Introduction to Thomas Kuhn
Before the 1960s, most people thought of science as a steady, linear progression toward the truth. We just kept adding more facts to our “bucket” of knowledge. In 1962, Thomas Kuhn changed everything with the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Kuhn argued that science does not progress linearly. Instead, it moves through cycles of stability and sudden, radical change. He introduced the concept of the “Paradigm,” which has since become a buzzword in almost every field of human thought.
What is a Paradigm?
A Paradigm is more than just a theory. It is a whole “worldview” or “framework” that defines:
- What questions are worth asking.
- What counts as valid evidence.
- What methods should be used to solve problems.
- What the “standard” examples are for students.
For example, the Copernican Paradigm (Earth goes around the Sun) didn’t just change one fact; it changed how astronomers did their jobs, what they looked for in the sky, and even how they understood the nature of the universe.
The Cycle of Science
Kuhn described history as a cycle with several distinct phases:
Phase 1: Pre-Paradigmatic Science
Before a field is established, there is no consensus. Diverse schools of thought compete, and researchers spend most of their time arguing over basics. (Think of early psychology before Freud or Behavioralism).
Phase 2: Normal Science
Eventually, one framework wins out and becomes the Paradigm. During “Normal Science,” scientists are not trying to discover “new worlds”; they are “puzzle-solving.” They take the established laws for granted and try to apply them to new areas. This is the period of greatest productivity in science.
Phase 3: Crisis
During normal science, “anomalies” (facts that don’t fit the theory) always appear. At first, scientists ignore them or write them off as measurement errors. However, as anomalies pile up, the community loses confidence. This is a State of Crisis.
Phase 4: Scientific Revolution
A new candidate for a paradigm emerges. It solves the anomalies that the old paradigm couldn’t. A “battle” ensues between the old guard and the new generation.
Phase 5: Paradigm Shift
The new paradigm eventually replaces the old one. We return to a state of “Normal Science,” but now we are solving different puzzles in a different world.
Incommensurability
Kuhn’s most controversial idea was Incommensurability. He argued that people in different paradigms “live in different worlds.” Because they have different definitions of truth and different standards of evidence, there is no “neutral” way to compare the two paradigms.
If this is true, then we cannot say the New Paradigm is “truer” than the old one; we can only say it is “better at solving current problems.” This led many critics to accuse Kuhn of being a Relativist—denying that science gets us closer to absolute truth.
The “Planck’s Principle”
Kuhn noted that paradigm shifts are often generational. Max Planck once famously said: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” This suggests that science is not purely a rational process, but a social and psychological one as well.
Impact and Criticism
- Impact: Kuhn forced historians and philosophers to look at the actual practice of scientists rather than just the logic of their theories. He showed that science is a human activity subject to human biases.
- Criticism: Many scientists and philosophers (like Karl Popper) hated Kuhn’s work. They argued that if science is just a series of shifts from one “myth” to another, it has no more authority than religion or art. They wanted to preserve the idea of science as a rational pursuit of objective reality.
Conclusion
Whether you agree with him or not, Thomas Kuhn’s work was a paradigm shift in itself for the philosophy of science. It reminded us that our “knowledge” is always shaped by the framework in which we work, and that what seems like “common sense” today was often the radical “revolution” of yesterday.