On commensurability

Chapter 11: Several of the preceding chapters compared approaches to describing or representing knowledge within particular fields. The present chapter discusses the question of commensurability in more theoretical terms, stepping through several philosophical positions to arrive at the basis for the framework presented in the next chapter. So far, commensurability has been about both the explicit conceptual commitments of knowledge systems, and an implicit 'something' which sits behind them. But what sorts of 'somethings' are these; what is it that can be said to be commensurable or otherwise? Not just the systems themselves, otherwise ontology matching techniques would presumably be sufficient"”there would be no need to step outside the system to glean further information. Rather, it is the constellation of beliefs, assumptions, commitments, intentions, structures and practices held by the people responsible for those systems, who design and use them. Since people also engage in a range of other social constellations and configurations, it would be accurate to speak of the dedicated cultures"”organisational, communal, national or global"”responsible for knowledge systems. This amorphous kind of entity will be given greater specificity in Chapter 12, 'A framework for commensurability'; however, its description will invariably be indebted to, and share, many of the features exhibited by canonical 'structural' accounts of socialised knowledge: Kuhnian paradigms, Foucauldian epistemes and Quinean conceptual schemes.