Thought style and thought collective are two well-known concepts from Ludwik Fleck’s theory of science, which he originally formulated in Polish and German. This paper contends that these two concepts cannot be fully understood without a third—Stimmung/nastrój, which is one of the musical metaphors that play an important role in Fleck’s thinking. Because it is most often translated into English as “mood”, Fleck’s musical metaphors are mostly lost in translation, appearing as mere rhetoric. Only if and when we understand Stimmung/nastrój in the musical meaning of attunement, we can fully understand thought collectives, for which Stimmung/nastrój is sine qua non, and thought style, which appears if and when a collective turns out to be an enduring and not a momentary one.
This article takes issue with Kuhn’s description of the ‘Aristotle experience,’ an event that took place in 1947 and that he retrospectively characterized as a revelation that instantly delivered to him the key concepts of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). We trace a certain transformation of this narrative over time: whereas it commenced from a description of his impression of disparity between the textbook image of science and the study of historical sources, Kuhn started to characterize it as a revelation after learning of the English translation of Fleck’s 1935 Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. This book anticipates many central Kuhnian claims. Kuhn read it as early as 1949, but never fully acknowledged it as a source of inspiration. We discuss four hypotheses concerning the possible influence of Fleck’s theory on Kuhn’s in light of the available evidence. We conclude that the degree of similarity between them is too great to be coincidental.
Artykuł przedstawia problemy językowe, które wynikają z tłumaczeń dwujęzycznej filozoficznej spuścizny Ludwika Flecka (1896–1961). Autor szczegółowo analizuje przypadek „legitymacji” w odniesieniu do sposobu, w jaki Fleck używał tego pojęcia w swoich oryginalnych polskich i niemieckich tekstach. Zarówno polscy, jak i angielscy tłumacze nie rozpoznali polskiego „legitymować” oraz niemieckiego „legitimieren” i ich wyrażeń pokrewnych jako swoich ekwiwalentów, dlatego jedno z ważniejszych Fleckowskich pojęć może być źle rozumiane.
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