Knowing Nature Without Mirrors: Thomas Kuhn's Antirepresentationalist Objectivity

Objective truth has traditionally been conceived of in terms of a thought's representation of or correspondence with an immutable reality. Thomas Kuhn's evolutionary picture of science based on notions of incommensurable paradigms, different worlds and revolutionary ruptures shatters the traditional, representationalist view of scientific development, but is often seen as impugning the very notion of objectivity along with this positivistic view of science. However, embracing Kuhn's picture of science need not entail disclaiming objectivity if one moves beyond the idea that objectivity must be thought of in terms of representations and fact-value dualisms. By thinking with John Haugeland of objectivity as the idea that everyone can be wrong about something and, thus, that constituted objects can bring down theoretical systems, the tenable and textured notion of antirepresentationalist objectivity implicit in Kuhn's work begins to come into view. This notion of objectivity allows us to go beyond the disposal of objectivity that Richard Rorty finds necessary in jettisoning the broken Cartesian representationalist and dualistic epistemological tradition Rorty rightly criticizes.