WSNers;
Remember Kuhn's description of how Einstein not only re-cast
Newton but also SUBSUMED him? Further, Einstein's "special"
theory he later subsumed himself by his own "general" theory.
Likewise, before him Newton had integrated, subsumed, and thereby
surpassed Tycho, Keplar, and Copernicus. Science proceeds not,
as the anti-intellectuals would portray it, by one paradigm
supplanting another like an annual change in fashion, but instead
by successive subsumation, where each shift INCORPORATES (does
NOT "discard") its predecessor's achievements while yet EXTENDING
them to new territory on a more general and abstract level.
There is an obvious application of this process to the
discussion on WSN. The question is over whether the
GENERALIZATION of WST to the rest of the world (in space) and the
period pre-1500 (in time) constitutes or requires a fundamental
adjustment of (WS) theory, and whether that adjustment is broad
enough to constitute an entirely new conceptualization of
history. For me (& Terry--who stated my views on the substantive
issues involved better than I could have) it does not, but for
others it seems to.
However, there is a theological aspect to the discussion,
insofar as key issues cannot be resolved by appeal to facts,
but must rely exclusively on rhetorical appeal to ideology,
thereby rendering them immune to empirical resolution.
--Peter Grimes