Paradigm shift

For other uses, see Paradigm Shift (disambiguation).

A paradigm shift, as identified by American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Kuhn contrasted these shifts, which characterize a scientific revolution, to the activity of normal science, which he described as scientific work done within a prevailing framework (or paradigm). In this context, the word "paradigm" is used in its original meaning, as "example" (Greek: παράδειγμα).

The nature of scientific revolutions has been a question posed by modern philosophy since Immanuel Kant used the phrase in the preface to his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), referring to Greek mathematics and Newtonian physics. In the 20th century, new crises in the basic concepts of mathematics, physics, and biology revitalized interest in the question among scholars. It was against this active background that Kuhn published his work.

Kuhn presented his notion of a paradigm shift in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). As one commentator summarizes:

Kuhn acknowledges having used the term "paradigm" in two different meanings. In the first one, "paradigm" designates what the members of a certain scientific community have in common, that is to say, the whole of techniques, patents and values shared by the members of the community. In the second sense, the paradigm is a single element of a whole, say for instance Newton’s Principia, which, acting as a common model or an example... stands for the explicit rules and thus defines a coherent tradition of investigation. Thus the question is for Kuhn to investigate by means of the paradigm what makes possible the constitution of what he calls "normal science". That is to say, the science which can decide if a certain problem will be considered scientific or not. Normal science does not mean at all a science guided by a coherent system of rules, on the contrary, the rules can be derived from the paradigms, but the paradigms can guide the investigation also in the absence of rules. This is precisely the second meaning of the term "paradigm", which Kuhn considered the most new and profound, though it is in truth the oldest.[1]

Since the 1960s, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events, even though Kuhn himself restricted the use of the term to the hard sciences.

In a 2015 retrospective on Kuhn,[2] the philosopher Martin Cohen describes the notion of the ‘Paradigm Shift’ as a kind of intellectual virus – spreading from hard science to social science and on to the arts and even everyday political rhetoric today. Cohen claims that Thomas Kuhn himself had only a very hazy idea of what it might mean and, in line with the American philosopher of science, Paul Feyerabend, accuses Kuhn of retreating from the more radical implications of his theory, which are that scientific facts are never really more than opinions, whose popularity is transitory and far from conclusive.

Kuhnian paradigm shifts

Kuhn used the duck-rabbit optical illusion to demonstrate the way in which a paradigm shift could cause one to see the same information in an entirely different way.

An epistemological paradigm shift was called a "scientific revolution" by epistemologist and historian of science Thomas Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

A scientific revolution occurs, according to Kuhn, when scientists encounter anomalies that cannot be explained by the universally accepted paradigm within which scientific progress has thereto been made. The paradigm, in Kuhn's view, is not simply the current theory, but the entire worldview in which it exists, and all of the implications which come with it. This is based on features of landscape of knowledge that scientists can identify around them.

There are anomalies for all paradigms, Kuhn maintained, that are brushed away as acceptable levels of error, or simply ignored and not dealt with (a principal argument Kuhn uses to reject Karl Popper's model of falsifiability as the key force involved in scientific change). Rather, according to Kuhn, anomalies have various levels of significance to the practitioners of science at the time. To put it in the context of early 20th century physics, some scientists found the problems with calculating Mercury's perihelion more troubling than the Michelson-Morley experiment results, and some the other way around. Kuhn's model of scientific change differs here, and in many places, from that of the logical positivists in that it puts an enhanced emphasis on the individual humans involved as scientists, rather than abstracting science into a purely logical or philosophical venture.

When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, the scientific discipline is thrown into a state of crisis, according to Kuhn. During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones previously discarded, are tried. Eventually a new paradigm is formed, which gains its own new followers, and an intellectual "battle" takes place between the followers of the new paradigm and the hold-outs of the old paradigm. Again, for early 20th century physics, the transition between the Maxwellian electromagnetic worldview and the Einsteinian relativistic worldview was neither instantaneous nor calm, and instead involved a protracted set of "attacks," both with empirical data as well as rhetorical or philosophical arguments, by both sides, with the Einsteinian theory winning out in the long run. Again, the weighing of evidence and importance of new data was fit through the human sieve: some scientists found the simplicity of Einstein's equations to be most compelling, while some found them more complicated than the notion of Maxwell's aether which they banished. Some found Eddington's photographs of light bending around the sun to be compelling, while some questioned their accuracy and meaning. Sometimes the convincing force is just time itself and the human toll it takes, Kuhn said, using a quote from Max Planck: "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."[3]

After a given discipline has changed from one paradigm to another, this is called, in Kuhn's terminology, a scientific revolution or a paradigm shift. It is often this final conclusion, the result of the long process, that is meant when the term paradigm shift is used colloquially: simply the (often radical) change of worldview, without reference to the specificities of Kuhn's historical argument.

Science and paradigm shift

A common misinterpretation of paradigms is the belief that the discovery of paradigm shifts and the dynamic nature of science (with its many opportunities for subjective judgments by scientists) are a case for relativism:[4] the view that all kinds of belief systems are equal. Kuhn vehemently denies this interpretation[5] and states that when a scientific paradigm is replaced by a new one, albeit through a complex social process, the new one is always better, not just different.

These claims of relativism are, however, tied to another claim that Kuhn does at least somewhat endorse: that the language and theories of different paradigms cannot be translated into one another or rationally evaluated against one another — that they are incommensurable. This gave rise to much talk of different peoples and cultures having radically different worldviews or conceptual schemes — so different that whether or not one was better, they could not be understood by one another. However, the philosopher Donald Davidson published a highly regarded essay in 1974, "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme" (Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 47, (1973-1974), pp. 5–20) arguing that the notion that any languages or theories could be incommensurable with one another was itself incoherent. If this is correct, Kuhn's claims must be taken in a weaker sense than they often are. Furthermore, the hold of the Kuhnian analysis on social science has long been tenuous with the wide application of multi-paradigmatic approaches in order to understand complex human behaviour (see for example John Hassard, Sociology and Organization Theory: Positivism, Paradigm and Postmodernity. Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN 0521350344.)

Paradigm shifts tend to be most dramatic in sciences that appear to be stable and mature, as in physics at the end of the 19th century. At that time, physics seemed to be a discipline filling in the last few details of a largely worked-out system. In 1900, Lord Kelvin famously told an assemblage of physicists at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."[6][veracity of this quote challenged in Lord Kelvin article] Five years later, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity, which challenged the very simple set of rules laid down by Newtonian mechanics, which had been used to describe force and motion for over two hundred years.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn wrote, "Successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science." (p. 12) Kuhn's idea was itself revolutionary in its time, as it caused a major change in the way that academics talk about science. Thus, it could be argued that it caused or was itself part of a "paradigm shift" in the history and sociology of science. However, Kuhn would not recognise such a paradigm shift. In the social sciences, people can still use earlier ideas to discuss the history of science.

Philosophers and historians of science, including Kuhn himself, ultimately accepted a modified version of Kuhn's model, which synthesizes his original view with the gradualist model that preceded it.

Examples of paradigm shifts

Natural sciences

Some of the "classical cases" of Kuhnian paradigm shifts in science are:

Social sciences

In Kuhn's view, the existence of a single reigning paradigm is characteristic of the natural sciences, while philosophy and much of social science were characterized by a "tradition of claims, counterclaims, and debates over fundamentals."[10] Others have applied Kuhn's concept of paradigm shift to the social sciences.

Marketing

In the later part of the 1990s, 'paradigm shift' emerged as a buzzword, popularized as marketing speak and appearing more frequently in print and publication.[16] In his book Mind The Gaffe, author Larry Trask advises readers to refrain from using it, and to use caution when reading anything that contains the phrase. It is referred to in several articles and books[17][18] as abused and overused to the point of becoming meaningless.

Other uses

The term "paradigm shift" has found uses in other contexts, representing the notion of a major change in a certain thought-pattern — a radical change in personal beliefs, complex systems or organizations, replacing the former way of thinking or organizing with a radically different way of thinking or organizing:

See also

References

  1. ↑ Agamben, Giorgio. "What is a Paradigm?" (PDF). Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  2. ↑ Paradigm Shift: How Expert Opinions Keep Changing on Life, the Universe and Everything, Imprint Academic 2015, page 181
  3. ↑ Quoted in Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970 ed.): p. 150.
  4. ↑ Sankey, Howard (1997) "Kuhn's ontological relativism," in Issues and Images in the Philosophy of Science: Scientific and Philosophical Essays in Honour of Azarya Polikarov, edited by Dimitri Ginev and Robert S. Cohen. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1997. Boston studies in the philosophy of science, vol. 192, pp. 305-320. ISBN 0792344448
  5. ↑ Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3rd ed.): p. 199.
  6. ↑ Weisstein, Eric W. "Eric Weisstein's World of science". Wolfram Research. Retrieved January 2, 2013.
  7. ↑ "[Vesalius and De humani corporis fabrica: Galen's errors and the change of anatomy in the sixteenth century].".
  8. ↑ Paradigm Shifts: Technology & Culture
  9. ↑ Trudeau, Richard J (1987). The non-Euclidean revolution. Boston: Birkhäuser. ISBN 0-8176-3311-1.
  10. ↑ Kuhn, Thomas N. (1972) [1970]. "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research". In Lakatos, Imre; Musgrave, Alan. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (second ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-521-09623-5
  11. ↑ David Laidler. Fabricating the Keynesian Revolution.
  12. ↑ Galbraith, John Kenneth (1975). Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 223. ISBN 0-395-19843-7.
  13. ↑ Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. p. 366. Mr. Hobson has flung himself with unflagging, but almost unavailing, ardour and courage against the ranks of orthodoxy. Though it is so completely forgotten to-day, the publication of this book marks, in a sense, an epoch in economic thought.
  14. ↑ Bordo, Michael D., Schwartz, Anna J. (2008). Monetary Economic Research at the St. Louis Fed During Ted Balbach's Tenure as Research Director. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review.
  15. ↑ James Clackson. Indo European Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge University. p. 53.
  16. ↑ Robert Fulford, Globe and Mail (June 5, 1999). http://www.robertfulford.com/Paradigm.html Retrieved on 2008-04-25.
  17. ↑ Cnet.com's Top 10 Buzzwords
  18. ↑ "The Complete Idiot's Guide to a Smart Vocabulary" p142-143, author: Paul McFedries publisher: Alpha; 1st edition (May 7, 2001) ISBN 978-0-02-863997-0
  19. ↑ Schroeder, Christopher H. "Global Warming and the Problem of Policy Innovation: Lessons from the Early Environmental Movement". 2009. http://www.lclark.edu/org/envtl/objects/39-2_Schroeder.pdf
  20. ↑ See also Stewart Brand#NASA image of Earth
  21. ↑ Kung, Hans & Tracy, David (ed). Paradigm Change in Theology. New York: Crossroad, 1989.
  22. ↑ Küng, Hans. Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View. New York: Anchor Books, 1990.
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