The Landscape of a Metaphysical Battlefield: A Comment on Eric Oberheim

LEANDRO GIRI

Perspectives on Kuhn: Contemporary Approaches to the Philosophy of Thomas Kuhn

Springer Nature Switzerland

Lugar: Cham; Año: 2023; p. 127 - 137

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend independently and almost simultaneously outlined the concept of incommensurability, a concept that has been widely studied in philosophy of science ever since. In particular, Eric Oberheim’s “Incommensurability and Metaincommensurability” unveils one of the most interesting discussions in contemporary history around this complex concept: the controversy between Howard Sankey and himself (featuring also Paul Hoyningen-Huene and Hanne Andersen). Several essays that were published in the context of this controversy over a span of more than 20 years,1 reveal the vivacity of this friendly but tough philosophical war. Fortuitously, I had the great pleasure of watching its latest battle here in the southern cone of South America. In 2018, Oberheim presented his answer to Sankey’s last attack on incommensurability (Sankey 2018) in Buenos Aires, and we heard extensively from both of them during our kuhnian conference both in Argentina as well as in Uruguay. I had the enormous honor of being Eric Oberheim’s commentator, while both Howard Sankey and Paul Hoyningen-Huene were there and sparked the debate. In the following pages, I will present my conclusions from this amazing and fruitful philosophical conversation.