Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production (ص 52)

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Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production (ص 52)

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same configuration of lines can be seen as different objects
and in fact we can pulsate our vision backward and forward,
between faces-goblets-faces-goblets etc, yet nothing purely
optical or sensational has changed. We see different things
alternatively. The same result can be seen with the
duck/rabbit. What does in fact change is the organisational
form of what is objectively experienced. This “organisation”
1s not an element in the visual field, it is not empirical,
but 1S a mental or conceptual element which constructs what
we see. (84)
It is claimed, by Thomas Kuhn, that an analogous phenomenon
occurs within scienctific practice. This is highlighted in
the transformation from the phlogiston theory of combustion
to the oxygen theory of combustion in the latter part of the
eighteenth century. Where Priestley. who was researching the
"air" given off by the heating of red oxide of mercury, saw
"de-phlogisticated air", Lavoisier, working with quite
different theoretical assumptions saw a new species of gas,
namely oxygen. Thus Kuhn argues:
At the very best, as aresult of the discovery of
oxygen, Lavoisier saw nature differently. And in
the absence of some recourse to the hypothetical
fixed nature that he "saw differently”. the
principle of economy will urge us to say that after
the discovery of oxygen Lavoisier worked in a
different world. (85)
It is immediately obvious that what both Kuhn and Hanson are
saying are complementary. Hanson further argues, that, this
throws into relief the belief, so fundamental to
38 L f

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Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production

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Alex Pollock

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