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Incommensurability from a Modelling Perspective

Commentary on “Of Course Idealizations are Incommensurable”, by Paul Teller

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Rethinking Scientific Change and Theory Comparison

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science ((BSPS,volume 255))

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The first thing to realize about Teller’s paper is that the title is somewhat ironic. He in fact argues that, given a proper understanding of scientific practice, incommensurability, understood as “semantic incommensurability”, is no problem. But there is another notion of incommensurability, which Teller and some others call “value incommensurabity”. In this sense, he argues, incommensurability is ubiquitous, but also not a problem. Thus, incommensurability is not a problem for a sound understanding of scientific practice.

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Giere, R.N. (2008). Incommensurability from a Modelling Perspective. In: Soler, L., Sankey, H., Hoyningen-Huene, P. (eds) Rethinking Scientific Change and Theory Comparison. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 255. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6279-7_19

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