Thomas S. Kuhn
American philosopher and historian of science (1922 to 1996); author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).
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What they believe
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A paradigm is what a scientific community shares, and the community is those who share it
A paradigm is what the members of a scientific community share, and, conversely, a scientific community consists of men who share a paradigm.
archive.orgSaid c. 1969This on korrents
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Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 17 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
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A paradigm is what a scientific community shares, and the community is those who share it
A paradigm is what the members of a scientific community share, and, conversely, a scientific community consists of men who share a paradigm.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1969
His account of science is not relativism; he believes in scientific progress
That is not a relativist's position, and it displays the sense in which I am a convinced believer in scientific progress.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1969
Science's history, read as more than anecdote, could transform our image of science
History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
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More than one theory can always be fitted to a given set of data
Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated that more than one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given collection of data.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
Observation and experience must sharply limit what scientists may believe
Observation and experience can and must drastically restrict the range of admissible scientific belief, else there would be no science.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
A paradigm wins status by solving a few problems scientists see as acute better than rivals do
Paradigms gain their status because they are more successful than their competitors in solving a few problems that the group of practitioners has come to recognize as acute.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
Normal science does not aim at new facts or theories, and when it succeeds finds none
Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
Normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they subvert its commitments
Normal science, for example, often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
Normal science does not aim to find new kinds of phenomena; what does not fit is often not seen
No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
An anomaly appears only against the background of a paradigm
Anomaly appears only against the background provided by the paradigm.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
Rejecting one paradigm is always accepting another, judged against nature and against each other
The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
The inventors of a new paradigm are almost always very young or new to the field
Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
What you see depends on what you look at and on what your experience has taught you to see
What a man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
Choosing between paradigms is like choosing between political institutions: between incompatible ways of community life
Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
Old scientists' lifelong resistance to a new paradigm is not a breach of scientific standards
Lifelong resistance, particularly from those whose productive careers have committed them to an older tradition of normal science, is not a violation of scientific standards but an index to the nature of scientific research itself.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
Competition between parts of the scientific community is the only process that actually replaces a theory
Competition between segments of the scientific community is the only historical process that ever actually results in the rejection of one previously accepted theory or in the adoption of another.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
We may have to give up the idea that paradigm changes bring science ever closer to the truth
We may, to be more precise, have to relinquish the notion, explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigm carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition, enlarged, University of Chicago Press, 1970) Said c. 1962
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