Abstract

In his paper, Juan Vicente Mayoral presents various aspects of Kuhn’s thought from a historical perspective. Besides the interesting approach that Mayoral proposes for several problems, in this commentary I am going to address only the relevance of the individual in Kuhn. This point can be considered a secondary aspect of Mayoral work, but I think it will allow us to address at least some of Mayoral reading strategies. And even when Mayoral makes few references to the role of individuals, in those places their importance and their problematic nature are underlined. I will suggest a way of emphasizing the relevance of the individual and defending what we are going to call a “compatibility account”. By a “compatibility account” I mean a way to obtain a Kuhnian coherent conceptual picture for individuals and communities. The contrast between what we will call a rational and an interpretative individual will be a means to underline a “compatibility account”. While, as we will see, the activity of individuals in a Kuhnian account is mainly tied to variability, I will present a potential extension of this perspective to a, particularly problematic area: the context of discovery.