Abstract

SummaryThis article is a defense of a semantic concept of incommensurability. Davidson's criticism of the dualism of scheme and content and Ramberg's davidsonian pragmatic concept of incommensurability are discussed. It is argued that Davidson's argument against conceptual relativism fails to undermine the notion of two languages being mutually partially not translatable. It is then claimed that a non‐trivial concept of semantic incommensurability based on the notion of intranslatability does makes sense, does not presuppose the scheme‐content dualism and is consistent with an objectivist view of progress in science. It is then concluded that, although the widely held view that the incommensurability thesis entails some form of epistemological relativism must be rejected, it does follow from Davidson's criticism of the “third dogma” of empiricism that a sharp distinction of the kuhnian kind between “normal” disagreement and conceptual change can not be drawn.