IBP Psychology and Science

Chapter 8: Theories as structures I: Kuhn’s paradigms 

Inductionists and falsificationists: Concentrating on the relationship between theories and individual observation statements or sets of them, they seem to fail to grasp the complexity of the mode of development of major theories.

Meaning of concepts within a theory:

• Concepts acquire their meaning by way of a definition – problematic because concepts can only be defined in terms of other concepts, the meanings of which are given.
• Concepts acquire their meaning by way of ostensive definition - they derive their meaning at least in part from the role they play in a theory

Inductivist and falsificationist accounts of science were challenged in a major way by Thomas Kuhn

• A key feature of his theory is the emphasis placed on the revolutionary character of scientific progress, where a revolution involves the abandonment of one theoretical structure and its replacement by another, incompatible one
• Kuhn’s picture of the way a science progresses can be summarised by the following open-ended scheme:

pre-science – normal science – crisis – revolution – new normal science – new crisis…

1. Pre-science: Disorganised and diverse activity that precedes the formation of a science until a paradigm is introduce

• paradigm is made up of the general theoretical assumptions and laws and the techniques for their application that the members of a particular scientific community adopt

2. Normal science: Normal scientists will articulate and develop the paradigm in their attempt to account for and accommodate the behaviour of some relevant aspects of the real world as revealed through the results of experimentation.
3. Crisis: If difficulties get out of hand, a crisis state develops
4. Revolution: An entirely new paradigm emerges and attracts the allegiance of more and more scientists until eventually the original, problem-ridden paradigm is abandoned
5. New normal science: normal science on the basis of the new paradigm
6. New crisis: when the new normal scientific activity too runs into serious trouble

Paradigms and normal science

• A mature science is governed by a single paradigm.
• The paradigm sets the standards for legitimate work within the science it governs
• The existence of a paradigm capable of supporting a normal science tradition is the characteristic that distinguishes science from non-science, according to Kuhn.
• Paradigms also include standard ways of applying the fundamental laws to a variety of types of situation
• Instrumentation and instrumental techniques necessary for bringing the laws of the paradigm to bear on the real world are also included in the paradigm
• A component of paradigms consists of some very general, metaphysical principles that guide work within a paradigm
  • E.g.: “The whole of the physical world is to be explained as a mechanical system operating under the influence of various forces according to the dictates of Newton’s laws of motion”
• All paradigms will contain some very general methodological prescriptions such as, “Make serious attempts to match your paradigm with nature”
• Kuhn portrays normal science as a puzzle-solving activity governed by the rules of a paradigm
• Puzzles that resist solution are seen as anomalies rather than as falsifications of a paradigm
• It is the lack of disagreement over fundamentals that distinguishes mature, normal science from the relatively disorganised activity of immature pre-science

Crisis and revolution:

• Failures will be encountered and such failures can eventually attain a degree of seriousness that constitutes a serious crisis for the paradigm and may lead to the rejection of a paradigm and its replacement by an incompatible alternative
• There will always be anomalies. It is only under special sets of conditions that the anomalies can develop in such a way as to undermine confidence in the paradigm.
• An anomaly will be regarded as particularly serious if it is seen as striking at the very fundamentals of a paradigm and yet persistently resists attempts by the members of the normal scientific community to remove it.
• Anomalies are also regarded as serious if they are important with respect to some pressing social need (e.g.: the need for calendar reform at the time of Copernicus)
• Also bearing on the seriousness of an anomaly will be the length of time that it resists attempts to remove it. The number of serious anomalies is a further factor influencing the onset of a crisis.
• The seriousness of a crisis deepens when a rival paradigm makes its appearance
• Rival paradigms will regard different kinds of questions as legitimate or meaningful
• The way scientists view a particular aspect of the world will be guided by the paradigm in which they are working
• No logically compelling demonstration of the superiority of one paradigm over another because proponents of rival paradigms will subscribe to different sets of standards and metaphysical principles
• A scientific revolution corresponds to the abandonment of one paradigm and the adoption of a new one, not by an individual scientist only but by the relevant scientific community as a whole.

The function of normal science and revolution:

• According to Kuhn, normal science and revolutions serve necessary functions, so that science must either involve those characteristics or some others that would serve to perform the same functions.
• Periods of normal science provide the opportunity for scientists to develop the esoteric details of a theory
• It is through their confidence in the adequacy of a paradigm that scientists are able to devote their energies to attempts to solve the detailed puzzles presented to them within the paradigm, rather than engage in disputes about the legitimacy of their fundamental assumptions and methods
• There are no inductive procedures for arriving at perfectly adequate paradigms
• Progress through revolutions is Kuhn’s alternative to the cumulative progress characteristic of inductivist accounts of science.
• Faced with the same situation, not all scientists will reach the same decision or adopt the same strategy. This has the advantage that the number of strategies attempted will be multiplied. Risks are thus distributed through the scientific community, and the chances of some long-term success are increased.

The merits of Kuhn’s account of science:

• A discipline in which fundamentals are constantly brought into question, as characterised in Popper’s method of ‘conjectures and refutations’, is unlikely to make significant progress simply because principles do not remain unchallenged long enough for esoteric work to be done
• If we compare the attempts by Kuhn and by Popper to capture the sense in which astrology differs from a science, it is Kuhn’s account that is the more convincing
  • Popper: astrology can be diagnosed as a non-science either because it is unfalsifiable, or because it is falsifiable and shown to be false
  • Khun: The first will not work because even in the period during the Renaissance when astrology was practised seriously, astrologers did make predictions that were falsifiable, and indeed were frequently falsified. The latter fact cannot be taken as sufficient to rule out astrology as a science lest physics, chemistry and biology are ruled out on similar grounds, for all sciences have their problems in the form of problematic observations or experimental results.
  • The ‘resources’ that astronomers have and astrologers lack can be Kuhn is, in effect, confusing two kinds of knowledgeinterpreted as a shared paradigm that can sustain a normal science tradition. Kuhn’s ‘normal science’, then, serves to identify a crucial element of a science.

• Kuhn used the notion of a revolution to stress the non-cumulative nature of the advance of science

Kuhn’s ambivalence on progress through revolutions

• Kuhn was charged with having put forward a ‘relativist’ view of scientific progress

• Kuhn proposed an account of progress according to which the question of whether a paradigm is better or not than one that it challenges does not have a definitive, neutral answer, but depends on the values of the individual, group or culture that makes the judgment

• Kuhn is confusing two kinds of knowledge: “The transition between competing paradigms . . . must occur all at once (though not necessarily in an instant) or not at all.”

1. Kuhn is aware that a scientific revolution extends over a considerable period of time involving much theoretical and experimental work
2. Kuhn’s comparisons between paradigm change and gestalt switches or religious conversions make immediate sense of the idea that the change takes place ‘all at once’.

Objective knowledge

• Knowledge in the subjective sense: “I believe that Galileo made a convincing case for the validity of the use of his telescope, but Feyerabend did not.” – these claims to knowledge are about the states of mind or attitudes of individuals
• Objective properties: Propositions can have properties that are distinct from what individuals might be aware of
• Objective relationships exist between parts of the structure independently of whether individuals are aware of that relationship.
  • It is frequently the case that unexpected consequences of a theory, such as an experimental prediction or a clash with another theory, are discovered by subsequent work.
• Objective side of Khun’s work: question concerning the sense in which a particular paradigm can be said to be an improvement on its rival -This is a question about the objective relation between paradigms.
• Subjective side of Khun’s work: talk of gestalt switches and the like -Talking of the switch from one paradigm to another in terms of gestalt switches, as Kuhn does, creates the impression that the viewpoints on either side of the switch cannot be compared.

Resources:

What is This Thing Called Science 4^th Edition (CHALMERS)