Ahmad Ebadi; Mohammad Emdadi Masouleh
Abstract
In this paper, by reviewing the main components of Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy it will become evident that he is a critic on the distinction between the context of discovery/justification in the methodology of science. His reasoning consists of: 1. his proponents have merely dealt with the context ...
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In this paper, by reviewing the main components of Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy it will become evident that he is a critic on the distinction between the context of discovery/justification in the methodology of science. His reasoning consists of: 1. his proponents have merely dealt with the context of discovery/justification in the educational realm, according to which only the evidence regarding the justification of a hypothesis is considered effective, and the other aspects of justification are ignored. 2. the distinction of two contents is based on oversimplification in process of producing science, which merely refers to the strong point of the theories, not the weakness. 3. there exists no empirical determination in the context of justification. 4. in the process of producing science the descriptive and prescriptive aspects, of the hypotheses, are inseparable and intertwined. 5. unlike the proponents of this distinction the structured lexicon in the context of justification has no fixed and definite consequences but is subject to Kant’s relativized a priori principles facing constant change, modification, and reparation. After pronouncing these problems, Kuhn was criticized by his proponents of distinction of discovery/justification in a few contexts: 1. adopting intention on ambiguous writing style in his works, 2. applying the cyclic approach in providing an epistemic-realistic criteria list and retrieval to the non-epistemic criteria, 3. confusion between the context of decision and context of justification and concerning cause instead of reason. To escape from these criticisms, he points to the following two issues: 1. misunderstanding of his views by sympathizers of the distinction and 2. providing criteria as to preserve the objectivity of science different from the proponents of the distinction. The objective of this paper is to analyze, complete, and criticize Kuhn’s thoughts regarding the distinction of discovery/justification.
Fatemeh Saeedi; Abdolrasoul Kashfi
Abstract
In the classic image of knowledge, the category of ‘reality’, and by extension those of ‘truth’ and ‘justification’, are treated as matters independent from the subject’s mind. Relativists, on the contrary, reject independence of these matters from the subject’s ...
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In the classic image of knowledge, the category of ‘reality’, and by extension those of ‘truth’ and ‘justification’, are treated as matters independent from the subject’s mind. Relativists, on the contrary, reject independence of these matters from the subject’s mind and hold that the three, or at least some of them, are shaped under the influence of needs, values and social interests. They are, in other words, ‘social constructs’. Knowledge is therefore a relative matter, varying from society to society and from a society in a certain time to that same society in another time. The result of such an attitude to knowledge is a theory which is known today as ‘epistemological relativism’. Paul Boghossian, contemporary philosopher, is a prominent critic of epistemological relativism. The present paper draws on Boghossian’s views to review and critique a certain type of epistemological relativism which results from ‘constructivism of reality’, demonstrating weaknesses of the theory as well as scrutinising a number of Boghossian’s views in the field.
