Commentary

October 30, 1999. I thank David Pincus for his precise and concise appreciation of my article, and for his lucid, supportive argument. His clinical observations of extreme realism and nominalism in cognitive styles is absolutely fascinating.

I am glad to have the opportunity to join Pincus in declaring our respect for Thomas Kuhn, whose rich contribution to the history of science is all but drowned out by the noisy and opportunistic fuss about paradigms. Pincus reminds us that Kuhn was not a science debunker. Kuhn (1977) described science as “repeatedly producing powerful new techniques of prediction and control” (p. 332). He seems to have felt that science progresses in some sense, but not by progressively perfecting a consistent project, and not by painting a more and more accurate picture of the world. But if not in those ways, then, how does science achieve its gains? Kuhn was frank enough to admit that he had no answer for that, but he assumed that it involved induction (pp. 32-333). I suppose he thought that the reliability of induction (which he accepted as a puzzling fact) is something that can be capitalized on in any number of random ways, and yet always more effectively as time goes by. Whether or not that is a satisfactory answer, it shows that Kuhn was not an epistemological skeptic.

I am intrigued by Pincus's elaboration of the unity of physical and social realms, and by his suggestion that perhaps “biology” should be extended “beyond our bodies, to the complex organizations and cultures we create.” That seems to me quite plausible. After all, they're all parts of one world, aren't they, existing together in space and time? Doesn't our view of the world reflect and affect our biology, and reflect and affect the physical world, the same way the giant termite mounds of Australia reflect their biology, alter their lives, and shape the landscape? Pincus's elegant prospectus of a common language whets our appetite for his further work.