The Structure of Scientific Revolution
The Structure of Scientific Revolution (Structure) was published in
1962; it brought up a new concept of the relation of paradigm and normal
science. Thomas S. Kuhn was planning to do a study of scientific history,
but soon he found there are some difficulties to catch the thoughts
of historical scientific works. For example, Kuhn mentioned the case
of Aristotle, his theories of science are almost totally wrong, he believes
there is no vacuum in natural world, however, the scientist today can
reproduce vacuum in Lab. But Aristotle will say this is no his intention.
The difficult thing is this kind of mistakes happen in all the scientific
history, however when Kuhn tries to explain why they have such a thought,
he need to go back to that time. We could not compare two different
theories developed in different context, nor could we judge their values
by modern viewpoint. Thus, Kuhn turns to explore the common structures
and characters in natural science, which could bring all the scientific
achievements and concepts together, and Kuhn named it as a 'paradigm'.
A paradigm denotes the achievements or patterns of normal science. The
philosophy of science has inclined to focus on linguistic and logic
instrument questions, however in this book Kuhn wrote in a historical
way as A. Koyre . Owing to Kuhn's strong physics background and his
historical interest, Kuhn explains and narratives the changing scientific
history clearly, he fill in the gap of scientific history. Which made
this work a philosophical work and it immediately influences philosophy
of science, scientific history, logical positivism, and many other social
science areas.
" It is the insight, combined with his historical sensibility, which
gives Kuhn's work its originality and significance. The continuation
of a form of culture implies mechanisms of socialisation and knowledge
transmission, procedures for displaying the range of accepted meanings
and representations, methods of ratifying acceptable innovations and
giving them the stamp of legitimacy."
It brings a new viewpoint of science but also stimulate the other disciplines.
If Kuhn is right, then the science of sociological study should be also
amenable in basically the same way as any other form of knowledge. But
the debates about whether sociology has a paradigm, or whether there
have been scientific revolution in economics, attests more to the prevalence
of intellectual laziness than to the significance of Kuhn's thinking.
There are many philosophers in that time seemed frightened of the notion
"paradigm shift", for example Imre Lakatos described it as a "mob psychology",
and Dudley Shapere questioned its reasonableness. Kuhn himself was shocked
by these criticisms, so he wrote a Postscript to answer these critics.
This article was attached in the 2nd edition of Structure (1970), virtually,
he defends for his incommensurability (we will discuss it later) and
briefly comments in which other areas the concepts of paradigm may apply.
Kuhn strongly denies that he is relativist; his viewpoints are not relativistic
as well.
In normal science, the crucial character of developing it is the process
of exploring paradigm, so the further research could settle on this
stable base and keep on building. Science is a process of pursuing paradigms.
And the revolution of 'paradigm' leads the change and the road of science.
In the growth of any science, the first received paradigm is usually
fit quite successfully for most of the observations and easy practised
experiments. And its further development inquires to construct more
delicate elaborate equipments, more esoteric vocabulary and skills.
This professionalization limits scientist's vision and make the science
become more rigid. So scientists are very careful of accepting any new
paradigm, it always needs to be verified many times by different scientists,
so while a new paradigm is set, it replaces the old one immediately.
In the "Postscript", Kuhn emphasized that the structure of paradigm
he declared could be only used in normal science, so, anyone tried to
completely imitate this structure to another disciplines can not be
seen as his original intention, and even Kuhn himself could not critic
their transformation proper or not. But, are there any paradigms or
any rules or structures in social science, is what I like to discuss
in this essay. Whether there is any paradigms in social science and
could we look for a set of rules or theories be set in social philosophy
area? In this essay, I will briefly clarify Kuhn's definition of "paradigm"
first, and then analyze the character of social science, finally I think
that social science has no given Laws, and it is hard to set ones. But
even there is no law on social science theory; it does not hurt its
works by narrating history or explaining social phenomena.
1. Scientific Revolution: New Paradigm
The concept paradigm is circulating; we can say a scientific community
is organized by a group of people who share the same paradigm, or we
can say a paradigm is the element that is shared by the members of a
given scientific community. But surely it is out of question we can
define a scientific group without appealing to paradigms.
"A paradigm governs, in the first instance, not a subject matter but
rather a group of practitioners. Any study of paradigm-directed or of
paradigm- shattering research must begin by locating the responsible
group or groups" (Structure, 180).
The paradigm could be seen as a shared example, achievements or rules.
People could find many references to the concept 'paradigm' in Structure.
Virtually the term 'paradigm' are used in two different meanings; one
is to denote an entire group of beliefs, value and techniques, which
are shared by a specific community. The other one is to denote the element
in that group, which is to find out a practical answer, and take it
as a model or example, and this new paradigm must be able to replace
its former rules and enable to solve more puzzles well than the former
one. Normal science is a puzzle-solving activity, it does not care a
puzzle is interesting or not, what matters is whether this puzzle is
possible to be solved.
Before the new paradigm emerges, there has been a set of rules to solve
a puzzle, the rule could be considered as 'established viewpoint' or
'preconception', and it involves some scientific commitments. And, the
"failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones."
When a scientific theory tries to set a more profound explanation and
it fails, it is time to develop a new theory. To accept one paradigm
is not just accepting a criterion but expecting the new paradigm bringing
a solution to the unsettled questions, and keep the old puzzle-solving
abilities. Only a question with answer could be seen as an actual scientific
question and worth for solving. Kuhn states, the scientific thinking
follows this direction and it is not searching the very "truth" anymore.
"But nothing that has been or will be said makes it a process of evolution
toward anything." This point makes science seem out of control, but
on the contrary, without a final "goal", the next step science should
achieve will be simplified as just building up on the current ground,
and search toward a deeper cognition.
By this process, science accumulates its achievement in a subtle way,
and keeps on narrowing down its focus, which makes the communications
between different groups increasingly harder. According to Kuhn's incommensurability,
if two theories cannot be fully translated into a neutral language,
then these two theories are incommensurable. There is incommensurability
between specific scientific groups, but it is the problem of translation,
and it does not make science a subjective, irrational topic. In a science
area, it always develops its depth but it may not expend its width as
well. On a solid ground, a science discipline can develop their own
techniques, concepts and idioms shortly, and they do not need to consult
the other ones, since the members of a given scientific community are
"the only audience and the only judges of that community's work" . But,
as the only judges, the members are actually strictly following their
common scientific rules, their paradigms. So it is the paradigm judge
them, not any member's personal opinions. The members' characters are
the characters of the science. Some philosophers (like Putnam) argue
that incommensurability does not indicate the different theories are
"un-comparable", but it is not what Kuhn exactly said. This debate will
take pages to discuss it, so I shall just skip it now.
Sometimes even the same idioms used in different theories or disciplines
are somewhat different, such as the meaning of 'mass' in Newtonian theories
and in the theory of relativity are actually not the same, so even it
looks like they are using the same technical term, they could not communicate
well. Hence in a science area communication is not necessary for their
research; sometimes it even causes chaos if people try to translate
the idioms and concepts from each other. So any specific subject is
rather exclusive to its professional members, they have their own journals,
papers, conferences and societies. And their journals or papers are
often deep; they are not expected to be understood by normal people,
even to scientists in another areas. Normally there is no competing
relationship between different communities or theories like we often
see in social science, since the attentions in different scientific
communities focus on different dimensions, it makes the professional
cross-border communication laborious. However, within such groups, the
communication is completely and professional judgement relatively fully
concurrent. Solving problems is not the only basis, all these characters
of scientific communities describe above, are proving one quality, which
is to "guarantee that both the list of problems solved by science and
the precision of individual problem-solutions will grow and grow" (Structure,
170).
2. Are there paradigms in social science?
After reviewing the nature of science, could we now answer whether this
scientific paradigm Structure can be used on social science, and whether
we could find the rules or examples on social science? Kuhn has stated
some opinions related to social science in his lecture held in 1968
in Michigan State University. Kuhn compares two social sciences; history
and philosophy, their characters and research procedures are diverse.
History is more like physics, when a historian prepare to write his
essay, normally all his documents, notes and chronicle has been ready
there, all he need to do is to put them together and to narrate the
history fluently and reasonable. If he could not make sense of some
part, he will go back to the original documents and make a minute again.
But, to philosophy, only the final part is what philosophers need to
do. There is no so-call research to philosophers, what they have to
do is to read other scholar's works and journals, they start by one
question, and by criticizing other philosophers works. Normally they
won't know what they will get in the beginning of thinking. By demonstrating
the difference between these two social sciences, Kuhn wants to show
that by his quasi-sociology point of view, here is no need to combine
any two related but different disciplines, like philosophy of science
and scientific history. This point also supports his concept of incommensurability.
And about the paradigm in social sciences, Kuhn raises an example of
"covering law model" theory. It is mainly about the historian's narrative
character, the historian often senses the law in natural or social society
with or without consciousness. But whenever the historian find the law,
he should be able to forecast the future developments, if the law he
found is rough, then we may say he gives an "explanation sketch" but
not explanation. If they cannot predict by the laws, then their narratives
do not even provide an explanation. Even though it is based on explanation
theories in natural science, Kuhn thinks it is fully irrelevant by shifting
that theory to social science area. Kuhn stated, so far we could not
find any given laws in social science, except economics. And he thinks,
no matter how great the law's contribution is, it does not influence
history's narrative ability. What really matter are the historical facts
and the way the historian describes the history. It more depends on
a kind of "primitive recognition" to finish their job. So Kuhn seems
to say that social science has its own unique character, it is irrelevant
and meaningless to force social science to wear natural science's little
shoes.
From Kuhn's definition of paradigm, we could not find any rules exactly
match the conditions as in science, since all the social science can
do is to analyse or to infer a theory which can explain the phenomenon
well, but we could not value it with validity, accuracy, cause there
is no experiment can prove it, we could neither guarantee a new explanation
or theory can fully answer more questions, cause it would be challenged
by other scholars. And time does not decide whether a social science
theory is out-of-date or not. For instance, no matter it is a political
theory in Ancient Greek time like Plato's citizenship theory, or Thomas
Hobbes's theory of state in the 17th century, could not be forsaken
or replaced completely. On the contrary, because of their profound insight,
they still are mentioned frequently in modern political study. In science,
to give up an old paradigm is easier than to merge the old one into
the new one, but in social science, the theories often overlap, and
the features of human natures are still under dispute. There are only
explanations, never laws.
From these points, does the explicative character make social science
cannot be ranked as a "science"? Can we learn real knowledge from social
science? As we know, there is no absolutely objective annotation in
social science, but there must exist objective "fact". As Kant pointed,
normative (norms) area and facts area, which are to ask 'is' and 'ought
to be', 'Sein' and 'Sollen', these two propositions could not be mixed
together and we cannot deduce any one from the other one. Like empirical
inference, scientific inference is not deductive. "Any 'deduction' about
empirical phenomena involves a hidden analogical step.' The knowledge,
can only be categorized in the facts area, a new knowledge could not
come from the analytic theses, it must come from inductive propositions,
and the inductive facts could never approach a final conclusion but
remain open, since we can never exam the whole events in the world thus
we have to always await for the exception emerges.
For example, the historical events are facts, which could be verified
under some procedures, but we cannot induce to a universal proposition,
that will be a belief or religion. In science, the new results could
be seen as a paradigm, and these achievements could be accumulated.
But in social science area, people basically study the so-call human
behaviors; the history is the events of human societies, the anthropology
or philosophy, are all based on the human actions and cultures. To ask
if there is any paradigm in social science is somewhat like to ask if
there are any paradigms on human behaviors. We can observe human behaviors,
we can try to explore our mind, and try to give an explanation from
the motivation to the action, but it is not possible to give a definite
explanation or a set of rules to all the human mind, it is the philosophical
enduring question that could we understand 'other mind'. So, what we
have may be an understanding, but in a strict sense, the explanations
and theories do not constitute the so-call 'knowledge', only the systematic
facts do. But to be systematic, we still require for a set of Laws.
3. Does social science need paradigms?
I prefer to ask does social science need paradigms and in what sense
these paradigms work more than are there paradigm in social science.
We have seen what a paradigm denotes in normal science structure. The
characters and goals of social science and normal science are all different.
'The significance of values remains undecided within sociological theory¡K.
There is still cause to welcome any new vantage-point upon the problem'
and 'As a theory is a cluster of accepted concrete applications, a value
is a cluster of accepted modes of action----or rather, this is the most
that a value can be, if it is held to be more than a mere verbal formulation'
(Barnes, 123-124). We can see in normal science the community is tight
and exclusive, it does not like social science; scholars can do cross-link
research, and the boundary is not so strict. In normal science, the
members identify with their community closely. Social science, on the
contrary, still possesses quite a freedom and tolerance for people moving
and adopting theories between different areas, like M. Weber can not
be defined properly as a economist or a sociologist, also Karl Marx
is still hard to be classified in one specific area. Perhaps some instrumental
skills vary, but when they reach a theory, it turns into a sort of philosophy,
an explanation, and they normally are not abstruse even to amateurs.
Hence we can say the normal science needs a paradigm, cause their existent
meaning is to solve natural puzzles, but social science is somewhat
a post-set system, their questions is not necessary solvable, and their
philosophies are trying to set an universal rule, to find the 'truth'
or the 'essence' of human behaviours. As Weber states, a science (wissenschaft)
is a professional work, which is inseparable from a progress; not like
art. In science work, every fulfilment requires for a proposal of a
new 'question'; these new theories also seek to be replaced and surpassed.
In the ancient time, our predecessors have sublime expectations to knowledge,
Plato believes we can disclose the 'essence' of life, and until the
19th century, Kant still struggles at defining a universal law. Owing
to the science knowledge, the modern world has been disenchanted; hence
all these desires are vanished. Nowadays, no matter in social science
or normal science, there is no eternal truth; and there is no ultimate
meaning as well. Science does not have any pre- settings. Which is coinciding
with Kuhn's observation. It is a multi-value world, and everyone chooses
his or her own religion, belie, or profession. It is the profession
decides people's personalities, and it is the profession decides what
you believe or which value is your God. To this point of view, social
science also asks a paradigm, but however there is no experiments or
clear 'puzzles' to be solved in social science, if we like to ask for
a paradigm, perhaps we should alter our way to ask a more detail and
solvable question. And this question must be able to be verified.
4. Another thought
To sum up, Kuhn's conceptions are actually clear and distinct to readers,
and after these years those critics have been answered thoroughly. What
I query here is probably the comparison between normal science and social
science. Kuhn has drawn minutely all the superiority of normal science;
it is sound, exact, efficient, and progressional. But social science
is short of these characters and looks inferior. Social science attempt
find its own 'paradigm' theory, and it is proceeding a mild revolution
by gathering data, using statistics to make it more cogent and precise.
But there are distinctions in social sciences, to some theoretical disciplines
like philosophy, the revolution has not come yet, and it is surely still
pursuing some olden questions without answering. If we follow the values
of science, not to advance is to go back, philosophy is dropping behind.
To the other social science, I do not see the coming crises, no matter
in anthropology, sociology, or history; they could find its own role
and own solvable puzzles. Thus my concern is only to philosophy, in
the past every discipline is philosophy's concern, but nowadays those
disciplines have all been separated from philosophy. Philosophy is lack
of its own investigations so it has to parasitize on other disciplines'
results. And even though its objective critic character could not be
seen on other disciplines, the subjects they can set foot in are gradually
narrowed. And if every discipline built its own philosophy by its members,
like philosophy of science, it could be more professional and profound
than philosophers do. My point is, even Kuhn has shown his respects
and understandings to philosophy, and philosophy is always trying to
be a gap between different subjects, maybe we could expect it to become
the next extinct science in this new century.
Notes
1. I will call this book as 'Structure' as an abbreviation in the following
paragraphs.
2. A. Koyre, 1892-1964, his Etudes Galileennes (1939) gives a detailed
textual analysis of scientific history, and becomes the model of his
successors. Barnes, 1982, 9.
3. Ibid, 120.
4. Carnap found something in common in Kuhn's Structure.
5. See Horwich, 1993, 19.
6. Structure, Postscript, 174-175. Structure, 68.
7. Structure, 170-171.
8. Structure, p. 209.
9. Kuhn's "The Relations between the History and he Philosophy of Science",
collected in The Essential Tension (1977, University of Chicago).
10. Barnes, 1982, 122.
11. Weber, 1946, 129-56.
12. The term 'science' Weber used here which is in a broad sense including
both normal science and social science. So the characters of the 'science'
are supposed to be applied in both areas.
The Philosophy of Social Science