα, το Λονδίνο, η Νέα Υόρκη. Η Αθήνα, η οποία φιλοξένησε το 1933 το 4ο Διεθνές Συνέδριο Μοντέρνας Αρχιτεκτονικής (IV CIAM), πώς τοποθετείται στον χάρτη αυτό; Ποιος ήταν ο δικός της μοντερνισμός; Ποιες μορφές και ποια ιδιαίτερα χαρακτηριστικά πήρε ο μοντερνισμός -και ο ελληνικός μοντερνισμός ειδικότερα- στη σκέψη και τις τέχνες του 20ού αιώνα;

Στο βιβλίο διερευνώνται και αναλύονται χαρακτηριστικά του μοντέρνου όπως η αυτοαναφορικότητα, ο κατακερματισμός της συνέχειας, η αφαίρεση, ο φορμαλισμός, η λειτουργική καθαρότητα, η ορθολογικότητα και το παράλογο, η έμφαση στην πρόοδο, η αναφορά στη μηχανή και την τεχνολογία, η ρήξη με την παράδοση, ο ελιτισμός, ο κοσμοπολιτισμός, η ουτοπία, ενώ αναπτύσσεται ένας διάλογος για τις μορφές που πήρε η εκδήλωση του μοντέρνου σε διάφορους χώρους: από την Αρχιτεκτονική μέχρι τη Φιλοσοφία, από τη Μουσική μέχρι τις Φυσικές Επιστήμες και τα Μαθηματικά, από την Πολιτική μέχρι τη Λογοτεχνία.

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Kuhn’s Lowell lectures

Book Review, 2021

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