On This Page:ToggleParadigm ShiftKuhn’s Phases of ScienceCritical Evaluation
On This Page:Toggle
On This Page:
Summary
Paradigm Shift
A paradigm is a basic framework of assumptions, principals and methods from which the members of the community work.
It is a set of norms that tell scientists how to think and behave, and although there are rival schools of thought in science, there is still a single paradigm that all scientists accept uncritically.
Scientists accept the dominant paradigm until anomalies are thrown up. Scientists then begin to question the basis of the paradigm itself, new theories emerge which challenge the dominant paradigm. Eventually, one of these new theories becomes accepted as the new paradigm.
During different periods of science, certain perspectives held sway over the thinking of researchers. A particular work may “define the legitimate problems and methods of a research field for succeeding generations of practitioners.”
Kuhn’s Phases of Science
According to Kuhn, knowledge that does not evolve according to the four main phases may not be considered scientific.
Phase 1: Pre-science
Phase 2: Normal Science
(most common – science is usuallystable)
“Normal Science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all of their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like.Much of the success of the enterprise derives from the community’s willingness to defend that assumption, if necessary, at considerable cost.Normal Science, for example, often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments” (Kuhn, 1996, p. 5).
“Normal Science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all of their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like.
Much of the success of the enterprise derives from the community’s willingness to defend that assumption, if necessary, at considerable cost.
Normal Science, for example, often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments” (Kuhn, 1996, p. 5).
Phase 3: Crisis
Phase 4: Revolution
Critical Evaluation
The enormous impact of Thomas Kuhn’s work can be measured in the changes it brought about in the vocabulary of the philosophy of science: besides “paradigm shift”, Kuhn raised the word “paradigm” itself from a term used in certain forms of linguistics to its currentbroader meaning.
This means Kuhn has been accused of being a relativist. Maybe all the theories are equally valid? Why should we believe in today’s science when it might be overturned in the future? Kuhn vigorously rejected this, claiming that scientific revolutions have always led to new, more accurate theories and represent true progress.
Does science make progress through scientific revolutions? Are later paradigms better than earlier ones? No, Kuhn suggests, they are just different. The scientific revolutions that supplant one paradigm with another do not take us closer to the truth about how the world is.
Successive paradigms are incommensurable. Kuhn says that a later paradigm may be a better instrument for solving puzzles than an earlier one. But if each paradigm defines its own puzzles, what is a puzzle for one paradigm may be no puzzle at all foranother.
So why is it progressive to replace one paradigm with another which solves puzzles that the earlier paradigm does not even recognize? Kuhn used his incommensurability thesis to disprove the view that paradigm shifts are objective. Truth is relative to the paradigm.
Thomas Kuhn showed contemporary philosophers could not ignore the history of science and the social context in which science takes place. Science is a product of the society in which it is practiced.
Discussion Question: Is psychology a pre-science?Was there a cognitive revolution from behaviorism that changed methodology and assumptions? Is cognitive psychology a new paradigm? Hints: It’s still reductionist; input – the output still uses the experimental method.
Was there a cognitive revolution from behaviorism that changed methodology and assumptions? Is cognitive psychology a new paradigm? Hints: It’s still reductionist; input – the output still uses the experimental method.
References
Thomas, K. (1962).The structure of scientific revolutionsChicago: University of Chicago Press.
Further InformationKarl Popper – FalsificationIs Psychology a Science?The Scientific Revolutions of Thomas Kuhn: Paradigm Shifts Explained
Further Information
Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education
Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.
Saul McLeod, PhD
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester
Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
