In this last, much shorter chapter of this book, I would like to briefly re-examine what we have seen so far in order to situate Kuhn’s last work in a context of continuous development in which his last philosophical steps are easily understandable. Such steps were contained in his last book, The Plurality of WorldsThe Plurality of Worlds (Kuhn), which remained an unfinished manuscript at the time of his death. In May 1991, Kuhn told his good friend, Paul Hoyningen-Huene[aut]Hoyningen-Huene, Paul, that he had just begun to write this text. Unfortunately, in fall 1995, deteriorating health forced him to stop writing. In the five completed chapters (plus some pages of the sixth), he started to suggestively and informatively restructure the views that had brought him to that point. Are such chapters a summary of his preceding views from Structure? Definitely not. In fact, Kuhn does not return to his masterpiece again. However, their ideas can only be explained on the basis of this earlier book and of the biographical itinerary that had led him to that point. The journey that we started in Chap.  1 of this book, which finishes in this Epilogue, helps us to understand his itinerary, and so the slowly improved philosophical vision of science that lies behind the theses that appear in the extant pages of The Plurality of WorldsThe Plurality of Worlds (Kuhn). It will also help us to grasp what remained absent from them for lack of time—mainly his theses about relativismRelativism, realism, and truthTruth. Accordingly, this is the proper moment to remind ourselves of what we have examined so far, step by step.

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Epilogue

  • Juan V. Mayoral

摘要

In this last, much shorter chapter of this book, I would like to briefly re-examine what we have seen so far in order to situate Kuhn’s last work in a context of continuous development in which his last philosophical steps are easily understandable. Such steps were contained in his last book, The Plurality of WorldsThe Plurality of Worlds (Kuhn), which remained an unfinished manuscript at the time of his death. In May 1991, Kuhn told his good friend, Paul Hoyningen-Huene[aut]Hoyningen-Huene, Paul, that he had just begun to write this text. Unfortunately, in fall 1995, deteriorating health forced him to stop writing. In the five completed chapters (plus some pages of the sixth), he started to suggestively and informatively restructure the views that had brought him to that point. Are such chapters a summary of his preceding views from Structure? Definitely not. In fact, Kuhn does not return to his masterpiece again. However, their ideas can only be explained on the basis of this earlier book and of the biographical itinerary that had led him to that point. The journey that we started in Chap.  1 of this book, which finishes in this Epilogue, helps us to understand his itinerary, and so the slowly improved philosophical vision of science that lies behind the theses that appear in the extant pages of The Plurality of WorldsThe Plurality of Worlds (Kuhn). It will also help us to grasp what remained absent from them for lack of time—mainly his theses about relativismRelativism, realism, and truthTruth. Accordingly, this is the proper moment to remind ourselves of what we have examined so far, step by step.