Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos - Thomas Kuhn

6 important questions on Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos - Thomas Kuhn

What is the structure of scientific development according to Kuhn?

1. The development of science is driven in "normal" periods of science, attached to a paradigm. Science develops in periods within the paradigm.

2. The function of a paradigm is to supply puzzles for scientists to solve and provide the tools for their solutions (normal science)

3. A crisis in the science arrises when confidence is lost in the ability of the paradigm due to anomalies

4. The crisis is followed by a scientific revolution if the existing paradigm is suspected by a rival (paradigm shift)

What is a paradigm?

Concrete problem/solutions that provide models or examples from which spring a particular tradition or scientific research (way of thinking withing what's known)

What was Kuhn's claim when comparing different theories from different paradigms?

Incommersurable thesis: Science of one paradigm is contrasting to science developed under another paradigm, so it is impossible to make certain kinds of comparisons between theories.
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Why can a paradigm last so long?

1. Education through education: using standard examples. One is pushed in a certain direction and they cannot have any other analogies (take knowledge for what it is)
- Prepare students for a membership in a particular scientific community


2. Metaphors: "the invisible hand", "the company as a machine." They bring out parts of reality and suppress others. This is a world view, so people are not too critical

How does enforcement via invisible college work?

- Hierarchy within and between universities: teacher> student. One might somewhat be afraid of the higher power

- Scientific publications in media: the better the working paper matches the thought process of those reading it, the greater the chance that they have little cricism and that they publish it

Why can two competing paradigms not be compared?

Because
- there are no independent standards of evaluation (different problems are to be resolved)
- within a new paradigm old concepts acquire new relationships resulting in misunderstanding between the two paradigms
- Gestalt Switch: the two groups of scientists see different thing when they look at the world (duck and rabbit)

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