Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

Watkins, who relied on the student’s notes andeventually succeeded to Popper’s chair – which hadbeen Lakatos’ own lightly veiled ambition in theentire affair!After the comedy of errors surrounding the noneventthat was the Kuhn–Popper debate, mattersreally snowballed out of Lakatos’ control. In thenext five years, Kuhn so clearly trumped Popper inthe court of public opinion that, after enjoyingabout fifteen years of focused attention, Lakatos’own views have now been relegated to a historicalcuriosity – a last-ditch effort to save some remnantof Popper against the Kuhnian onslaught. The ironyhere is especially cruel, since had Lakatos not stagedthe debate, it is unlikely that Kuhn and Popperwould ever have been subject to such sustainedcomparison. Nevertheless, Lakatos correctly sawthe disagreement between the two as being moreprofound than the mismatched nature of theoriginal encounter might suggest. Lakatos, whosefondness for political imagery has yet to betaken with sufficient seriousness, was absolutelyright about the deep difference in sensibility betweenthe two protagonists. Kuhn was indeed authoritarianand Popper libertarian in their attitudes toscience. This point has been largely lost, if notinverted, by those who regard ‘Kuhn vs Popper’ as alandmark in 20th-century philosophy of science.13