Menachem Fisch, “Creatively Undecided: Toward a History and Philosophy of Scientific Agency” (U Chicago Press, 2017 )
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What is the central problem with Kuhn’s view of paradigm shifts?
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Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talise, Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books, drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Menachem Fish, Professor. Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Tel Aviv University. His new book, Creatively Undecided, Toward a History and Philosophy of Scientific Agency, is just out from University of Chicago Press. Thomas Kuhn upset both scientists and philosophers of science when he argued that transitions from one scientific framework or paradigm, as he put it, to another were irrational.
This change was like a religious conversion experience rather than a reason shift from one theory to another based on the best evidence. But even if one disagrees with Kuhn, how can This change be shown to be rational? More generally, how can transitions from one set of normative standards to another be rational, given that there is no neutral position from which one can criticize one's own normative standards? Fish takes up this challenge. He defends an account of framework change which accepts that we cannot be self-critical of our own standards, but we can be destabilizable. stabilized by external criticism. Some of those who are ambivalated in this way then creatively attempt to tackle their ambivalence by developing hybrid theories, which in turn provide others in the scientific community with a means to critically assess their theories and develop new frameworks.
Fish's book draws on work from Korsgaard, Friedman, Gallison, McDowell, and others in a rich discussion of the dynamics of normativity in science, and he uses debates on the foundations of algebra in the eighteen thirties to illustrate his account. Let's turn to the interview. Hello, Menachem Fish, welcome to New Books in Philosophy. Hi Carrie, pleasure. So your your book is a very interesting look at a a question that arose uh earlier on in the philosophy of science, uh basically from Thomas Kuhn's book, uh the on scientific revolutions, and his whole idea that um you have paradigms and the issue of paradigm change was was, you know, famously or infamously on his view, um, an uh a question of a basically a religious conversion from one paradigm to the next.
And and there were a lot of reasons for this, um, but it was basically the the irrationality of the change that got a lot of scientists and a lot of philosophers very upset.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central problem with Kuhn’s view of paradigm shifts?
0:00–8:13
2
How does Fisch define “framework dependence” and why can we’t be self‑critical?
8:13–15:31
3
What role does external criticism play in destabilising scientific norms?
15:31–23:45
4
How does Fisch’s personal academic journey shape his philosophy of scientific agency?
23:45–31:01
5
What are the three main themes (framework dependence, critical rationalism, Hegelian move) that structure the book?
31:01–40:16
6
How does the 1830s algebra debate illustrate a “creative ambivalence” and hybrid theory?
40:16–48:35
7
Why does Fisch argue that scientific rationality is possible without a neutral standpoint?
48:35–57:16
8
What conclusions does Fisch draw about scientific agency and future research directions?
57:16–1:05:03
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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