Although Kuhn rejects being labeled a relativist, I will discuss what in his works justifies so characterizing him. I will explore three kinds of relativism in Kuhn - epistemic, ontological and linguistic - in order to assess whether his relativism is the result of applying a philosophy to the understanding of science, or whether it is derived from an accurate historical reconstruction of science. It is essential to differentiate between a variant of philosophical relativism being employed in the reconstruction of science, and relativism simply deriving from the way science has been practiced. Operating with the distinction between philosophical and metascientific relativism, I will try to show that Kuhn's basic theses are at best partially supported by history of science, and contend that, in the final analysis, kuhnian relativism must be grounded on psychological and sociological explanations in order to be firmly sustained. Kuhn recognizes this, but he questions the explanatory capacity of the theories so far forged by social sciences. And if Kuhn is unable to show how and to what extent social factors act upon scientific rationality, then his relativism may properly be seen as the product of applying a certain epistemology, ontology and philosophy of language to the understanding of science.
Relativism; Epistemic relativism; Ontological relativism; Semantic relativism; Incommensurability; Kuhn