Inter-paradigm communication requires paradigmatic bilingualism

Communication between paradigms requires (temporarily) substituting the untranslatable aspects of the lexicon of the other paradigm with the lexicon of one’s own paradigm.

Where knowledge claims made by members of one of these communities make use of concepts and terms within one of these pockets, that claim cannot without residue be translated using the [lexicon] of the other. Understanding those claims requires learning the incommensurable parts of the other [lexicon] and setting them in the place of the corresponding parts of one’s own. What results from it is not enrichment of a kind set, but **a sort of bilingualism**.[1]

This is analogous to the work of an anthropologist learning the language of an indigenous people.

There is, however, another way to capture what they had in mind. We can behave like anthropologists, acquiring their conceptual vocabulary, becoming vicarious (and very partial) members of their culture, and then using our own language, not to translate, but to teach their language to others.[2]

#paradigms

See also:

  1. The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn – Kuhn (2022), § “Abstract for The Plurality of Worlds: An Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development – Chapter 1: Scientific Knowledge as Historical Product.” Kuhn uses the phrase “kind set” in the original, which I have replaced with “lexicon” because I deem the terms sufficiently similar conceptually and easier to understand. ↩︎

  2. Ibid., § “Chapter 6: Practices, Theories, and Artefactual Kinds.” ↩︎