THEORY-LADEN OBSERVATION AND INCOMMENSURABILITY

In this paper, the author investigates the logical relation between two claims: (1) observations are theory-laden and (2) there is no empirical common ground upon which to evaluate the successive scientific theories that belong to the different paradigms. At first, he constructs an argument where (1) is the main premise and (2) is the conclusion. He argues that the term 'theory-laden' has three distinct senses: semantic, psychological and epistemological. If 'theory-laden' is understood in either epistemological or psychological senses, then the conclusion becomes a claim about people. If incommensurability is to be a claim about theories, then 'theory-laden' in the main premise should be understood in the semantic sense. The author then argues, that there is a further distinction to be drawn between the absolute and relative senses of theory-laden. The relative sense of theory-laden allows the observations that are relatively neutral between the theories under examination. He then concludes, that the argument from theory-laden only shows that foundational empiricism is not a tenable philosophical position, but it fails to show that no empirical test can decide between successive theories that belong to different paradigms.