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|Major Contributions=== Fleck on Thought-Collectives and Incommensurability ==
As explained above Fleck draws on Kant's conception of synthetic a priori forms to maintain that an empty mind would be incapable of thought or perception, and that knowledge must exist before a mind can experience. However Kant asserts that these a priori forms such as perception of space, time, and causation would be universal amongst all thinkers. Kant justifies this by noting that absolute knowledge of the world is possible to attain, such as Newtonian physics (which was accepted as certain in Kant's time). For certain knowledge to be attainable, Kant warrants, one's a priori forms must reflect a sensible world, and thus the forms Kant provides would universally reflect a consistent and sensible world-in-itself.[8[CiteRef::Rohlf, Michael]]
Fleck reckons otherwise. Rather than a priori forms being the product of a sensible world-in-itself, Fleck states that different individuals in different communities and times possess distinct forms — different ways to view and organize phenomena, which he dubs a thought-style. Fleck likens changing between thought-styles to be similar to a kind of gestalt switch, insofar as an individual's entire understanding of perception and reality is based on the influence of various thought-styles. While Aristotelian physicians understand illness as an imbalance of humours, modern immunologists attribute the disease to an infection of bacteria or viruses. Fleck asserts that this is not a mere difference in explanation, but that these totally different manners of viewing the workings of reality.[[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]]
