{"id":522,"date":"2018-01-21T18:12:21","date_gmt":"2018-01-21T18:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/?p=522"},"modified":"2018-01-21T18:17:16","modified_gmt":"2018-01-21T18:17:16","slug":"revolutionary-ideas-thomas-kuhn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/2018\/01\/21\/revolutionary-ideas-thomas-kuhn\/","title":{"rendered":"The revolutionary ideas of Thomas Kuhn"},"content":{"rendered":"
Thomas Kuhn\u2019s influence on the academic and intellectual landscape in the second half of the twentieth century is undeniable. It spans the natural sciences, and the historical and philosophical disciplines that examine them, through to the fine arts and even to business. But what did Kuhn espouse? In brief, he popularized the notions of the paradigm and the paradigm shift. A paradigm for Kuhn is a bundle of puzzles, techniques, assumptions, standards and vocabulary that scientists endorse and employ to undertake their day-to-day activities and thereby make remarkable advances in understanding and explaining the natural world. What Kuhn unintentionally achieved, however, was to open the epistemic floodgates for non-scientific disciplines to rush through. Justin Fox, in a 2014\u00a0<\/span>Harvard Business Review<\/em>\u00a0article, to take a single example, queries whether\u00a0<\/span>economics<\/em>\u00a0is on the verge of \u201ca paradigm shift\u201d. Kuhn has his detractors and critics, of course \u2013 those who charge him with almost every conceivable academic failing, especially the promotion of relativism and irrationalism.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Kuhn was born on July 18, <\/span>1922 in Cincinnati, OH. After a progressive education, he matriculated in 1940 to Harvard University \u2013 majoring in physics \u2013 and graduated summa cum laude in 1943. He participated in several war-related projects, and after VE day he returned to Harvard to carry out research on theoretical solid-state physics, for which he was awarded a doctorate in 1949. A year earlier, Kuhn had been selected \u2013 through the patronage of Harvard\u2019s president James Conant \u2013 as a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows; and he took this opportunity to move from physics to the history and philosophy of science. In 1950, Kuhn was appointed an instructor to teach in Conant\u2019s inspired case-history science course; however, he was denied tenure in 1956 because the committee deemed his scholarship too popular and insufficiently academic.<\/span><\/div>\n
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In 1956, Kuhn accepted a position at the University of California at Berkeley to establish a history and philosophy of science programme. He was promoted to full professor in 1961, but only in the history department.<\/p>\n

In 1962,\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Structure of Scientific Revolutions\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 the book in which Kuhn set out his ideas on paradigms and scientific development \u2013 was published, as the final monograph in the\u00a0International Encyclopedia of Unified Science<\/em>. In 1964 he joined Princeton University\u2019s history and philosophy of science programme; and in 1979, he left Princeton for the department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. In 1991, Kuhn became professor emeritus; and he died on June 17, 1996 in Cambridge, MA.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Structure<\/em>, Kuhn\u2019s main aim was to criticize the widely accepted view \u2013 promoted by the Logical Positivists \u2013 that the accumulation of scientific knowledge across time is incremental and contiguous.<\/p>\n

He attacked, for example, the notion that Newtonian mechanics represents simply a special case of Einsteinian relativism. For Kuhn, the two theories are incommensurable; that is to say the terms and concepts of one are completely incompatible with the other. According to Kuhn, when the Newtonian discusses mass, for instance, she is referring to something entirely different than the Einsteinian. Rather than being the next phase in a continual process, Einsteinian relativism represents a paradigm shift, involving a radical break from Newtonian mechanics and the introduction of a wholly new set of standards, puzzles and vocabulary. Kuhn also rejected the Logical Positivists\u2019 verification principle. Rather than operating within an objective and a mind-independent language, scientific terms and concepts, according to Kuhn, have references and meanings that are relative to specific conceptual frameworks. In other words, theories cannot be verified by simply observing phenomena and articulating them directly; those observations are already unavoidably embedded in the theoretical framework. \u00a0Hence, no theory can ever be verified with certainty \u2013 either logically or empirically. Kuhn also dismisses Karl Popper\u2019s falsification principle. Just as empirical evidence cannot verify a theory, so too it cannot falsify one.<\/p>\n

No conceptual framework is flawless in terms of its predictions; there is simply the best one available for guiding normal scientific practice. According to Kuhn\u2019s vision of historical scientific development, new theories do not converge on the truth; rather, they shift from one paradigm to another, and each one directs contemporary scientific practice.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Structure,<\/em>\u00a0Kuhn developed a historical philosophy of science that comprises three major conceptual movements. The first is from pre-paradigmatic science, in which several paradigms compete for a scientific community\u2019s allegiance, to normal science, in which a consensus paradigm guides scientific practice. Unfortunately, paradigms do not fit or match up perfectly with natural phenomena, and anomalies eventually arise between what a paradigm predicts and what is observed empirically. If the anomalies persist, a crisis generally ensues \u2013 leading to the second movement \u2013 and the community enters a state of extraordinary science in the hope of resolving it. If a new, competing paradigm resolves the crisis, then a paradigm shift or scientific revolution occurs \u2013 the third movement \u2013 and a new normal science is established. This cycle recurs with no clear end point as science advances.<\/p>\n

Kuhn articulated several important notions concerning scientific practice. Probably the most significant is the incommensurability thesis. As noted above, two paradigms that compete during a scientific revolution are incommensurable when their contents are completely incompatible; that is, when no common measure or mutual foundation exists between them. The reason for such incompatibility is that one of the paradigms resolves the crisis that the other paradigm produces. How then could the crisis-resolving paradigm have anything in common with the crisis-producing paradigm? Associated with this thesis is the assertion that paradigm shifts are not completely rational affairs: community members who switch to a crisis-resolving paradigm, must\u00a0believe,\u00a0<\/em>beyond the available evidence, that it can lead the way forward for a new normal science. In other words, community members are converted through\u00a0faith<\/em>, but a faith \u2013 as Kuhn emphasizes later in defence of incommensurable shifts \u2013 that is not antirational.<\/p>\n

Kuhn\u2019s critics attacked many aspects of his theory. They argued that the very idea of the paradigm is simply too ambiguous to support a robust critical analysis of scientific practice. Moreover, in their view, Kuhn\u2019s incommensurability thesis was too ambitious. Competing paradigms are obviously incompatible with one another in a limited way, since one solves the crisis that the other engenders. But\u00a0some<\/em>\u00a0overlap must nonetheless exist between them, they argued, or else no intelligible exchange among members of a scientific community about the competing paradigms is possible. Finally, Kuhn\u2019s critics claimed that his ideas led to relativism, as he yoked the standard for scientific truth to a particular, and changeable, paradigm, and not to the mind- and theory-independent world that scientists investigate.<\/p>\n

This accusation of relativism is closely associated with the charge of irrationalism: according to Kuhn\u2019s account, the choice of a new paradigm among members of a scientific community in crisis is made in part on faith; and not entirely on reason. As the philosopher Imre Lakatos claimed, if Kuhn were correct, science would advance through a type of \u201cmob psychology\u201d rather than rational assent. Moreover, because the paradigm dictates scientific practice with respect to expected outcomes, normal scientists would mindlessly follow its dictates and predictions. According to another critic, Karl Popper, if Kuhn\u2019s story of scientific development were true, normal scientists would not be celebrated champions, who drive the pylons of science into the swamp of ignorance until they get closer to bedrock truth; rather, they would merely be \u201capplied\u201d \u2013 in contrast to \u201cpure\u201d \u2013 scientists.<\/p>\n

Although Kuhn responded to his critics on various occasions, he principally addressed them in a Postscript that appeared in\u00a0Structure<\/em>\u2019s revised edition. In response to the charge of ambiguity, he introduced the notion of the\u00a0disciplinary matrix<\/em>\u00a0to replace that of the paradigm. A disciplinary matrix represents a diversity of elements, including symbolic generalizations, models and values. These elements direct normal science. One that Kuhn singled out was the notion of the exemplar. Exemplars serve the scientific community as solved puzzles for both pedagogical and research purposes, and each disciplinary matrix has its own set.<\/p>\n

Responding to criticisms of the incommensurability thesis, Kuhn developed a more fine-grained and nuanced definition, distinguishing between\u00a0local<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0global<\/em>\u00a0incommensurability. The former represented partial, but still substantial, differences among competing paradigms, such that rational comparison between them is possible. Yet global incommensurability still obtains between the most significantly divergent paradigms, such as those surrounding the Copernican Revolution.<\/p>\n

Kuhn found the charge of relativism frivolous: a paradigm that solves another paradigm\u2019s crisis is obviously better suited to guide normal science, he argued. Whether that paradigm is\u00a0true<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0objectively<\/em>\u00a0correct is beside the point; normal scientists do not possess an Archimedean platform from which to justify, either absolutely or objectively, scientific knowledge. They work with the best standards of evidence and confirmation available to them.<\/p>\n

And responding to the charge of irrationalism, Kuhn agreed with his critics that rational and empirical reasons are necessary to choose between paradigms \u2013 but they are also insufficient. He argued that values are also required. For example, simplicity in theoretical statements and natural laws is preferable to those working with them: a paradigm with simpler theories is much more appealing, and thus more likely to be adopted. Personal factors, beliefs and relationships may also guide a scientist to prefer one paradigm over another.<\/p>\n

Although Kuhn attempted, in this Postscript, to salvage\u00a0Structure<\/em>\u00a0from its critics, he later underwent a paradigm shift of his own. In the 1980s, Kuhn exchanged the historical philosophy of science \u2013 as promulgated in\u00a0Structure<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 for an evolutionary one. Indeed, he originally acknowledged in\u00a0Structure<\/em>\u00a0that Darwinian evolution best epitomized his perspective of scientific advancement Specifically, he claimed that just as speciation is the target of biological evolution, so too specialization is the target of scientific evolution. In other words, the target of scientific evolution is not truth\u00a0per se<\/em>\u00a0but finer articulation of the natural world, especially with respect to the proliferation of scientific specialities. For Kuhn, scientific advancement is the gradual evolutionary emergence of scientific specialities. So as members of a scientific speciality practise their trade, a new speciality evolves or emerges from the older one \u2013 often in response to anomalies encountered under the older speciality.<\/p>\n

Kuhn planned to write a sequel to\u00a0Structure<\/em>, outlining this \u201cevolutionary turn\u201d, which he entitled\u00a0Words and Worlds: An evolutionary view of scientific development<\/em>. He began by proposing the notion of the\u00a0lexicon<\/em>to replace that of the paradigm. A lexicon comprises a scientific speciality\u2019s collection of terms and concepts to chart the world taxonomically. So, when a scientific speciality evolves, its lexical terms change to reflect a new world and, as such, it is incommensurable with the parent lexicon. Instead of the incommensurability of paradigms entailing that there be no common\u00a0meaning<\/em>, Kuhn now argued that incommensurable paradigms had no common taxonomy. But a universal translating language, Kuhn argued, is not the solution to understanding these incommensurable terms; rather, the historian must enter the past world of science and become multilingual. Kuhn also changed incommensurability\u2019s role to isolating lexicons of various scientific specialities, so that a new speciality can evolve from its parent as its own independent speciality. In sum, as scientific specialities evolve, their \u201cwords\u201d capture more of the \u201cworlds\u201d open to scientific investigation.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Kuhn did not complete\u00a0Words and Worlds<\/em>\u00a0before he died. The question that arises is whether the sequel would have had a significant impact on contemporary philosophy of science, which is more pluralistic in its perspective than when Kuhn wrote\u00a0Structure<\/em>. Today\u2019s philosophers of science have no need for a consensus framework, since each natural science is studied by its own philosophical sub-field. Kuhn\u2019s evolutionary philosophy of science, however, might afford a possible candidate for reviving such a framework \u2013 but not in the conventional sense. Normally, the framework depends on a reduction of the non-physical sciences to the physical sciences. Physics is the model for what denotes a science; and the non-physical sciences must kowtow to physical terms and concepts. But this effort to provide a consensus framework for the sciences eventually fizzles out towards the end of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

Kuhn\u2019s evolutionary philosophy of science, however, provides a possible consensus framework that outlines the relationships of the various natural sciences as they evolve and specialize. Thus it accounts for contemporary philosophy of science\u2019s pluralistic stance, by clarifying the evolutionary relationships between the sciences \u2013 especially in terms of their common ancestry. Its goal is not to force the various sciences into a single scientific mould, such as the physical sciences, but to account for how these sciences progress like a branching tree of proliferating specialities. Although the full impact of Kuhn\u2019s evolutionary philosophy of science may never be realized, the marriage between\u00a0Structure<\/em>\u00a0and academic discourse remains sacrosanct, as is evident from the recent celebration of\u00a0Structure<\/em>\u2019s golden anniversary \u2013 with no divorce imminent.<\/p>\n

This article first appeared in The Times Literary Supplement<\/a> on January 17, 2018<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Kuhn\u2019s influence on the academic and intellectual landscape in the second half of the twentieth century is undeniable. It […]<\/p>\n

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