PHIL 0610 Philosophy and Science Handout #7
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PHIL 0610
Philosophy and Science
Handout #7
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
I. Thomas Kuhn
Kuhn’s book The Structure ofScientific Revolutions revolutionized thinking about science and many other disciplines too. He is probably the most influential philosopher of science in the last 100 years. Kuhn coined the phrase “paradigm shift” to describe the revolutionary changes that punctuate the long periods of stable growth within science.
II. Paradigms and normal science
Kuhn defines normal science as research that is based on past scientific achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further research. In other words, normal science takes place within a paradigm.
A paradigm is a set of claims about the world, methods for gathering and analyzing data, and methods of scientific thought and action. A paradigm is a whole way of doing science in some particular field.
Normal science is the work that takes place within the framework provided by a paradigm. A paradigm provides the conditions that allow for well-organized enquiry. Within a paradigm, scientists agree on which problems are important, which methods can be legitimately used to solve these problems, and how to assess possible solutions. People who are engaged in normal science are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice.
Normal science is the typical work of the scientist and consists in a kind of puzzle-solving. Scientists engaged in normal science accept the paradigm in which they are working and strive to solve problems within it. This work is well-defined and well-organized.
Kuhn describes the work of normal science as generally involved in ‘an attempt to force nature in to the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies.’ (p.185) Normal science, Kuhn thinks, does not aim at novelties of fact or theory.
It might sound like Kuhn has a negative view of normal science, but he claims that the restrictions that stem from confidence in a paradigm force scientists to investigate some part of nature in incredible depth and detail. Kuhn thinks that this focus is an essential part of scientific development.
III. Anomaly and crisis
Sometimes, normal science will run into problems. Anomalies arise. An anomaly is a phenomenon that a paradigm doesn’t seem able to explain or a puzzle that normal science is not able to solve.
Despite not seeking out novel facts or theories, Kuhn argues that scientists will uncover new and unexpected phenomena in their research. As long as there aren’t too many anomalies, scientists continue with normal science. However, as anomalies start to accumulate, scientists begin to lose faith in the paradigm. Science then enters a period of growing crisis.
Kuhn thinks that in the history of science, there are recurring cases where an anomaly has seemed to require concerted scrutiny by scientists. Sometimes this is because the anomaly calls into question explicit and fundamental generalizations of the paradigm. When an anomaly starts to seem to be more than just another puzzle of normal science, the period of crisis has begun. Kuhn describes the process as involving these features:
• The anomaly becomes more generally recognized as such by scientists in the paradigm.
• Increasing amounts of attention are paid to the anomaly by respected members of the scientific community
• If the anomaly continues to resist attempts to explain it, the resolution of the anomaly will begin to be taken as the subject matter of the discipline.
• Initial attempts at solutions will adhere to the rules of the paradigm. As solutions continue to fail, attempts at a solution will involve descriptions of the paradigm that are not quite alike. The divergent descriptions will lead to a blurring of the rules of the paradigm.
• Though a paradigm exists, there will not be complete agreement amongst its community of exactly what it is.
IV. Scientific revolutions
Kuhn argues that scientists never just give up a paradigm when faced with anomalies. Instead, a scientific theory that has reached the status of a paradigm will only be declared invalid if an alternative candidate theory is able to take its place. As a paradigm begins to seem unworkable, individuals will begin to construct potential alternative paradigms.
Scientists will not abandon a paradigm without a replacement, since to do so is to give up on science itself. Kuhn says that the decision to reject a paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another. This judgment always involves a comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other.
V. Resolution of revolutions
Kuhn says that paradigm debates are not really about the relative problem-solving ability of two paradigms, despite the fact they are usually described in those terms. The decision of which paradigm to adopt is really, Kuhn thinks, about choosing between alternative ways of practicing science. A new paradigm usually doesn’t have a lot of answers to the important problems. Instead, a scientist who embraces a new paradigm at an early stage must do so despite the lack of answers to problems. The scientist must have faith that the new paradigm will succeed with many of the large problems facing it.
Kuhn says that in order for a community of scientists to adopt a new paradigm, two factors need to be present: (i.) a crisis that shakes the community’s confidence in the existing paradigm, and (ii.) there must be something about the new paradigm that makes at least some scientists feel that it is on the right track. Kuhn says of the second factor that sometimes it is ‘only personal and inarticulate aesthetic consideration that can do that.’ (p.196)
Kuhn doesn’t think that it is just a vague feeling that leads to one paradigm triumphing over another. He does think that a paradigm needs to attract some scientists initially so that they are able to do enough work to make the paradigm appealing to others. The initial proponents of the paradigm must be attracted by something other than the “results” of the paradigm since there are none at the outset.
VI. Kuhn vs. others
Popper: science is characterized by a permanent openness. All aspects of science, including its most fundamental ideas, are constantly open to testing.
Popper and scientific change: all science proceeds in the same way. Scientists form a hypothesis and then test it. If it is falsified, the hypothesis is rejected. If not, scientists continue testing it.
Quine: web of belief: the totality of our beliefs about the world are like a piece of fabric. When our web of beliefs comes in conflict with our experience, we make adjustments to certain of our beliefs, and since our beliefs are interconnected, these changes are going to have effects on other beliefs. In this picture, all beliefs are revisable, but there are certain beliefs that we are much more reluctant to change than others.
2023-02-20
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions