Editing Paradigm shift (section)

===Incommensurability===
These claims of relativism are, however, tied to another claim that Kuhn does at least somewhat endorse: that the language and theories of different paradigms cannot be translated into one another or rationally evaluated against one another—that they are ''incommensurable''. This gave rise to much talk of different peoples and cultures having radically different worldviews or conceptual schemes—so different that whether or not one was better, they could not be understood by one another.

[[Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]] famously argued against this idea of conceptual relativism, claiming that the notion that any languages or theories could be incommensurable with one another was itself incoherent. If this is correct, Kuhn's claims must be taken in a weaker sense than they often are.<ref>Davidson, D. (1974). On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme. ''Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association''. '''47''' (1): 5–20.</ref>

Furthermore, the hold of the Kuhnian analysis on [[social science]] has long been tenuous, with the wide application of multi-paradigmatic approaches in order to understand complex human behaviour.<ref>see e.g. {{cite book|author=John Hassard|title=Sociology and Organization Theory: Positivism, Paradigm and Postmodernity|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1993|isbn=0521350344}}</ref>