Paradigm Shifts, Scientific Revolutions, and the Unit of Scientific Change: Towards a Post-Kuhnian Theory of Types of Scientific Development

Abstract

One of the central problems of Kuhn's theory of scientific development is its reductionistic and local approach, i.e., its application of one basic pattern of scientific development—Kuhnian revolutions or K-revolutions—to only one area of science, the physical sciences. But the question arises as to why significant developmental episodes in the history of physics and chemistry only should be taken as paradigm cases, especially inasmuch as Kuhn himself claims to be describing and explaining the development of science generally. As Kuhn says, scientific revolutions “are at the heart of the most significant episodes of scientific development.“(Kuhn 1962, p. 140).I shall take a somewhat radical position. First, I shall argue that the concepts of paradigm shift and scientific revolution are asymmetrical. That is, paradigm shifts represent a genus, and scientific revolutions are species within that genus; and whereas all K-revolutions are paradigm shifts, the converse does not hold.