What is a paradigm?
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Kuhn described a paradigm as the set of theories, laws, exemplary problem solutions, methods and values shared by a scientific community. He later distinguished the "disciplinary matrix" from "exemplars".
How science changes
- Pre-paradigm: competing schools
- Normal science: "puzzle-solving" under one paradigm, most scientific work
- Anomaly: phenomena the paradigm cannot explain
- Crisis: accumulating anomalies erode confidence
- Revolution: a new paradigm is adopted and new normal science begins
Examples: Ptolemaic to Copernican-Keplerian-Newtonian astronomy, phlogiston to Lavoisier's oxygen theory, Newtonian mechanics to relativity.
Incommensurability
Rival paradigms differ in the meaning of terms, which problems matter and standards of evaluation, so they cannot be fully compared on a common scale. Kuhn likened paradigm change to a gestalt switch or conversion.
Kuhn and Popper
Popper held that scientists should propose bold conjectures and seek to falsify them; Kuhn described scientists as rarely abandoning a paradigm during normal science. Lakatos's research programmes tried to reconcile the two.
Influence and criticism
Kuhn highlighted the historical and social side of science, shaping the sociology of science and social theory, and "paradigm shift" entered everyday language. Critics charged relativism, portraying science as irrational group psychology, and vagueness: Masterman found 21 senses of "paradigm".
References
- Kuhn, T. S. (1962/2012). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (50th anniversary ed.). University of Chicago Press.
- Popper, K. R. (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Hutchinson.
- Lakatos, I., & Musgrave, A. (Eds.). (1970). Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press. (incl. Masterman, M., The nature of a paradigm)
- Bird, A. (2018). Thomas Kuhn. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.