The Relativity of Scientific Rationality in Kuhn and Cassirer

Since the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s influential book, The Structure of the Scientific Revolutions, historical and sociological approaches to science have led to a kind of relativism towards the evaluation of theories as well as the belief in the break in the history of science. The main idea put by Kuhn's historiography is incommensurability. From Kuhn's point of view, the scientific concepts refers to completely different entities in different theories. On the other hand, each paradigm changes the perceptual domain before the conceptual process and formal articulation. Finally, unlike the conventional philosophy of science (Positivism and Falsifiability), he mentions there is no explicit rule for justification of theories. In contrast, Cassirer emphasis on elements in theory as the invariant regulative forms through which scientific thought progress continuously. In this paper, Cassirer's responses to Kuhn have been formulated. At the end, we attempt to show how diverse types of historiography made their difference.