Preface and Introduction

Eugene Lashchyk, Scientific Revolutions, 1969

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In the following work I will attempt to bridge the gap that exists between the tradition in philosophy of science which began with the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, and the later work in philosophy of science dominated by those scientists and philosophers who profess the so-called revolutionary view of science. In the first group can be classified such men as Alfred J. Ayer, Rudolf Carnap and Carl Hempel. Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Stephen Toulmin are representatives of the revolutionary view of science.

Central to the logical positivist and empiricist school were such topics as (a) the verifiability criterion of cognitive significance; (b) clear distinction between theoretical and observational languages with the attribution of cognitive significance primarily to the observational language; (c) the deductive- nomological model of explanation; (d) characterization of the problems in the philosophy of science as those of the logic of the sciences, which, like deductive logic, was to deal with form rather than content of such things as laws of nature, explanation, etc.; (e) unity of science. In general it can be said that the above problems were studied in the context of the most highly developed scientific theories. Many philosophers from this school feel that a certain impasse has been reached on almost each of the above problems.

The revolutionary 'school' has, however, restructured the nature and form of the problems about science to the point where it has become difficult to see any connection between the work of the revolutionary school and that of the last forty or so years in the logically oriented school. This is obviously an undesirable result since the logical positivists and empiricist did clarify some issues in the explication of important concepts used in science even if at times this result was purely negative, i.e., defects in certain types of approaches to such logical explication became obvious.

Thomas Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is probably the most influential and widely read work in the revolutionary schools of science.{1} In spite of this fact, the work of Professor Kuhn has not received thorough treatment except in the numerous reviews of SSR.{2} Somewhat more extensive treatment -- even though mostly critical -- has been given in parts of Israel Scheffler's new book Science and Subjectivity{3} which appeared after the present work was near completion. It should also be pointed out that Dudley Shapere{4} has done an excellent job of critical analysis of Paul Feyerabend, the other major figure in the revolutionary school of science. No one, however, to my knowledge, has as yet attempted a sympathetic while at the same time critical explication, reconstruction, and evaluation of Thomas Kuhn's work SSR. This, therefore, will be attempted in the main body of my work.

The following are what I take to be some of the central theses of SSR:

Thesis 1 (T1).
Science has a dual nature because it is characterized by two developmental episodes: (a) normal or paradigm based science; (b) revolutionary science, which begins with crisis in the paradigm theory, followed by a proliferation of theories, and culminating in the rejection of the old paradigm theory and the acceptance of a new paradigm.{5}

Thesis 2 (T2).
There is no neutral observation language.
Every description of phenomena will be in the terminology of some theory, paradigm, current metaphysic, or the world view implicit in ordinary language. For the purposes of science it can be said that what is a scientific fact will be in an important sense determined by the dominant paradigm, for descriptions of some aspect of phenomena must be couched in the language of the current scientific theory. Should this not be possible such an observation of phenomena will appear to be anomalous and will not be a full-fledged scientific fact until the anomaly is removed.{6}

Thesis 3 (T3).
Any two successive paradigms are incompatible and incommensurable.{7}

Thesis 4 (T4).
Criteria for theory selection are dependent on the dominant paradigm-theory.
Because of this, arguments in support of one theory of another are circular and thus, cannot be made logically compelling. Scientists adopt a new paradigm on faith rather than on the basis of hard evidence. Paradigm change is better described in terms of conversion and gestalt switch.{8}

Thesis 5 (T5).
Hardheaded arguments concerning the relative merits of two or more scientific theories can be produced.
The following types of criteria constitute some of the best basis of comparison: (1) predictive accuracy, (2) predictions of new phenomena and their positive confirmations, (3) simplicity, and (4) crucial experiments. Scientists' decision to adopt one theory rather than another can be characterized as reasonable or unreasonable.{9}

By an ingenious use of the concept of paradigm together with illuminating case studies from the history of science, Professor Kuhn has succeeded in presenting a plausible alternative model of science to the dominant logical positivist school. He has found a way of answering most of the perplexing questions about science in the genre of the various aspects of paradigms. So convincingly has he utilized the term 'paradigm' that many readers have adopted his way of speaking about science, its activities and its developments. Kuhn's book has found many supporters from the ranks of scientists and philosophers but so far, I would venture to say, more scientists have expressed unqualified praise of SSR than philosophers. Some philosophers particularly from the logical positivist and logical empiricist schools, are dissatisfied with Kuhn's book partly because of the vagueness and ambiguity surrounding the concept of paradigm.

The perplexing thing is that what most scientists and historians of science have found illuminating the philosophers find most problematic. I find myself in the difficult position of agreeing in part with the adherents as well as the critics of SSR. With the adherents of SSR I share the view that Kuhn has deepened our understanding of science; with the critics I share the dissatisfaction over the vagueness that surrounds the paradigm concept, which is the central notion of the book. I strongly suspect that some substantive theses of SSR particularly T1 -- the dual nature of science thesis -- have not been taken seriously by philosophers because of the vagueness surrounding the concept of paradigm.

In order to separate the positive contribution of SSR towards the understanding of science from those claims that appear unfounded and misleading, I have set myself the task, in the first chapter, of removing some of the obscurity surrounding the concept of paradigm in SSR.

I have, therefore, scrutinized the text for the numerous senses of the word "paradigm", not just as an exercise in textual exegesis, but more importantly, to show how such textual analysis can bring to the surface the reasoning behind Kuhn's more controversial conclusions. At the same time I am hoping to clarify the many positive contributions that Kuhn makes to our understanding of science.

Chapter III will aim at a rational reconstruction of the conceptual framework of SSR, including a definition of paradigm. It is here, primarily, that I will attempt to build bridges between the standard school in philosophy of science and the revolutionary school. It will become evident that the concept of paradigm as used in SSR can be broken down into some of the concepts that have traditionally occupied the logical empiricist school, like the concept of law, model, definitions, theories, and rules.

Also, I would like to suggest that the concept of scientific explanation receives a new dimension if we correlate it with Kuhn's idea of puzzle solving.

Chapter IV will deal with a critical examination of some of the alternatives to T1 concerning the nature of science and of its developmental episodes. On the one hand, I will examine the so-called textbook view that science is strictly cumulative. On the other hand, I will examine Paul Feyerabend's theoretical pluralism thesis which depicts science as constantly in the revolutionary state. I believe that an adequate conception of science demands a synthesis of the so-called textbook view of science or normal science and revolutionary science. I, therefore, propose to argue that the first thesis of SSR as given above is correct. Science has a dual nature which is characterized by two developmental episodes. The first is the so-called normal or paradigm-based science; the second is revolutionary science or science dominated by a plurality of competing theories, no one of which is dominant.

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Notes
{l} Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962). From now on the book will be referred to as SSR. [Back
{2} See bibliography of this work for a list of reviews of SSR.[Back
{3} Israel Scheffler, Science and Subjectivity (New Pork: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc,, 1967).[Back
{4} Dudley Shapere, "Meaning and Scientific Change," in Mind and Cosmos: Essays in Contemporary Science and Philosophy, ed. by R. G. Colodny (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966).[Back
{5} The above thesis is a summary of some of the following quotations from SSR.
"In this essay, 'normal science' means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice. Today such achievements are recounted, . . . by science textbooks, . . ." (SSR, p. 10).
"The success of a paradigm -- whether Aristotle's analysis of motion, Ptolemy's computations of planetary position, Lavoisier's application of the balance, . . . is at the start largely a promise of success discoverable in selected and still incomplete examples. Normal science consists in the actualization of that promise, an actualization achieved by extending the knowledge of those facts that the paradigm displays as particularly revealing, by increasing the extent of the match between those facts and the paradigm's predictions, and by further articulation of the paradigm itself." (SSR, pp. 23-24)
" Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none. New and unsuspected phenomena are, however, repeatedly uncovered by scientific research, and radical new theories have again and again been invented by scientists. . . . If this characteristic of science is to be reconciled with what has already been said, then research under a paradigm must be a particularly effective way of inducing paradigm change. . . . Produced inadvertently by a game played under one set of rules, their assimilation requires the elaboration of another set. . . . Discovery commences with the awareness of anomaly, i.e., with the recognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm- induced expectations that govern normal science. It then continues with a more or less extended exploration of the area of anomaly, And it closes only when the paradigm theory has been adjusted so that the anomalous has become the expected." (SSR, pp, 52-53)
"Because it demands large-scale paradigm destruction and major shifts in the problems and techniques of normal science, the emergence of new theories is generally preceded by a period of pronounced professional insecurity. As one might expect, that insecurity is generated by the persistent failure of the puzzles of normal science to come out as they should. Failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones." (SSR, pp, 67-68)
"These transformations . . . are scientific revolutions, and the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science." (SSR, p. l2) [Back

{6} Kuhn states: "If that body of belief is not already implicit in the collection of facts -- in which case more than 'mere facts' are at hand -- it must be externally supplied, perhaps by a current metaphysic, by another science, or by personal and historical accident. No wonder, then, that in the early stages of the development of any science different men confronting the same range of phenomena, but not usually all the same particular phenomena describe and interpret them in different ways." (SSR, p. 17)

See also the following passage: "But in both observation and conceptualization, fact and assimilation to theory, are inseparably linked in discovery, then discovery is a process that must take time. Only when all the relevant conceptual categories are prepared in advance, in which case the phenomenon would not be of a new sort, can discovering that and discovering what occur effortlessly, together, and in an instant." SSR, pp. 55-56)
See also pp, 16-18, 52-53, 125-126, 140. [Back
{7} "The normal scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before." (SSR, p. 102) [Back
{8} Here are some of the relevant quotations:

"Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life. Because it has that character, the choice is not and cannot be determined merely by the evaluative procedures characteristic of normal science, for these depend in part upon a particular paradigm, and that paradigm is at issue. When paradigms enter, as they must, into a debate about paradigm choice, their role is necessarily circular. Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm's defense." (SSR, p, 93)
"There are not external standards to permit a judgment of that sort. What occurred was neither a decline nor a raising of standards, but simply a change demanded by the adoption of a new paradigm." (SSR, p.107)

See also SSR, p. 108, 150, and 151. For talk of gestalt switches, see p. 121. [Back
{9} In particular see pages 152-158 in SSR.

Concerning the characterization of these debates as reasonable, Professor Kuhn states:
"Though the historian can always find men -- Priestly, for instance -- who were unreasonable to resist for as long as they did, he will not find a point at which resistance becomes illogical or unscientific." (SSR, p. 158) [Back

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