This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points.(July 2020) |
In science and philosophy, a paradigm (/ˈpærədaɪm/ PARR-ə-dyme) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word paradigm is Greek in origin, meaning "pattern".
Etymology
Paradigm comes from Greek παράδειγμα (paradeigma); "pattern, example, sample"; from the verb παραδείκνυμι (paradeiknumi); "exhibit, represent, expose"; and that from παρά (para); "beside, beyond"; and δείκνυμι (deiknumi); "to show, to point out".
In classical (Greek-based) rhetoric, a paradeigma aims to provide an audience with an illustration of a similar occurrence. This illustration is not meant to take the audience to a conclusion; however, it is used to help guide them to get there.
One way of how a paradeigma is meant to guide an audience would be exemplified by the role of a personal accountant. It is not the job of a personal accountant to tell a client exactly what (and what not) to spend money on, but to aid in guiding a client as to how money should be spent based on the client's financial goals. Anaximenes defined paradeigma as "actions that have occurred previously and are similar to, or the opposite of, those which we are now discussing".
The original Greek term παράδειγμα (paradeigma) was used by scribes in Greek texts (such as Plato's dialogues Timaeus [c. 360 BCE] and Parmenides) as one possibility for the model or the pattern that the demiurge supposedly used to create the cosmos.
The English-language term paradigm has technical meanings in the fields of grammar (as applied, for example, to declension and conjugation – the 1900 Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the technical use of paradigm only in the context of grammar) and of rhetoric (as a term for an illustrative parable or fable). In linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) used paradigm to refer to a class of elements with similarities (as opposed to syntagma – a class of elements expressing relationship.).
The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines one usage of paradigm 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."
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2008) attributes the following description of the term in the history and philosophy of science to Thomas Kuhn's 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:
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 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.
Scientific paradigm
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a paradigm as "a pattern or model, an exemplar; a typical instance of something, an example". The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave the word its contemporary meaning when he adopted the word to refer to the set of concepts and practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time. In his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (first published in 1962), Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as: "universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners, i.e.,
- what is to be observed and scrutinized
- the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject
- how these questions are to be structured
- what predictions made by the primary theory within the discipline
- how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted
- how an experiment is to be conducted, and what equipment is available to conduct the experiment.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn saw the sciences as going through alternating periods of normal science, when an existing model of reality dominates a protracted period of puzzle-solving, and revolution, when the model of reality itself undergoes sudden drastic change. Paradigms have two aspects. Firstly, within normal science, the term refers to the set of exemplary experiments that are likely to be copied or emulated. Secondly, underpinning this set of exemplars are shared preconceptions, made prior to – and conditioning – the collection of evidence. These preconceptions embody both hidden assumptions and elements that Kuhn describes as quasi-metaphysical. The interpretations of the paradigm may vary among individual scientists.
Kuhn was at pains to point out that the rationale for the choice of exemplars is a specific way of viewing reality: that view and the status of "exemplar" are mutually reinforcing. For well-integrated members of a particular discipline, its paradigm is so convincing that it normally renders even the possibility of alternatives unconvincing and counter-intuitive. Such a paradigm is opaque, appearing to be a direct view of the bedrock of reality itself, and obscuring the possibility that there might be other, alternative imageries hidden behind it. The conviction that the current paradigm is reality tends to disqualify evidence that might undermine the paradigm itself; this in turn leads to a build-up of unreconciled anomalies. It is the latter that is responsible for the eventual revolutionary overthrow of the incumbent paradigm, and its replacement by a new one. Kuhn used the expression paradigm shift (see below) for this process, and likened it to the perceptual change that occurs when our interpretation of an ambiguous image "flips over" from one state to another. (The rabbit-duck illusion is an example: it is not possible to see both the rabbit and the duck simultaneously.) This is significant in relation to the issue of incommensurability (see below).
An example of a currently accepted paradigm would be the standard model of physics. The scientific method allows for orthodox scientific investigations into phenomena that might contradict or disprove the standard model; however grant funding would be proportionately more difficult to obtain for such experiments, depending on the degree of deviation from the accepted standard model theory the experiment would test for. To illustrate the point, an experiment to test for the mass of neutrinos or the decay of protons (small departures from the model) is more likely to receive money than experiments that look for the violation of the conservation of momentum, or ways to engineer reverse time travel.
Mechanisms similar to the original Kuhnian paradigm have been invoked in various disciplines other than the philosophy of science. These include: the idea of major cultural themes,worldviews (and see below), ideologies, and mindsets. They have somewhat similar meanings that apply to smaller and larger scale examples of disciplined thought. In addition, Michel Foucault used the terms episteme and discourse, mathesis, and taxinomia, for aspects of a "paradigm" in Kuhn's original sense.
Paradigm shifts
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn wrote that "the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science" (p. 12).
Paradigm shifts tend to appear in response to the accumulation of critical anomalies as well as in the form of the proposal of a new theory with the power to encompass both older relevant data and explain relevant anomalies. New paradigms tend to be most dramatic in sciences that appear to be stable and mature, as in physics at the end of the 19th century. At that time, a statement generally attributed to physicist Lord Kelvin famously claimed, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Five years later, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity, which challenged the set of rules laid down by Newtonian mechanics, which had been used to describe force and motion for over two hundred years. In this case, the new paradigm reduces the old to a special case in the sense that Newtonian mechanics is still a good model for approximation for speeds that are slow compared to the speed of light. Many philosophers and historians of science, including Kuhn himself, ultimately accepted a modified version of Kuhn's model, which synthesizes his original view with the gradualist model that preceded it. Kuhn's original model is now generally seen as too limited.[citation needed]
Some examples of contemporary paradigm shifts include:
- In medicine, the transition from "clinical judgment" to evidence-based medicine
- In social psychology, the transition from p-hacking to replication
- In software engineering, the transition from the Rational Paradigm to the Empirical Paradigm
- In artificial intelligence, the transition from classical AI to data-driven AI
Kuhn's idea was, itself, revolutionary in its time. It caused a major change in the way that academics talk about science; and, so, it may be that it caused (or was part of) a "paradigm shift" in the history and sociology of science. However, Kuhn would not recognize such a paradigm shift. Being in the social sciences, people can still use earlier ideas to discuss the history of science.
Paradigm paralysis
Perhaps the greatest barrier to a paradigm shift, in some cases, is the reality of paradigm paralysis: the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking. This is similar to what psychologists term confirmation bias and the Semmelweis reflex. Examples include rejection of Aristarchus of Samos', Copernicus', and Galileo's theory of a heliocentric solar system, the discovery of electrostatic photography, xerography and the quartz clock.[citation needed]
Incommensurability
Kuhn pointed out that it could be difficult to assess whether a particular paradigm shift had actually led to progress, in the sense of explaining more facts, explaining more important facts, or providing better explanations, because the understanding of "more important", "better", etc. changed with the paradigm. The two versions of reality are thus incommensurable. Kuhn's version of incommensurability has an important psychological dimension. This is apparent from his analogy between a paradigm shift and the flip-over involved in some optical illusions. However, he subsequently diluted his commitment to incommensurability considerably, partly in the light of other studies of scientific development that did not involve revolutionary change. One of the examples of incommensurability that Kuhn used was the change in the style of chemical investigations that followed the work of Lavoisier on atomic theory in the late 18th century. In this change, the focus had shifted from the bulk properties of matter (such as hardness, colour, reactivity, etc.) to studies of atomic weights and quantitative studies of reactions. He suggested that it was impossible to make the comparison needed to judge which body of knowledge was better or more advanced. However, this change in research style (and paradigm) eventually (after more than a century) led to a theory of atomic structure that accounts well for the bulk properties of matter; see, for example, Brady's General Chemistry. According to P J Smith, this ability of science to back off, move sideways, and then advance is characteristic of the natural sciences, but contrasts with the position in some social sciences, notably economics.
This apparent ability does not guarantee that the account is veridical at any one time, of course, and most modern philosophers of science are fallibilists. However, members of other disciplines do see the issue of incommensurability as a much greater obstacle to evaluations of "progress"; see, for example, Martin Slattery's Key Ideas in Sociology.
Subsequent developments
Opaque Kuhnian paradigms and paradigm shifts do exist. A few years after the discovery of the mirror-neurons that provide a hard-wired basis for the human capacity for empathy, the scientists involved were unable to identify the incidents that had directed their attention to the issue. Over the course of the investigation, their language and metaphors had changed so that they themselves could no longer interpret all of their own earlier laboratory notes and records.
Imre Lakatos and research programmes
However, many instances exist in which change in a discipline's core model of reality has happened in a more evolutionary manner, with individual scientists exploring the usefulness of alternatives in a way that would not be possible if they were constrained by a paradigm. Imre Lakatos suggested (as an alternative to Kuhn's formulation) that scientists actually work within research programmes. In Lakatos' sense, a research programme is a sequence of problems, placed in order of priority. This set of priorities, and the associated set of preferred techniques, is the positive heuristic of a programme. Each programme also has a negative heuristic; this consists of a set of fundamental assumptions that – temporarily, at least – takes priority over observational evidence when the two appear to conflict.
This latter aspect of research programmes is inherited from Kuhn's work on paradigms,[citation needed] and represents an important departure from the elementary account of how science works. According to this, science proceeds through repeated cycles of observation, induction, hypothesis-testing, etc., with the test of consistency with empirical evidence being imposed at each stage. Paradigms and research programmes allow anomalies to be set aside, where there is reason to believe that they arise from incomplete knowledge (about either the substantive topic, or some aspect of the theories implicitly used in making observations).
Larry Laudan: Dormant anomalies, fading credibility, and research traditions
Larry Laudan has also made two important contributions to the debate. Laudan believed that something akin to paradigms exist in the social sciences (Kuhn had contested this, see below); he referred to these as research traditions. Laudan noted that some anomalies become "dormant", if they survive a long period during which no competing alternative has shown itself capable of resolving the anomaly. He also presented cases in which a dominant paradigm had withered away because its lost credibility when viewed against changes in the wider intellectual milieu.
In social sciences
Kuhn himself did not consider the concept of paradigm as appropriate for the social sciences. He explains in his preface to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that he developed the concept of paradigm precisely to distinguish the social from the natural sciences. While visiting the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1958 and 1959, surrounded by social scientists, he observed that they were never in agreement about the nature of legitimate scientific problems and methods. He explains that he wrote this book precisely to show that there can never be any paradigms in the social sciences. Mattei Dogan, a French sociologist, in his article "Paradigms in the Social Sciences", develops Kuhn's original thesis that there are no paradigms at all in the social sciences since the concepts are polysemic, involving the deliberate mutual ignorance between scholars and the proliferation of schools in these disciplines. Dogan provides many examples of the non-existence of paradigms in the social sciences in his essay, particularly in sociology, political science and political anthropology.
However, both Kuhn's original work and Dogan's commentary are directed at disciplines that are defined by conventional labels (such as "sociology"). While it is true that such broad groupings in the social sciences are usually not based on a Kuhnian paradigm, each of the competing sub-disciplines may still be underpinned by a paradigm, research programme, research tradition, and/ or professional imagery. These structures will be motivating research, providing it with an agenda, defining what is and is not anomalous evidence, and inhibiting debate with other groups that fall under the same broad disciplinary label. (A good example is provided by the contrast between Skinnerian radical behaviourism and personal construct theory (PCT) within psychology. The most significant of the many ways these two sub-disciplines of psychology differ concerns meanings and intentions. In PCT, they are seen as the central concern of psychology; in radical behaviourism, they are not scientific evidence at all, as they cannot be directly observed.)
Such considerations explain the conflict between the Kuhn/ Dogan view, and the views of others (including Larry Laudan, see above), who do apply these concepts to social sciences.
Handa, M.L. (1986) introduced the idea of "social paradigm" in the context of social sciences. He identified the basic components of a social paradigm. Like Kuhn, Handa addressed the issue of changing paradigm; the process popularly known as "paradigm shift". In this respect, he focused on social circumstances that precipitate such a shift and the effects of the shift on social institutions, including the institution of education. This broad shift in the social arena, in turn, changes the way the individual perceives reality.
Another use of the word paradigm is in the sense of "worldview". For example, in social science, the term is used to describe the set of experiences, beliefs and values that affect the way an individual perceives reality and responds to that perception. Social scientists have adopted the Kuhnian phrase "paradigm shift" to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality. A "dominant paradigm" refers to the values, or system of thought, in a society that are most standard and widely held at a given time. Dominant paradigms are shaped both by the community's cultural background and by the context of the historical moment. Hutchin outlines some conditions that facilitate a system of thought to become an accepted dominant paradigm:
- Professional organizations that give legitimacy to the paradigm
- Dynamic leaders who introduce and purport the paradigm
- Journals and editors who write about the system of thought. They both disseminate the information essential to the paradigm and give the paradigm legitimacy
- Government agencies who give credence to the paradigm
- Educators who propagate the paradigm's ideas by teaching it to students
- Conferences conducted that are devoted to discussing ideas central to the paradigm
- Media coverage
- Lay groups, or groups based around the concerns of lay persons, that embrace the beliefs central to the paradigm
- Sources of funding to further research on the paradigm
Other uses
The word paradigm is also still used to indicate a pattern or model or an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype. The term is frequently used in this sense in the design professions. Design Paradigms or archetypes comprise functional precedents for design solutions. The best known references on design paradigms are Design Paradigms: A Sourcebook for Creative Visualization, by Wake, and Design Paradigms by Petroski.
This term is also used in cybernetics. Here it means (in a very wide sense) a (conceptual) protoprogram for reducing the chaotic mass to some form of order. Note the similarities to the concept of entropy in chemistry and physics. A paradigm there would be a sort of prohibition to proceed with any action that would increase the total entropy of the system. To create a paradigm requires a closed system that accepts changes. Thus a paradigm can only apply to a system that is not in its final stage.
Beyond its use in the physical and social sciences, Kuhn's paradigm concept has been analysed in relation to its applicability in identifying 'paradigms' with respect to worldviews at specific points in history. One example is Matthew Edward Harris' book The Notion of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century: The Idea of Paradigm in Church History. Harris stresses the primarily sociological importance of paradigms, pointing towards Kuhn's second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Although obedience to popes such as Innocent III and Boniface VIII was widespread, even written testimony from the time showing loyalty to the pope does not demonstrate that the writer had the same worldview as the Church, and therefore pope, at the centre. The difference between paradigms in the physical sciences and in historical organisations such as the Church is that the former, unlike the latter, requires technical expertise rather than repeating statements. In other words, after scientific training through what Kuhn calls 'exemplars', one could not genuinely believe that, to take a trivial example, the earth is flat, whereas thinkers such as Giles of Rome in the thirteenth century wrote in favour of the pope, then could easily write similarly glowing things about the king. A writer such as Giles would have wanted a good job from the pope; he was a papal publicist. However, Harris writes that 'scientific group membership is not concerned with desire, emotions, gain, loss and any idealistic notions concerning the nature and destiny of humankind...but simply to do with aptitude, explanation, [and] cold description of the facts of the world and the universe from within a paradigm'.
See also
- Basic beliefs
- Concept
- Conceptual framework
- Conceptual model
- Conceptual schema
- Contextualism
- Dogma
- Flying geese paradigm
- Heuristic
- Ideology
- Mental model
- Mental representation
- Metanarrative
- Methodology
- Mindset
- Perspectivism
- Point of view (philosophy)
- Poststructuralism
- Programming paradigm
- Schema (psychology)
- School of thought
- Set (psychology)
- Triune continuum paradigm
- World view
- The history of the various paradigms in evolutionary biology (Wikiversity)
Footnotes
- παράδειγμα, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
- παραδείκνυμι, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
- παρά, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
- δείκνυμι, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
- Sampley, J. Paul (2003). Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook. Trinity Press International. pp. 228–229. ISBN 9781563382666.
- Zeyl, Donald; Sattler, Barbara (2019), "Plato's Timaeus", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2021-03-10
- Waterlow, Sarah (1982). "The Third Man's Contribution to Plato's Paradigmatism". Mind. 91 (363): 339–357. doi:10.1093/mind/xci.363.339. JSTOR 2253225. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
If Socrates in the Parmenides stands for the Republic, the attack on him is perhaps milder than it might have been. But at I32ci2-d4 he seems to speak for the Timaeus: 'In my opinion, Parmenides, the best view to take is this: these Forms we speak of are paradigms…'
- Simenova, Ruska (1988). Grundzüge einer konstrastiven Phonetik Deutsch-Bulgarisch (in German). Sofia: Nauka i Iskustwo. p. 212. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
Unter Syntagma versteht de Saussure eine subordinierende Verbindung von zwei Elementen [...].
- paradigm – Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
- Blackburn, Simon, 1994, 2005, 2008, rev. 2nd ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-283134-8. Description Archived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine & 1994 letter-preview links.
- "paradigm". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- "The Structure of Scientific Revolution, Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. page 10
- Kuhn, T S (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd Edition) University of Chicago Press. Section V, pages 43–51. ISBN 0-226-45804-0.
- Kuhn, T S (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (2nd Edition) University of Chicago Press. Pages 88 and 41, respectively.
- Kuhn, T S (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (2nd Edition) University of Chicago Press. Page 44.
- Kuhn, T S (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (2nd Edition) University of Chicago Press. Page 85.
- Benedict, Ruth (2005). Patterns of Culture. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780618619559.
- Spradley, James P. (1979). The Ethnographic Interview. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 9780030444968.
- The attribution of this statement to Lord Kelvin is given in a number of sources, but without citation. It is reputed to be Kelvin's remark made in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900. See the article on Lord Kelvin for additional details and references.
- Resnick, Brian (2016-03-14). "What psychology's crisis means for the future of science". Vox.
- Ralph, Paul (January 2018). "The two paradigms of software development research". Science of Computer Programming. 156: 68–89. doi:10.1016/j.scico.2018.01.002.
- Cristianini, Nello (2014). "On the Current Paradigm in Artificial Intelligence". AI Communications. 27 (1): 37–43. doi:10.3233/AIC-130582.
- Do you suffer from paradigm paralysis?
- Haack, S (2003) Defending Science – within reason: between scientism and cynicism. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-59102-458-3.
- Brady, J E (1990). General Chemistry: Principles and Structure. (5th Edition.) John Wiley and Sons.
- Smith, P J (2011) The Reform of Economics. Taw Books. ISBN 978-0-9570697-0-1. Page 129.
- Smith, P J (2011) The Reform of Economics. Taw Books. Chapter 7.
- Slattery, Martin (2003). Key ideas in sociology. Cheltenham : Nelson Thornes. pp. 151, 152, 153, 155. ISBN 978-0-7487-6565-2. OCLC 52531237.
- Nickles, Thomas (December 2002). Thomas Kuhn. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1, 2, 3, 4. ISBN 978-0-521-79206-6.
Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996), the author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is probably the best-known and most influential historian and philosopher of science of the last 25 years, and has become something of a cultural icon. His concepts of paradigm, paradigm change and incommensurability have changed the way we think about science.
- Iacoboni, M. (2008), Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Page 17.
- [16] Lakatos, I. (1970), "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes", in Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, A. (eds.) (1990), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge.
- Laudan, L. (1977), Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth. University of California Press, Berkeley.
- Handa, M. L. (1986) "Peace Paradigm: Transcending Liberal and Marxian Paradigms". Paper presented in "International Symposium on Science, Technology and Development, New Delhi, India, March 20–25, 1987, Mimeographed at O.I.S.E., University of Toronto, Canada (1986)
- Hutchin, Ted (2013) The Right Choice : Using Theory of Constraints for Effective Leadership, Taylor and Francis, Hoboken, p. 124 ISBN 978-1-4398-8625-0
- Harris, Matthew (2010). The notion of papal monarchy in the thirteenth century : the idea of paradigm in church history. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-0-7734-1441-9.
- Harris, Matthew (2010). The notion of papal monarchy in the thirteenth century : the idea of paradigm in church history. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-7734-1441-9.
References
- Clarke, Thomas and Clegg, Stewart (eds). Changing Paradigms. London: HarperCollins, 2000. ISBN 0-00-638731-4
- Dogan, Mattei., "Paradigms in the Social Sciences", in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 16, 2001)
- Hammersley, Martyn (1992). "The Paradigm Wars: Reports from the Front". British Journal of Sociology of Education. 13 (1): 131–143. doi:10.1080/0142569920130110. JSTOR 1392863.
- Handa, M. L. (1986) "Peace Paradigm: Transcending Liberal and Marxian Paradigms" Paper presented in "International Symposium on Science, Technology and Development, New Delhi, India, March 20–25, 1987, Mimeographed at O.I.S.E., University of Toronto, Canada (1986)
- Harris, Matthew Edward. The Notion of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century: The Idea of Paradigm in Church History. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7734-1441-9
- Hutchin, Ted. The Right Choice : Using Theory of Constraints for Effective Leadership, Hoboken : Taylor and Francis, 2013. ISBN 978-1-4398-8625-0
- Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd Ed. Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN 0-226-45808-3 – Google Books Aug. 2011
- Masterman, Margaret, "The Nature of a Paradigm", pp. 59–89 in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970. ISBN 0-521-09623-5
- Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1934 (as Logik der Forschung, English translation 1959), ISBN 0-415-27844-9.
- The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery, Microsoft Research, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9825442-0-4 http://fourthparadigm.org
- Encyclopædia Britannica, Univ. of Chicago, 2003, ISBN 0-85229-961-3
- Cristianini, Nello, "On the Current Paradigm in Artificial Intelligence"; AI Communications 27 (1): 37–43. 2014
This article s lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article July 2020 In science and philosophy a paradigm ˈ p aer e d aɪ m PARR e dyme is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns including theories research methods postulates and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field The word paradigm is Greek in origin meaning pattern EtymologyParadigm comes from Greek paradeigma paradeigma pattern example sample from the verb paradeiknymi paradeiknumi exhibit represent expose and that from para para beside beyond and deiknymi deiknumi to show to point out In classical Greek based rhetoric a paradeigma aims to provide an audience with an illustration of a similar occurrence This illustration is not meant to take the audience to a conclusion however it is used to help guide them to get there One way of how a paradeigma is meant to guide an audience would be exemplified by the role of a personal accountant It is not the job of a personal accountant to tell a client exactly what and what not to spend money on but to aid in guiding a client as to how money should be spent based on the client s financial goals Anaximenes defined paradeigma as actions that have occurred previously and are similar to or the opposite of those which we are now discussing The original Greek term paradeigma paradeigma was used by scribes in Greek texts such as Plato s dialogues Timaeus c 360 BCE and Parmenides as one possibility for the model or the pattern that the demiurge supposedly used to create the cosmos The English language term paradigm has technical meanings in the fields of grammar as applied for example to declension and conjugation the 1900 Merriam Webster dictionary defines the technical use of paradigm only in the context of grammar and of rhetoric as a term for an illustrative parable or fable In linguistics Ferdinand de Saussure 1857 1913 used paradigm to refer to a class of elements with similarities as opposed to syntagma a class of elements expressing relationship The Merriam Webster Online dictionary defines one usage of paradigm 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 The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy 2008 attributes the following description of the term in the history and philosophy of science to Thomas Kuhn s 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 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 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 Scientific paradigmThe Oxford English Dictionary defines a paradigm as a pattern or model an exemplar a typical instance of something an example The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave the word its contemporary meaning when he adopted the word to refer to the set of concepts and practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions first published in 1962 Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners i e what is to be observed and scrutinized the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject how these questions are to be structured what predictions made by the primary theory within the discipline how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted how an experiment is to be conducted and what equipment is available to conduct the experiment In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn saw the sciences as going through alternating periods of normal science when an existing model of reality dominates a protracted period of puzzle solving and revolution when the model of reality itself undergoes sudden drastic change Paradigms have two aspects Firstly within normal science the term refers to the set of exemplary experiments that are likely to be copied or emulated Secondly underpinning this set of exemplars are shared preconceptions made prior to and conditioning the collection of evidence These preconceptions embody both hidden assumptions and elements that Kuhn describes as quasi metaphysical The interpretations of the paradigm may vary among individual scientists Kuhn was at pains to point out that the rationale for the choice of exemplars is a specific way of viewing reality that view and the status of exemplar are mutually reinforcing For well integrated members of a particular discipline its paradigm is so convincing that it normally renders even the possibility of alternatives unconvincing and counter intuitive Such a paradigm is opaque appearing to be a direct view of the bedrock of reality itself and obscuring the possibility that there might be other alternative imageries hidden behind it The conviction that the current paradigm is reality tends to disqualify evidence that might undermine the paradigm itself this in turn leads to a build up of unreconciled anomalies It is the latter that is responsible for the eventual revolutionary overthrow of the incumbent paradigm and its replacement by a new one Kuhn used the expression paradigm shift see below for this process and likened it to the perceptual change that occurs when our interpretation of an ambiguous image flips over from one state to another The rabbit duck illusion is an example it is not possible to see both the rabbit and the duck simultaneously This is significant in relation to the issue of incommensurability see below An example of a currently accepted paradigm would be the standard model of physics The scientific method allows for orthodox scientific investigations into phenomena that might contradict or disprove the standard model however grant funding would be proportionately more difficult to obtain for such experiments depending on the degree of deviation from the accepted standard model theory the experiment would test for To illustrate the point an experiment to test for the mass of neutrinos or the decay of protons small departures from the model is more likely to receive money than experiments that look for the violation of the conservation of momentum or ways to engineer reverse time travel Mechanisms similar to the original Kuhnian paradigm have been invoked in various disciplines other than the philosophy of science These include the idea of major cultural themes worldviews and see below ideologies and mindsets They have somewhat similar meanings that apply to smaller and larger scale examples of disciplined thought In addition Michel Foucault used the terms episteme and discourse mathesis and taxinomia for aspects of a paradigm in Kuhn s original sense Paradigm shiftsIn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn wrote that the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science p 12 Paradigm shifts tend to appear in response to the accumulation of critical anomalies as well as in the form of the proposal of a new theory with the power to encompass both older relevant data and explain relevant anomalies New paradigms tend to be most dramatic in sciences that appear to be stable and mature as in physics at the end of the 19th century At that time a statement generally attributed to physicist Lord Kelvin famously claimed There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now All that remains is more and more precise measurement Five years later Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity which challenged the set of rules laid down by Newtonian mechanics which had been used to describe force and motion for over two hundred years In this case the new paradigm reduces the old to a special case in the sense that Newtonian mechanics is still a good model for approximation for speeds that are slow compared to the speed of light Many philosophers and historians of science including Kuhn himself ultimately accepted a modified version of Kuhn s model which synthesizes his original view with the gradualist model that preceded it Kuhn s original model is now generally seen as too limited citation needed Some examples of contemporary paradigm shifts include In medicine the transition from clinical judgment to evidence based medicine In social psychology the transition from p hacking to replication In software engineering the transition from the Rational Paradigm to the Empirical Paradigm In artificial intelligence the transition from classical AI to data driven AI Kuhn s idea was itself revolutionary in its time It caused a major change in the way that academics talk about science and so it may be that it caused or was part of a paradigm shift in the history and sociology of science However Kuhn would not recognize such a paradigm shift Being in the social sciences people can still use earlier ideas to discuss the history of science Paradigm paralysis Perhaps the greatest barrier to a paradigm shift in some cases is the reality of paradigm paralysis the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking This is similar to what psychologists term confirmation bias and the Semmelweis reflex Examples include rejection of Aristarchus of Samos Copernicus and Galileo s theory of a heliocentric solar system the discovery of electrostatic photography xerography and the quartz clock citation needed IncommensurabilityKuhn pointed out that it could be difficult to assess whether a particular paradigm shift had actually led to progress in the sense of explaining more facts explaining more important facts or providing better explanations because the understanding of more important better etc changed with the paradigm The two versions of reality are thus incommensurable Kuhn s version of incommensurability has an important psychological dimension This is apparent from his analogy between a paradigm shift and the flip over involved in some optical illusions However he subsequently diluted his commitment to incommensurability considerably partly in the light of other studies of scientific development that did not involve revolutionary change One of the examples of incommensurability that Kuhn used was the change in the style of chemical investigations that followed the work of Lavoisier on atomic theory in the late 18th century In this change the focus had shifted from the bulk properties of matter such as hardness colour reactivity etc to studies of atomic weights and quantitative studies of reactions He suggested that it was impossible to make the comparison needed to judge which body of knowledge was better or more advanced However this change in research style and paradigm eventually after more than a century led to a theory of atomic structure that accounts well for the bulk properties of matter see for example Brady s General Chemistry According to P J Smith this ability of science to back off move sideways and then advance is characteristic of the natural sciences but contrasts with the position in some social sciences notably economics This apparent ability does not guarantee that the account is veridical at any one time of course and most modern philosophers of science are fallibilists However members of other disciplines do see the issue of incommensurability as a much greater obstacle to evaluations of progress see for example Martin Slattery s Key Ideas in Sociology Subsequent developmentsOpaque Kuhnian paradigms and paradigm shifts do exist A few years after the discovery of the mirror neurons that provide a hard wired basis for the human capacity for empathy the scientists involved were unable to identify the incidents that had directed their attention to the issue Over the course of the investigation their language and metaphors had changed so that they themselves could no longer interpret all of their own earlier laboratory notes and records Imre Lakatos and research programmes However many instances exist in which change in a discipline s core model of reality has happened in a more evolutionary manner with individual scientists exploring the usefulness of alternatives in a way that would not be possible if they were constrained by a paradigm Imre Lakatos suggested as an alternative to Kuhn s formulation that scientists actually work within research programmes In Lakatos sense a research programme is a sequence of problems placed in order of priority This set of priorities and the associated set of preferred techniques is the positive heuristic of a programme Each programme also has a negative heuristic this consists of a set of fundamental assumptions that temporarily at least takes priority over observational evidence when the two appear to conflict This latter aspect of research programmes is inherited from Kuhn s work on paradigms citation needed and represents an important departure from the elementary account of how science works According to this science proceeds through repeated cycles of observation induction hypothesis testing etc with the test of consistency with empirical evidence being imposed at each stage Paradigms and research programmes allow anomalies to be set aside where there is reason to believe that they arise from incomplete knowledge about either the substantive topic or some aspect of the theories implicitly used in making observations Larry Laudan Dormant anomalies fading credibility and research traditions Larry Laudan has also made two important contributions to the debate Laudan believed that something akin to paradigms exist in the social sciences Kuhn had contested this see below he referred to these as research traditions Laudan noted that some anomalies become dormant if they survive a long period during which no competing alternative has shown itself capable of resolving the anomaly He also presented cases in which a dominant paradigm had withered away because its lost credibility when viewed against changes in the wider intellectual milieu In social sciencesKuhn himself did not consider the concept of paradigm as appropriate for the social sciences He explains in his preface to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that he developed the concept of paradigm precisely to distinguish the social from the natural sciences While visiting the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1958 and 1959 surrounded by social scientists he observed that they were never in agreement about the nature of legitimate scientific problems and methods He explains that he wrote this book precisely to show that there can never be any paradigms in the social sciences Mattei Dogan a French sociologist in his article Paradigms in the Social Sciences develops Kuhn s original thesis that there are no paradigms at all in the social sciences since the concepts are polysemic involving the deliberate mutual ignorance between scholars and the proliferation of schools in these disciplines Dogan provides many examples of the non existence of paradigms in the social sciences in his essay particularly in sociology political science and political anthropology However both Kuhn s original work and Dogan s commentary are directed at disciplines that are defined by conventional labels such as sociology While it is true that such broad groupings in the social sciences are usually not based on a Kuhnian paradigm each of the competing sub disciplines may still be underpinned by a paradigm research programme research tradition and or professional imagery These structures will be motivating research providing it with an agenda defining what is and is not anomalous evidence and inhibiting debate with other groups that fall under the same broad disciplinary label A good example is provided by the contrast between Skinnerian radical behaviourism and personal construct theory PCT within psychology The most significant of the many ways these two sub disciplines of psychology differ concerns meanings and intentions In PCT they are seen as the central concern of psychology in radical behaviourism they are not scientific evidence at all as they cannot be directly observed Such considerations explain the conflict between the Kuhn Dogan view and the views of others including Larry Laudan see above who do apply these concepts to social sciences Handa M L 1986 introduced the idea of social paradigm in the context of social sciences He identified the basic components of a social paradigm Like Kuhn Handa addressed the issue of changing paradigm the process popularly known as paradigm shift In this respect he focused on social circumstances that precipitate such a shift and the effects of the shift on social institutions including the institution of education This broad shift in the social arena in turn changes the way the individual perceives reality Another use of the word paradigm is in the sense of worldview For example in social science the term is used to describe the set of experiences beliefs and values that affect the way an individual perceives reality and responds to that perception Social scientists have adopted the Kuhnian phrase paradigm shift to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality A dominant paradigm refers to the values or system of thought in a society that are most standard and widely held at a given time Dominant paradigms are shaped both by the community s cultural background and by the context of the historical moment Hutchin outlines some conditions that facilitate a system of thought to become an accepted dominant paradigm Professional organizations that give legitimacy to the paradigm Dynamic leaders who introduce and purport the paradigm Journals and editors who write about the system of thought They both disseminate the information essential to the paradigm and give the paradigm legitimacy Government agencies who give credence to the paradigm Educators who propagate the paradigm s ideas by teaching it to students Conferences conducted that are devoted to discussing ideas central to the paradigm Media coverage Lay groups or groups based around the concerns of lay persons that embrace the beliefs central to the paradigm Sources of funding to further research on the paradigmOther usesThe word paradigm is also still used to indicate a pattern or model or an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype The term is frequently used in this sense in the design professions Design Paradigms or archetypes comprise functional precedents for design solutions The best known references on design paradigms are Design Paradigms A Sourcebook for Creative Visualization by Wake and Design Paradigms by Petroski This term is also used in cybernetics Here it means in a very wide sense a conceptual protoprogram for reducing the chaotic mass to some form of order Note the similarities to the concept of entropy in chemistry and physics A paradigm there would be a sort of prohibition to proceed with any action that would increase the total entropy of the system To create a paradigm requires a closed system that accepts changes Thus a paradigm can only apply to a system that is not in its final stage Beyond its use in the physical and social sciences Kuhn s paradigm concept has been analysed in relation to its applicability in identifying paradigms with respect to worldviews at specific points in history One example is Matthew Edward Harris book The Notion of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century The Idea of Paradigm in Church History Harris stresses the primarily sociological importance of paradigms pointing towards Kuhn s second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Although obedience to popes such as Innocent III and Boniface VIII was widespread even written testimony from the time showing loyalty to the pope does not demonstrate that the writer had the same worldview as the Church and therefore pope at the centre The difference between paradigms in the physical sciences and in historical organisations such as the Church is that the former unlike the latter requires technical expertise rather than repeating statements In other words after scientific training through what Kuhn calls exemplars one could not genuinely believe that to take a trivial example the earth is flat whereas thinkers such as Giles of Rome in the thirteenth century wrote in favour of the pope then could easily write similarly glowing things about the king A writer such as Giles would have wanted a good job from the pope he was a papal publicist However Harris writes that scientific group membership is not concerned with desire emotions gain loss and any idealistic notions concerning the nature and destiny of humankind but simply to do with aptitude explanation and cold description of the facts of the world and the universe from within a paradigm See alsoWikiquote has quotations related to Paradigm Look up paradigm in Wiktionary the free dictionary Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paradigm Basic beliefs Concept Conceptual framework Conceptual model Conceptual schema Contextualism Dogma Flying geese paradigm Heuristic Ideology Mental model Mental representation Metanarrative Methodology Mindset Perspectivism Point of view philosophy Poststructuralism Programming paradigm Schema psychology School of thought Set psychology Triune continuum paradigm World view The history of the various paradigms in evolutionary biology Wikiversity Footnotesparadeigma Henry George Liddell Robert Scott A Greek English Lexicon on Perseus Digital Library paradeiknymi Henry George Liddell Robert Scott A Greek English Lexicon on Perseus Digital Library para Henry George Liddell Robert Scott A Greek English Lexicon on Perseus Digital Library deiknymi Henry George Liddell Robert Scott A Greek English Lexicon on Perseus Digital Library Sampley J Paul 2003 Paul in the Greco Roman World A Handbook Trinity Press International pp 228 229 ISBN 9781563382666 Zeyl Donald Sattler Barbara 2019 Plato s Timaeus in Zalta Edward N ed The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Summer 2019 ed Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University retrieved 2021 03 10 Waterlow Sarah 1982 The Third Man s Contribution to Plato s Paradigmatism Mind 91 363 339 357 doi 10 1093 mind xci 363 339 JSTOR 2253225 Retrieved 10 March 2021 If Socrates in the Parmenides stands for the Republic the attack on him is perhaps milder than it might have been But at I32ci2 d4 he seems to speak for the Timaeus In my opinion Parmenides the best view to take is this these Forms we speak of are paradigms Simenova Ruska 1988 Grundzuge einer konstrastiven Phonetik Deutsch Bulgarisch in German Sofia Nauka i Iskustwo p 212 Retrieved 28 September 2022 Unter Syntagma versteht de Saussure eine subordinierende Verbindung von zwei Elementen paradigm Definition from the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary Blackburn Simon 1994 2005 2008 rev 2nd ed The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 283134 8 Description Archived 2012 03 29 at the Wayback Machine amp 1994 letter preview links paradigm Oxford English Dictionary Online ed Oxford University Press Subscription or participating institution membership required The Structure of Scientific Revolution Kuhn Thomas S The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 3rd edition Chicago University of Chicago Press 1996 page 10 Kuhn T S 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2nd Edition University of Chicago Press Section V pages 43 51 ISBN 0 226 45804 0 Kuhn T S 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2nd Edition University of Chicago Press Pages 88 and 41 respectively Kuhn T S 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2nd Edition University of Chicago Press Page 44 Kuhn T S 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2nd Edition University of Chicago Press Page 85 Benedict Ruth 2005 Patterns of Culture Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN 9780618619559 Spradley James P 1979 The Ethnographic Interview Holt Rinehart and Winston ISBN 9780030444968 The attribution of this statement to Lord Kelvin is given in a number of sources but without citation It is reputed to be Kelvin s remark made in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900 See the article on Lord Kelvin for additional details and references Resnick Brian 2016 03 14 What psychology s crisis means for the future of science Vox Ralph Paul January 2018 The two paradigms of software development research Science of Computer Programming 156 68 89 doi 10 1016 j scico 2018 01 002 Cristianini Nello 2014 On the Current Paradigm in Artificial Intelligence AI Communications 27 1 37 43 doi 10 3233 AIC 130582 Do you suffer from paradigm paralysis Haack S 2003 Defending Science within reason between scientism and cynicism Prometheus Books ISBN 978 1 59102 458 3 Brady J E 1990 General Chemistry Principles and Structure 5th Edition John Wiley and Sons Smith P J 2011 The Reform of Economics Taw Books ISBN 978 0 9570697 0 1 Page 129 Smith P J 2011 The Reform of Economics Taw Books Chapter 7 Slattery Martin 2003 Key ideas in sociology Cheltenham Nelson Thornes pp 151 152 153 155 ISBN 978 0 7487 6565 2 OCLC 52531237 Nickles Thomas December 2002 Thomas Kuhn Cambridge University Press pp 1 2 3 4 ISBN 978 0 521 79206 6 Thomas Kuhn 1922 1996 the author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is probably the best known and most influential historian and philosopher of science of the last 25 years and has become something of a cultural icon His concepts of paradigm paradigm change and incommensurability have changed the way we think about science Iacoboni M 2008 Mirroring People The New Science of How We Connect with Others Farrar Straus and Giroux Page 17 16 Lakatos I 1970 Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes in Lakatos I and Musgrave A eds 1990 Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge Cambridge Laudan L 1977 Progress and Its Problems Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth University of California Press Berkeley Handa M L 1986 Peace Paradigm Transcending Liberal and Marxian Paradigms Paper presented in International Symposium on Science Technology and Development New Delhi India March 20 25 1987 Mimeographed at O I S E University of Toronto Canada 1986 Hutchin Ted 2013 The Right Choice Using Theory of Constraints for Effective Leadership Taylor and Francis Hoboken p 124 ISBN 978 1 4398 8625 0 Harris Matthew 2010 The notion of papal monarchy in the thirteenth century the idea of paradigm in church history Lewiston New York Edwin Mellen Press p 160 ISBN 978 0 7734 1441 9 Harris Matthew 2010 The notion of papal monarchy in the thirteenth century the idea of paradigm in church history Lewiston New York Edwin Mellen Press p 118 ISBN 978 0 7734 1441 9 ReferencesClarke Thomas and Clegg Stewart eds Changing Paradigms London HarperCollins 2000 ISBN 0 00 638731 4 Dogan Mattei Paradigms in the Social Sciences in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Volume 16 2001 Hammersley Martyn 1992 The Paradigm Wars Reports from the Front British Journal of Sociology of Education 13 1 131 143 doi 10 1080 0142569920130110 JSTOR 1392863 Handa M L 1986 Peace Paradigm Transcending Liberal and Marxian Paradigms Paper presented in International Symposium on Science Technology and Development New Delhi India March 20 25 1987 Mimeographed at O I S E University of Toronto Canada 1986 Harris Matthew Edward The Notion of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century The Idea of Paradigm in Church History Lewiston New York Edwin Mellen Press 2010 ISBN 978 0 7734 1441 9 Hutchin Ted The Right Choice Using Theory of Constraints for Effective Leadership Hoboken Taylor and Francis 2013 ISBN 978 1 4398 8625 0 Kuhn Thomas S The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 3rd Ed Chicago and London Univ of Chicago Press 1996 ISBN 0 226 45808 3 Google Books Aug 2011 Masterman Margaret The Nature of a Paradigm pp 59 89 in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge Cambridge Cambridge Univ Press 1970 ISBN 0 521 09623 5 Popper Karl The Logic of Scientific Discovery 1934 as Logik der Forschung English translation 1959 ISBN 0 415 27844 9 The Fourth Paradigm Data Intensive Scientific Discovery Microsoft Research 2009 ISBN 978 0 9825442 0 4 http fourthparadigm org Encyclopaedia Britannica Univ of Chicago 2003 ISBN 0 85229 961 3 Cristianini Nello On the Current Paradigm in Artificial Intelligence AI Communications 27 1 37 43 2014