Kuhnian Paradigms: On Meaning and Communication Breakdown in Medicine
Tóm tắt
In this paper, I enquire whether there are Kuhnian paradigms in medicine, by way of analysing a case study from the history of medicine—the discovery of the germ theory of disease in the nineteenth century. I investigate the Kuhnian aspects of this event by comparing the work of the famous school of microbiology founded by Robert Koch with a rival school, powerful in the nineteenth century, but now almost forgotten, founded by Carl Nageli. Through my case study, I show that medical science possesses some Kuhnian features. Within each school, scientists used similar exemplars and shared the same assumptions. Moreover, their research was resistant to novelty, and the results of one party were disregarded by the other. In other words, in a moderate sense, the Koch and Nageli groups worked within distinct paradigms. However, I reject the stronger Kuhnian claim that the terms used within the two paradigms were mutually unintelligible. Focusing on the semantic aspects, I argue that no account of incommensurability of reference can be given in this case, although, for sociological reasons, the two parties talked past each other. I suggest in addition that the rival scientists could have understood each other more easily if their theoretical commitments had not been so deeply ingrained, and I use the example of Pasteur to indicate that the causal account of meaning might have avoided the communication breakdown.
Tài liệu tham khảo
citation_title=The cognitive structure of scientific revolutions; citation_publication_date=2006; citation_id=CR39; citation_author=H Andersen; citation_author=P Barker; citation_author=X Chen; citation_publisher=Cambridge University Press
citation_journal_title=Philosophia Scientiae; citation_title=Kuhn on reference and essence; citation_author=A. Bird; citation_volume=8; citation_publication_date=2004; citation_pages=39-71; citation_id=CR1
Bird, A. 2000. Thomas Kuhn. Acumen.
citation_journal_title=Richmond Journal of Philosophy; citation_title=What is in a Paradigm?; citation_author=A. Bird; citation_volume=1; citation_publication_date=2002; citation_pages=11-20; citation_id=CR3
citation_title=Robert Koch: a life in medicine and bacteriology; citation_publication_date=1999; citation_id=CR4; citation_author=T Brock; citation_publisher=American Society of Microbiology Press
citation_journal_title=Mind; citation_title=Natural kind terms and recognitional capacities; citation_author=J Brown; citation_volume=107; citation_issue=426; citation_publication_date=1998; citation_pages=275-303; citation_doi=10.1093/mind/107.426.275; citation_id=CR5
citation_journal_title=Medical History; citation_title=Koch’s postulates in relation to the work of Jacob Henle and Edwin Klebs; citation_author=KC Carter; citation_volume=29; citation_publication_date=1985; citation_pages=353-375; citation_id=CR6
citation_journal_title=Jahres Ber. der Schles. Ges. f. Vaterl. Cult.; citation_title=Ueber Pilze als Ursache von Thierkrankheiten; citation_author=F Cohn; citation_volume=32; citation_publication_date=1854; citation_pages=43-48; citation_id=CR42
citation_journal_title=Beitrage z. Biol. d. Pfanzen; citation_title=Untersuchung uber bacterien; citation_author=F Cohn; citation_volume=1; citation_publication_date=1875; citation_pages=127-222; citation_id=CR43
citation_title=Louis Pasteur; citation_publication_date=2000; citation_id=CR7; citation_author=P Debre; citation_publisher=John Hopkins University Press
Devitt, M. 2001. Incommensurability and the priority of metaphysics. In Incommensurability and related matters, eds. P. Hoyningen-Huene and H. Sankey, 143–157. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Philosophy/devitt/published.html
. Accessed 08 October 2010.
Devitt, M. 1995. Meanings just ain’t in the head. In Method, reason and language: Essays in honour of Hilary Putnam George Boolos, 79–104. Cambridge University Press.
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Philosophy/devitt/published.html
. Accessed 09 September 2010.
Fleck, L. 1981. Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. University of Chicago Press (originally published as Fleck 1935, Ent-stehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache; Einfrung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkolektiv. Benno Schwabe&Co).
citation_title=Thomas Kuhn: a Philosophical history for our times; citation_publication_date=2001; citation_id=CR11; citation_author=S Fuller; citation_publisher=University of Chicago Press
citation_title=The private science of Louis Pasteur; citation_publication_date=1995; citation_id=CR12; citation_author=G Geison; citation_publisher=Princeton University Press
citation_journal_title=Science in Context; citation_title=Invisible enemies: Bacteriology and the language of politics in imperial Germany; citation_author=C Gradmann; citation_volume=13; citation_publication_date=2000; citation_pages=9-30; citation_doi=10.1017/S0269889700003707; citation_id=CR13
citation_journal_title=Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol.&Biomed. Sci; citation_title=A harmony of illusions: Clinical and experimental testing of Robert Koch’ tuberculin 1890–1900; citation_author=C Gradmann; citation_volume=35; citation_publication_date=2004; citation_pages=465-481; citation_id=CR14
citation_title=Krankheit im labor. Robert Koch und die medizinische Bakteriologie; citation_publication_date=2005; citation_id=CR15; citation_author=C Gradmann; citation_publisher=Wallstein-Verlag
citation_journal_title=Microbes and Infection; citation_title=Robert Koch and the white death: From tuberculosis to tuberculin; citation_author=C Gradmann; citation_volume=8; citation_publication_date=2006; citation_pages=294-301; citation_doi=10.1016/j.micinf.2005.06.004; citation_id=CR16
citation_title=Reconstructing scientific revolutions: Thomas S Kuhn’s philosophy of science; citation_publication_date=1993; citation_id=CR17; citation_author=P Hoyningen-Huene; citation_publisher=University of Chicago Press
Koch, R. 1880 Investigations into the etiology of traumatic infective diseases, W.W. Cheyne transl. The New Sydenham Society, Vol. LXXXVIII (originally published as Koch, R.(1878) Untersuchungen über die Aetiologie der Wundinfectionskrankheiten. Leipzig).
http://www.archive.org/details/investigationsi01kochgoog
. Last Accessed 09 April 2011.
Koch R. 1890. A further communication on a cure for tuberculosis (special cable dispatch). Medical News LVII(20).
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7027024
. Accessed 10 April 2011.
citation_title=The structure of scientific revolutions; citation_publication_date=1961; citation_id=CR20; citation_author=T Kuhn; citation_publisher=University of Chicago Press
citation_title=The road since structure: Philosophical essays, 1970–1993; citation_publication_date=2002; citation_id=CR21; citation_author=T Kuhn; citation_publisher=University of Chicago Press
citation_title=Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts; citation_publication_date=1986; citation_id=CR22; citation_author=B Latour; citation_author=S Woolgar; citation_publisher=Princeton University Press
citation_title=The great chain of being: A study of the history of an idea; citation_publication_date=1936; citation_id=CR23; citation_author=A Lovejoy; citation_publisher=Harvard University Press
citation_title=Species and specificity: An interpretation of the history of immunology; citation_publication_date=1995; citation_id=CR24; citation_author=P Mazumdar; citation_publisher=Cambridge University Press
citation_journal_title=The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science; citation_title=Natural kinds; citation_author=DH Mellor; citation_volume=28; citation_issue=4; citation_publication_date=1977; citation_pages=299-312; citation_doi=10.1093/bjps/28.4.299; citation_id=CR25
Mendelsohn, A. 2005. Message in a bottle: The business of vaccines and the nature of heredity after 1880. In A cultural history of heredity III: 19th and early
20th
centuries. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.
http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/Preprints/P294.PDF
. Accessed 10 April 2011
citation_title=On clear and confused ideas: An essay about substance concepts; citation_publication_date=2000; citation_id=CR27; citation_author=R Millikan; citation_publisher=Cambridge University Press
citation_journal_title=Microbes and Infection; citation_title=Review: on the shoulders of giants; citation_author=R Munch; citation_volume=5; citation_issue=1; citation_publication_date=2003; citation_pages=69-74; citation_doi=10.1016/S1286-4579(02)00053-9; citation_id=CR28
citation_title=Mechanische-physiologische Theorie der Abstammungslehre; citation_publication_date=1884; citation_id=CR40; citation_author=C Nageli; citation_publisher=Oldenburg
citation_title=Die niederen Pilze in ihren Beziehungen zu den Infektionskrankheiten und der Gesundheitspflege; citation_publication_date=1877; citation_id=CR41; citation_author=C Nageli; citation_publisher=Oldenburg
citation_title=The rationality of science; citation_publication_date=1981; citation_id=CR29; citation_author=WH Newton-Smith; citation_publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul
citation_journal_title=American Journal of Epidemiology; citation_title=The context and challenge of von Pettenkofer’s, contributions to epidemiology; citation_author=G Oppenheimer, E Susser; citation_volume=166; citation_publication_date=2007; citation_pages=1239-1241; citation_doi=10.1093/aje/kwm284; citation_id=CR30
citation_journal_title=The Journal of Philosophy; citation_title=Meaning and reference; citation_author=H. Putnam; citation_volume=70; citation_publication_date=1973; citation_pages=699-711; citation_id=CR31
citation_title=Louis Pasteur: And the hidden world of microbes; citation_publication_date=2001; citation_id=CR32; citation_author=L Robbins; citation_publisher=Oxford University Press
citation_title=Fundamental principles of bacteriology; citation_publication_date=2007; citation_id=CR33; citation_author=AJ Salle; citation_publisher=McGraw-Hill
citation_journal_title=Quarterly Review of Biology; citation_title=Specificity: Its nature and significance; citation_author=A Silverstein; citation_volume=71; citation_issue=4; citation_publication_date=1996; citation_pages=549-552; citation_doi=10.1086/419556; citation_id=CR34
citation_title=Reference and description: The case against two-dimensionalism; citation_publication_date=2005; citation_id=CR35; citation_author=S Soames; citation_publisher=Princeton University Press
citation_title=Sparks of life: Darwinism and the Victorian debates over spontaneous generation; citation_publication_date=2002; citation_id=CR36; citation_author=J Strick; citation_publisher=Harvard University Press
Thagard, P. 1994. The concept of disease.
http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/Articles/Pages/Concept.html
. Accessed 09 September 2010.
citation_title=Leaps in the dark—the forging of scientific reputations; citation_publication_date=2004; citation_id=CR38; citation_author=J Waller; citation_publisher=Oxford University Press