Commitment and Co-Citation: An Indicator of Incommensurability in Patterns of Formal Communication
- 1 May 1983
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Social Studies of Science
- Vol. 13 (2) , 255-283
- https://doi.org/10.1177/030631283013002004
Abstract
The consequences of incommensurability for citation practice are operationalized for two case studies of theory competition in physics. It is argued that positive co-citation will be observed if theories are commensurable, but a lack of co-citation among competitors will be observed if theories are incommensurable. Incommensurable theories should be cited with supporting empirical and methodological articles, but not with each other. The operational indicator is applied to a case of theory competition in superconductivity and to a re-analysis of longitudinal co-citation data among theories of weak-electromagnetic unification. It is also shown that the operational definition breaks down in competition at the hypothesis level.Keywords
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