Thesis
In 1962, Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend both independently introduced the idea of incommensurability to the philosophy of science. In both cases the concept came from mathematics and in its original sense is defined as the absence of a common unit of measurement that would allow a direct and exact measurement of two variables, such as the prediction of the diagonal of a square from the relationship of its sides.
Read more about this topic: Commensurability (philosophy Of Science)
Famous quotes containing the word thesis:
“General scepticism is the live mental attitude of refusing to conclude. It is a permanent torpor of the will, renewing itself in detail towards each successive thesis that offers, and you can no more kill it off by logic than you can kill off obstinacy or practical joking.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“I have been maintaining that the meaning of the word ‘ought’ and other moral words is such that a person who uses them commits himself thereby to a universal rule. This is the thesis of universalizability.”
—Richard M. Hare (b. 1919)
“Some have said that the thesis [of indeterminacy] is a consequence of my behaviorism. Some have said that it is a reductio ad absurdum of my behaviorism. I disagree with this second point, but I agree with the first. I hold further that the behaviorism approach is mandatory. In psychology one may or may not be a behaviorist, but in linguistics one has no choice.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)