The notion of paradigm in science

The word paradigm (pronounced /ˈpɛrədaɪm/) refers to a dynamic field or "world" of concepts ‒ such that it represents a union between intelligent inquiry and some particular kind of world view. The term has been used in linguistics and science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek “παράδειγμα” (paradeigma), “pattern, example, sample” from the verb “παραδείκνυμι” (paradeiknumi), “exhibit, represent, expose”and that from “παρά” (para), “beside, by” + “δείκνυμι” (deiknumi), “to show, to point out”.

Until the 1960s, the word was specific to grammar: the 1900 Merriam-Webster dictionary defines its technical use only in the context of grammar or, in rhetoric, as a term for an illustrative parable or fable. In linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure used paradigm to refer to a class of elements with similarities.

From the 1960s onward, the word has referred to thought pattern in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context. The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines this usage as “a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly: a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind.”

 

USAGE NOTE Paradigm first appeared in English in the 15th century, meaning "an example or pattern," and it still bears this meaning today: Their company is a paradigm of the small high-tech firms that have recently sprung up in this area. For nearly 400 years paradigm has also been applied to the patterns of inflections that are used to sort the verbs, nouns, and other parts of speech of a language into groups that are more easily studied. Since the 1960s, paradigm has been used in science to refer to a theoretical framework, as when Nobel Laureate David Baltimore cited the work of two colleagues that "really established a new paradigm for our understanding of the causation of cancer." Thereafter, researchers in many different fields, including sociology and literary criticism, often saw themselves as working in or trying to break out of paradigms. Applications of the term in other contexts show that it can sometimes be used more loosely to mean "the prevailing view of things." The Usage Panel splits down the middle on these nonscientific uses of paradigm. Fifty-two percent disapprove of the sentence The paradigm governing international competition and competitiveness has shifted dramatically in the last three decades.

The prevailing pattern of thought in a discipline or part of a discipline. The paradigm provides rules about the type of problem which faces investigators and the way they should go about solving them. For geographers, for example, the paradigm would be referred to when questions such as ‘what is geography?’; ‘what are the legitimate areas of investigation for geographers?’; ‘how should geographers go about their investigations?’ are asked.

Perhaps the most powerful paradigm for Western thinkers has been the ‘ scientific method’.

In the philosophy of science the notion is associated with Kuhn's influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). T. Kuhn, who, in 1972, first used the term in this sense, argued that the evolution of a new paradigm marks a new stage in thinking. According to Kuhn, the paradigm, or shared view, persists for a while but then becomes obsolete because it becomes disturbed by too many ‘anomalies’, which do not fit into, and cannot be explained by, the existing paradigm. It is then replaced by a new paradigm, which is able to explain the anomalies.

Kuhn suggests that certain scientific works, such as Newton's Principia or John Dalton's New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808), provide an open-ended resource: a framework of concepts, results, and procedures [prəˈsiːdʒə] within which subsequent work is structured. Normal science proceeds within such a framework or paradigm. A paradigm does not impose a rigid or mechanical approach, but can be taken more or less creatively and flexibly. The concept was influential in supplanting the positivist conception of science as an abstract, rationally and logically structured set of propositions. Kuhn's view emphasizes its concrete historical situation in the space of problems and approaches inherited from preceding achievements. A paradigm is only upset in periods of revolutionary science, typically arising in response to an accumulation of anomalies and stresses that cannot be resolved within its framework.

'Paradigm' has become an important technical term in the philosophy of science following the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (1962). Kuhn's thesis is that 'normal science' operates within a largely unquestioned framework governed by fundamental theoretical models, or 'paradigms'. These ruling paradigms determine the way in which experiments are designed and observational results are interpreted.

An important part of Kuhn's view is the assertion that different scientific paradigms are 'incommensurable': there is no common body of neutral observation which can be used to decide between two competing theories ‒ a notion that may be thought to cast doubt on the claims of science to objectivity and rationality.

 

 

Thomas Kuhn (1962)