Conventions, Styles of Thinking and Relativism. Some Remarks on the Dispute between I. Dąmbska and L. Fleck

Abstrakt

My comments are focused on the debate between Izydora Dąmbska and Ludwik Fleck. In the course of their debate, which took place in the 1930’s, they discussed some basic issues of epistemology, focusing on the problems of the sources of scientific knowledge, objectivity of knowledge, and truth. The aim of the paper is to place their debate in a the historical context and to demonstrate the novelty of Fleck’s arguments, especially in comparison with Thomas S. Kuhn’s later contribution. I also examine the dominant interpretations of Fleck’s theory of knowledge, as well as the reasons for which his philosophical ideas, especially Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache 1935 have fallen into the philosophical oblivion. I argue that Fleck’s views, although innovative, were less radical than it is commonly thought.