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"Kuhn is a realist, in that he believes in some external, material reality beyond our language and cultural constraints, but he is simultaneously a relativist i
by woodandsteel 8y ago
"Kuhn is a realist, in that he believes in some external, material reality beyond our language and cultural constraints, but he is simultaneously a relativist in that he has no access to nor can say anything definitive about that outside world independent of language and the conceptual categories that lead us to think this or that about external reality."
So Kuhn seems to believe that the biologists are all wrong when they claim our brains have been formed by evolution to look at reality in certain universal ways. Instead he seems to be taking the Cartesian position that human minds exist outside the material realm. Most philosophers today would disagree.
- dwaltrip 8y agoThat quote isn't saying that minds exist outside of material reality, but that minds can only conceive of approximate reconstructed representations of material reality, and never "directly access" material reality itself.