Very often it is impossible to find any originator for an idea generated during discussion and critique. Its meaning changes repeatedly; it is adapted and be- comes common property. Accordingly it achieves a superindividual value, and becomes an axiom, a guideline for thinking.
--- Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and development of a scientific fact.
Truth is not "relative" and certainly not "subjective" in the popular sense of the word. It is always, or almost always, completely determined within a thought style.
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Truth is not a convention, but rather (1) in historical perspective, an event in the history of thought, (2) in its contemporary context, stylized thought constraint.
--- Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and development of a scientific fact.
(4) the irreproducible "initial" observation, which cannot be clearly seen in retrospect, constituting a chaos; (5) the slow and laborious revelation and awareness of "what one actually sees" or the gaining of experience; (6) that what has been revealed and concisely summarized in a scientific statement is an artificial structure, related but only genetically so, both to the original intention and to the substance of the "first" observation. The original observation need not even belong to the same class as that of the facts it led toward.
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Direct perception of form [Gestaltsehen] requires being experienced in the relevant field of thought. The ability directly to perceive meaning, form, and self-contained unity is acquired only after much experience, perhaps with preliminary training. At the same time, of course, we lose the ability to see something that contradicts the form.
--- Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and development of a scientific fact.
If a research experiment were well defined, it would be altogether unnecessary to perform it. For the experimental arrangements to be well defined, the outcome must be known in advance; otherwise the procedure cannot be limited and purposeful. The more unknowns there are and the newer a field of research is, the less well defined are the experiments.
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And if after years we were to look back upon a field we have worked in, we could no longer see or understand the difficulties present in that creative work. The actual course of development becomes rationalized and schematized. We project the results into our intentions; but how could it be any different? We can no longer express the previously incomplete thoughts with these now finished concepts.
Cognition modifies the knower so as to adapt him harmoniously to his acquired knowledge.
-- Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a scientific fact.
In the end an edifice of knowledge was erected that nobody had really foreseen or intended. Indeed, it stood in opposition to the anticipations and intentions of the individuals who had helped build it. For Wassermann and his co-workers shared a fate in common with Columbus. They were searching for their own "India" and were convinced that they were on the right course, but they unexpectedly discovered a new "America.
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What they achieved was not even their goal. They wanted evidence for an antigen or an amboceptor. Instead, they fulfilled the ancient wish of the collective: the demonstration of syphilitic blood.
--- Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact.
We must object in principle that nobody has either a feeling for, or knowledge of, what physically is possible or impossible. What we feel to be an impossibility is actually mere incongruence with our habitual thought style.
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fundamentally new facts can be discovered only through new thinking.
--- Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and development of scientific fact.
crazy vs stupid.
But the path from dissection to formulated theory is extremely complicated, indirect, and culturally conditioned. The more clearly we visualize it, the more we will be confronted with connections in the history of ideas and psychology leading us to their originators. In science, just as in art and in life, only that which is true to culture is true to nature.
-- Ludwik Fleck. Genesis and development of a scientific fact.
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