Just because it is not 100% truth that doesn't make it the same as someone saying their own opinion, as the good sir AmadeusD is patiently explaining to you. — unimportant

If I say my truth about my own gender is unique to me, is that an opinion or true?

Science works, not because it is truth with a capital T, but because it allows us to predict events in a useful way in spite of the fact that each participant in the enterprise of science contributes their own perspective on the meaning of what is called true. — Joshs

This is only half the case. THe first half seems to be true - but that's because we aren't God, not because we cannot adjudicate what the case is. This is why the second is false - science does not proceed on mere consensus. Kuhn is well aware of this and makes much of it in "The Structure..". I'll respond with a couple more from him:

"Nature cannot be forced into an arbitrary set of conceptual boxes"
"Though the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the scientist afterward works in a different world."
"I am not suggesting that there is no reality or that science does not deal with it."
"Scientific development must be seen as a process of evolution from primitive beginnings—a process whose successive stages are characterized by an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature."

A very key one, which I think illustrates that while Kuhn does reject T truth (as many do - or at least, access to it), he explicitly rejects subjective notions of it, too:

"Later scientific theories are better than earlier ones for solving puzzles in the often quite different environments to which they are applied."

His Revolution is in structural applications of scientific apparati. It's not about whether or not true things can be known and adjudicated, from what I can tell. The position is more than science, as a practice, is not concerned with trivial things and so the paradigms relating to which questions to ask are unstable and go through these cycles. I don't think there's much to suggest he thinks "my truth" could be a reasonable phrase.

There is, I think, no theory-independent way to reconstruct phrases like ‘really there'; the notion of a match between the ontology of a theory and its “real” counterpart in nature now seems to me illusive in principle. Besides, as a historian, I am impressed with the implausability of the view. I do not doubt, for example, that Newton's mechanics improves on Aristotle's and that Einstein's improves on Newton's as instruments for puzzle-solving.

What I understand to be a common critique of Kuhn is encapsulated here well - The first half of this suggests we cannot improve, because conclusiory notions are incoherent in some way ("illusive"). But goes on to say does not doubt hte results of that very activity occurring. It was certainly the most obvious tension I picked up in the book.

While I agree, there's no need to slide down into suggestions of motivation. Joshs is a well-spoken and respectful poster. I doubt anything is "sneakily" being done here.

His Revolution is in structural applications of scientific apparati. It's not about whether or not true things can be known and adjudicated, from what I can tell. The position is more than science, as a practice, is not concerned with trivial things and so the paradigms relating to which questions to ask are unstable and go through these cycles. I don't think there's much to suggest he thinks "my truth" could be a reasonable phrase. — AmadeusD

Kuhn’s skepticism about capital-T Truth is not grounded simply in human finitude, as if better epistemic access would solve the problem. It is grounded in the historical and conceptual fact that different paradigms carve the world differently. When Kuhn says that after a paradigm shift the scientist “works in a different world,” he is not making a merely psychological or perspectival claim. He is saying that standards of relevance, similarity, explanation, and success have shifted. Your response treats this as compatible with a stable notion of adjudication, just better tools applied to the same underlying court of appeal. Kuhn’s insistence on incommensurability questions that reading Paradigms are not just rival hypotheses evaluated by neutral criteria; they partially determine the criteria themselves.

When Kuhn says “later theories are better puzzle-solvers” he introduces that formulation precisely to avoid saying that later theories are “truer” in a correspondence sense. “Better” is indexed to puzzle-solving within a tradition, not to convergence on an ahistorical truth. You seem to read this as a reassurance that objectivity is intact and that subjective variants of truth are excluded. But Kuhn’s own formulation blocks naive relativism, but it also blocks the idea that we can cleanly separate epistemic success from the historically situated standards that define what success is.

Kuhn would reject “my truth” if it meant idiosyncratic, private belief unconstrained by communal practice. A lone scientist does not get to baptize a new paradigm by fiat. But But I’m questioning whether, even within a shared paradigm, individual scientists inhabit it identically, interpret its results in precisely the same way, or attach the same meanings to its key terms. I think Kuhn’s answer is clearly no. Paradigms are learned through exemplars, not through explicit rules, and that learning always involves a degree of tacit judgment and variation. Scientists agree enough to work productively, but not so much that their perspectives collapse into a single cognitive point.

Kuhn doesn’t license “my truth” as an all-purpose slogan, but he does show how truth-claims are always embedded in practices, traditions, and shared forms of life. Outside highly regimented domains like mature sciences, where paradigms are relatively stable and consensus is enforceable, the room for divergence in interpretation is much wider.

Kuhn doesn’t license “my truth” as an all-purpose slogan, but he does show how truth-claims are always embedded in practices, traditions, and shared forms of life. — Joshs

That's fair enough. But I think that there is a little more to be said. Kuhn is not wrong to emphasize paradigm shift and incommensurability in an argument to establish the importance of those concepts. But I think there is an implicit continuity in what he describes.
He identifies anomalies as the prime movers in the shift of paradigms. These are, inevitably, to be described in the "old" context. The point is that, in that context they appear insoluble but that they are perfectly soluble in the new context. So it is critical that the same anomalous phenomena can be recognized across paradigms, in spite of any incommensurability.
Further, it is not sufficient that the anomalies are resolved in the new paradigm. In addition, the new paradigm has to solve (explain) all the phenomena that were solved or explained in the old.
I'm not certain how much Wittgenstein talks about change and development in practices and ways of life. I have the impression that what impressed him most about them was their stability. In making this comment about Kuhn, I'm trying to reconcile the two without overthrowing either.

You know when someone believes it, when they believe it to their bones. That's their truth. Why are people so afraid of declaring their truth? Why are people so afraid of others declaring theirs?

We need more conviction, not less.

When Kuhn says “later theories are better puzzle-solvers” he introduces that formulation precisely to avoid saying that later theories are “truer” in a correspondence sense. — Joshs

I think this is more to do with avoiding using "true" at all, because a theory isn't a truth. Its a "best possibility", and the scientific method essentially gives us license to take it as "true". But hte scientific method is not private, or even caught in labs. The layperson can carry out a scientific investigation, and so truth can be shared. But what is not possible is for some scientific method to come to a conclusion across multiple individuals/labs/whatever and another to come to another conclusion (other than interpretation - that doesn't seem apt for the true/not true distinction but I admit this is hard to tease apart) and for both to be the case. There is only one "the case" about the vast majority of questions science can answer. I think we would be doing a disservice to the world and ourselves by suggesting that our access to those "is the case" statements is mediated by context. It is the questions being asked that are mediated by context, and I think this is specifically what Kuhn is talking about.

The success of the method, in answering those questions, doesn't appear to be his target basically.

You seem to read this as a reassurance that objectivity is intact and that subjective variants of truth are excluded. — Joshs

Hmm. Not quite. But rather that facts are intact, and we should be striving for them. We often obtain them. But "practice" is not stable or sound in this regard. It may be accidental that a particular paradigm was able to answer questions C, F and J while we must await another to also answer G, Q and V. I don't think Kuhn is, anywhere, suggesting that we understand truth as anything other than a 1:1 match between the world and ourselves, but that we can't actually achieve that so let's take a step down and approach what we can approach - which is understanding paradigms and contexts as motivators for what science investigates.

the room for divergence in interpretation is much wider. — Joshs

I agree, but I guess I wouldn't (and take it Kuhn wouldn't, even before having these thoughts that lead to Structure...) call that truth in any epistemic sense. Those interpretations are the raw materials that must be adjudicated between, with reference to the "is the case" of the questions at hand. Maybe this is not achievable. I think that's ok, though.

You know when someone believes it, when they believe it to their bones. That's their truth. Why are people so afraid of declaring their truth? Why are people so afraid of others declaring theirs? — Questioner

Why do you care? What non-logical mindset requires others to publicly declare any and everything they happen to believe to complete strangers, possibly those incapable of even understanding? Particularly in situations of little relevance. We live in a society of the perpetually afraid accusing others of being "afraid" when they don't do things the afraid person wants that the other person simply has no desire or reason to do. Afraid people are the most violent and accusatory. They know they're controlled by their fears and find fleeting, short-lived, and shallow alleviation from such by instilling or attempting to instill the same in others.

"You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you."

Truer words have seldom ever been spoken. Avoiding something you would avoid because you are (or would be) afraid, is hardly a matter of emotion but is instead one of pure, calculated logic. We assume we know all there is to know about ourselves, and thus human nature in general. It's this fallacy that assumes no other person performing a given action does so for reasons that can't be comprehended by (or worse, magically and perfectly aligned with) our current mindset.

We fear what we don't understand. And so our mind takes the path of least resistance. "Oh, that guy doing something, well if that was me, Explanation XYZ is why I would be doing it, and I know all there is to know so obviously he's doing it for the same reason I would be doing it, if it were me in his shoes." This is basically how the unenlightened mind works. It doesn't mean the person is dumb. It's basic pattern recognition. Reliance on memory, experience, and what has seemed to work in the past. Keeps us alive. Until it doesn't.

You know when someone believes it, when they believe it to their bones. That's their truthbelief. — Questioner

I have fixed this for semantic consistency and logic.

Kuhn is not wrong to emphasize paradigm shift and incommensurability in an argument to establish the importance of those concepts. But I think there is an implicit continuity in what he describes.
He identifies anomalies as the prime movers in the shift of paradigms. These are, inevitably, to be described in the "old" context. The point is that, in that context they appear insoluble but that they are perfectly soluble in the new context. So it is critical that the same anomalous phenomena can be recognized across paradigms, in spite of any incommensurability.
Further, it is not sufficient that the anomalies are resolved in the new paradigm. In addition, the new paradigm has to solve (explain) all the phenomena that were solved or explained in the old.
I'm not certain how much Wittgenstein talks about change and development in practices and ways of life. I have the impression that what impressed him most about them was their stability. In making this comment about Kuhn, I'm trying to reconcile the two without overthrowing either. — Ludwig V

From a Kuhnian vantage, the continuity you emphasize can’t be understood as neutral continuity. You say anomalies are “inevitably described in the old context” and recognized as the same phenomena across paradigms. But for Kuhn, what counts as “the same phenomenon” is not theory-neutral. Observation is theory-laden. Scientists working in different paradigms may literally see different things when looking at the same instrument readings or experimental setups. The “same anomalous phenomena” are not bare data standing outside frameworks; they are structured by the paradigm that renders them anomalous in the first place. After a shift, what was once an anomaly may no longer even be described in the same conceptual terms.

Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis doesn’t deny all translatability, it denies perfect translation. The fact that scientists can argue across paradigms doesn’t mean they share a fixed observational language that adjudicates the dispute from nowhere. A new paradigm preserves much of the old paradigm’s puzzle-solving ability, but it may reclassify what counts as a legitimate puzzle. Certain old problems may be dismissed as ill-posed, meaningless, or peripheral.

Wittgenstein would likely go even further by questioning the Kuhnian picture of anomalies driving development as though reality were pressing back against theory in a structured way. For him, what counts as a failure, an anomaly, or a contradiction depends on rules internal to the practice. When those rules shift, the “problem” may dissolve rather than be solved. That is not puzzle-solving in Kuhn’s sense; it is conceptual reorientation

There is only one "the case" about the vast majority of questions science can answer. I think we would be doing a disservice to the world and ourselves by suggesting that our access to those "is the case" statements is mediated by context. It is the questions being asked that are mediated by context, and I think this is specifically what Kuhn is talking about. — AmadeusD

You claim that Kuhn avoids “true” simply because a theory is not a truth but a “best possibility,” and that the scientific method licenses us to treat it as true. This reframes Kuhn as offering epistemic humility about access, not a structural account of scientific change. But Kuhn’s avoidance of “truth” language is not merely caution about overstatement. It reflects his deeper claim that standards of theory appraisal, what counts as explanation, simplicity, accuracy, even what counts as a problem, are internal to paradigms.

I don't think Kuhn is, anywhere, suggesting that we understand truth as anything other than a 1:1 match between the world and ourselves, but that we can't actually achieve that so let's take a step down and approach what we can approach - which is understanding paradigms and contexts as motivators for what science investigates. — AmadeusD

The issue isn’t just that we fall short of a 1:1 correspondence with reality. The issue is that what counts as matching reality is itself partly paradigm-structured.You say “There is only one ‘the case’ about the vast majority of questions science can answer.” But for Kuhn, the Newtonian question “What is the absolute motion of this body?” and the Einsteinian framework that denies absolute space are not simply two answers to the same neutral question. The very structure of the question changes. So to say “only one is the case” presupposes a shared conceptual framework in which the case is described.

Paradigms don’t just select topics, they shape what counts as a legitimate solution and even what counts as evidence. Observation is theory-laden. Puzzle-solutions are judged by paradigm-specific standards. That doesn’t mean reality is invented, but it does mean that “the case” is never accessed from nowhere. You read Kuhn as saying there is one truth, and we just approach it imperfectly and context shapes our interests.

Kuhn argues instead that there is one world, but what counts as a true account of it is inseparable from the historically evolving practices that define problems, evidence, and explanation. Kuhn’s point is not that the ideal stands but is out of reach. It is that scientific rationality does not require that ideal to function. Science progresses by increasing puzzle-solving capacity within shifting frameworks, not by demonstrably approaching a fixed description of “the case.”

It reflects his deeper claim that standards of theory appraisal, what counts as explanation, simplicity, accuracy, even what counts as a problem, are internal to paradigms. — Joshs

I am genuinely sorry if I was insufficiently clear, but this is exactly what I have explained in my response. I'm really sorry if anything sounds short, but its probably going to be things I've either stated, or intimated.

The issue is that what counts as matching reality is itself partly paradigm-structured. — Joshs

I do not read Kuhn this way. I read him as presenting an issue with falsifiability. If questions are asked within a paradigm, then the answers come within the paradigm and interpretation is an issue - but this does not mean we are not truly (pun intended) aiming at "the case". I realise this is a tricky concept, not because its clever, but because it took me a while to actually figure out in "The Structure..". I couldn't get my head around the claim you're making precisely, but when I shifted to noting his issue is with structural choices and not an epistemic issue per se everything fell into place.

If this isn't how you read him, that's all good.

but it does mean that “the case” is never accessed from nowhere. — Joshs

This is hte issue, as I see it, in Kuhn. And I think what I've described accurately captures how he approaches it. If you don't, that's all good with me :) We are, after all ,interpreting from different paradigms.

But the kicker here is that asking Kuhn would give us a fixed "the case" if he were alive! Heh.

Its a person using language to manipulate
— Philosophim

You really need to shrug off this sense of victimization. — Questioner

How does this imply victimization? If a person is being manipulative with language it doesn't mean I personally am being manipulated.

I am sure when people speak their truth, they are not thinking about you. — Questioner

This is just ignoring the discussion and insisting on using manipulative language. When people are speaking on their subjective view point, of course they don't have to think about me. But if they're trying to speak a subjective viewpoint that twists language to their own ends, its being manipulative. I consider using manipulative language one of the few clear evils that people can do. And your response being completely unintelligent and lacking is one of the reasons why. You cannot be a manipulative person and be good. It infects your mind as a poison, twists your emotions into hate, and utterly ruins otherwise good people.