Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

world-historic spirit has played a much strongerrole in the conveyance of Kuhnian ideas than wecare to admit. The Minutes of the Committee onGeneral Education make clear that Kuhn wasdenied tenure at Harvard because, as of late 1955,he seemed to have accomplished little on his ownthat was not beholden to James Bryant Conant,who had recently stepped down from theuniversity’s presidency to become the first USambassador to West Germany. Moreover, Kuhn’sdebt to Conant appears to have persisted throughouthis career, since even in his final interviewKuhn deemed Conant the brightest person he hadever met. This makes Kuhn a difficult case for thecritique of intellectuals. For while Kuhn clearlybenefited from Conant’s patronage, Conant neverasked Kuhn to do anything that he was unwilling todo. Perhaps because Kuhn’s reliance on Conant wasso exclusive, there are none of the traces of resistancethat normally help to clarify the extent of anintellectual’s dependency on the powers that be.Overall, the Conant–Kuhn relationship is bestcharacterised as an exchange in which each usedthe other for his own ends. The looming normativequestion is whether each considered why the otherwould want to use him as he did. By his ownaccount, Conant was largely responsible for introducingthe industrial division of labour model of203