Valores e incomensurabilidade: meditações kuhnianas em chave estruturalista e laudaniana

Abstract

In this paper, two themes that figure outstandingly in the Kuhnian image of science are brought together, put into perspective, and re-interpreted: (1) the role of values in science and their relation with the issue of methodological underdetermination; (2) incommensurability and its dilemmas. Kuhn's theses concerning these themes are re-evaluated, how they unfold is critically discussed, and certain re-interpretations and reformulations are proposed. This is done according to two metascientific perspectives: Laudan's historiographic-metamethodological view (both in its problem-solving and reticulational variants), and the structuralist metatheory pioneered by Balzer, Moulines and Sneed. In this way, it is shown that the main difficulties inherent in the Kuhnian treatment of these questions can be removed, while at the same time being still possible to keep the most interesting features, as well as Kuhn's most insightful intuitions, concerning these issues.