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Question I'm looking for essays arguing that what we whole-heartedly believe is empirical reality, is really only what we've agreed is reality. Can anyone direct me?

Accepted:
November 8, 2006

Comments

Thomas Kuhn goes some way in this direction in his work on the nature of science. (You might have a look at his classic Structure of Scientific Revolutions, especially chapter ten.) It's not that he denied that there is an external world that sharply constrains what scientists can say; but he did hold that the structure of kinds and properties that scientific theories ascribe are not out there in the world independently of us but are something that the scientific community imposes on the empirical reality it is studying. Like Kant, Kuhn held that the empirical world is structured by the minds of those who study it. Only where Kant thought that the structure contributed by us could only take one form, Kuhn held that the human contribution changes with each scientific revolution. Thus Kuhn is Kant on wheels.

Question I'm looking for essays arguing that what we whole-heartedly believe is empirical reality, is really only what we've agreed is reality. Can anyone direct me? Accepted:November 8, 2006

Question I'm looking for essays arguing that what we whole-heartedly believe is empirical reality, is really only what we've agreed is reality. Can anyone direct me?

Accepted:
November 8, 2006