Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 19 views

    Thomas Kuhn: Paradigm Shift (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962) - in

    Uploaded by

    tdbhai1122
    The document discusses Thomas Kuhn and his criticism of Karl Popper's analysis by introducing the concept of paradigm shift, dividing the scientific process into normal science and extraordinary science, and describing how anomalies within a paradigm can lead to its elimination and replacement with a new paradigm.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Thomas Kuhn: Paradigm Shift (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962) - in

    Uploaded by

    tdbhai1122
    19 views8 pages
    The document discusses Thomas Kuhn and his criticism of Karl Popper's analysis by introducing the concept of paradigm shift, dividing the scientific process into normal science and extraordinary science, and describing how anomalies within a paradigm can lead to its elimination and replacement with a new paradigm.

    Original Description:

    Assignment Chapter 8

    Original Title

    08

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses Thomas Kuhn and his criticism of Karl Popper's analysis by introducing the concept of paradigm shift, dividing the scientific process into normal science and extraordinary science, and describing how anomalies within a paradigm can lead to its elimination and replacement with a new paradigm.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    19 views8 pages

    Thomas Kuhn: Paradigm Shift (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962) - in

    Uploaded by

    tdbhai1122
    The document discusses Thomas Kuhn and his criticism of Karl Popper's analysis by introducing the concept of paradigm shift, dividing the scientific process into normal science and extraordinary science, and describing how anomalies within a paradigm can lead to its elimination and replacement with a new paradigm.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    You are on page 1of 8

    THOMAS KUHN

    As we touched on at the

    beginning of the chapter, Thomas

    Kuhn criticized Popper's analysis

    by introducing the concept of

    paradigm shift (The Structure of

    Scientific Revolutions, 1962). In

    his opinion, in fact, a scientific

    community is not constituted on

    the basis of a falsifi- cationist

    methodology, but springs out of


    the uncritical and dogmatic

    acceptance of a way of thinking

    (paradigm).

    Kuhn divided the scientific

    process into two phases: normal

    science and extraordinary (or

    revolutionary) science. During the

    first phase, the majority of

    scientists work on the basis of

    [what they call] the current

    paradigm accepted by the


    scientific community, following

    Popper's ideas on falsifiability.

    At this point, says Kuhn,

    anomalies are created within the

    com- monly accepted paradigm

    and phenomena, that models

    accepted by the scientific

    community are unable to explain.

    In this cycle,

    the impossibility

    of using the old


    models to ex-

    plain reality is

    recognized and

    new ones are

    sought (although

    most of them

    are destined to

    be refuted).

    Eventually,

    however, a new

    para- digm is
    created, and the

    old one is

    This parabola- enough anomalies

    shaped lava flow accumulate, some

    illustrates the scientists begin to

    application of work within the so-

    mathematics in called

    physics—in this "extraordinary

    case, Galileo's science".

    law of falling

    bodies. When
    eliminated. paradigm and

    By the new one,

    thoroughly Kuhn described

    analyzing the a new idea of

    passage demarcation:

    between the old the

    new paradigm was commonly

    accepted, for it was able to better

    solve problems (elitist

    authoritarianism).
    Ultimately, the American

    historian and philosopher paved

    the way for the analysis of the

    subjectivity of scientific progress.

    This completely capsized when

    contemporary Paul Feyerabend

    published his most famous work,

    Against the Method (1975):


    “The fundamental characteristic of science is

    its rejection of any dogmatism, which

    translates into the openness to any

    methodology; any attempt to find an order in

    the world of science, by creating schemes to

    rigorously define the processes of research and

    discovery, is only doomed to failure, and this

    due to the intrinsic nature of the path of

    discovery, which cannot be restricted or limited

    by the norms of a rigid method (problem of

    incommensurability).”

    You might also like