Kuhn's Conception Research Articles

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Courses in Phage and Bacterial Genetics: A Catalyst for Innovation in Molecular Biology, Genetics, and Microbiology.

The ability to answer complex scientific questions depends on the experimental methods available. New methods often allow scientists to answer questions that were previously intractable, leading to discoveries that often dramatically change a field. Beginning with Max Delbrück's famous summer phage course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1945, the Phage, Bacterial Genetics, and Advanced Bacterial Genetics courses have provided hands-on experiences to generations of scientists that facilitated the broad adoption of new experimental methods into laboratories around the world. These methods have led to discoveries that changed the way we think about genetics, bacteria, and viruses, transforming our understanding of biology. The impact of these courses has been further amplified by published laboratory manuals that provide detailed protocols for the evolving experimental toolkit. These courses catalyzed intensive and critical discourse about ideas that were previously intractable and provided novel experimental approaches to answer new questions-a process that epitomizes Thomas Kuhn's concepts of Scientific Revolution, spinning off the new field of Molecular Biology and dramatically changing the field of microbiology.

Similarity Judgments and Exemplars

The paper takes up the complex Kuhnian concept of the “exemplar” through some key passages from the Postscript-1969 and The Essential Tension. The term “exemplar” refers to the deeper philosophical meaning of the scientific paradigm: the “normal” scientist, with reference to the paradigm, can carry out his or her research by making similarity judgments between different problems. Such judgments are based on a perceptive ability that precedes any explicit rule and which is defined as both learned and primitive.This paper intends to analyze this dual aspect of similarity perception from the point of view of Embodied Simulation Theory. The Kuhnian concept of exemplar can be clarified and deepened by considering the value of embodiment. The mechanisms of an “educated” perception can be identified in those automatic mechanisms of perceptual mirroring on which embodied cognition is based.

Popperian methodology and the Semmelweis case.

Semmelweis' discovery of the etiology of childbed fever has long attracted the attention of historians of medicine and biographers. In recent years it has also become of increasing interest to philosophers. In this paper I discuss the interpretation of Semmelweis' methodology from the viewpoint of the inference to the best explanation and argue that Popperian methodology is better at capturing the dynamics of the growth of knowledge. Furthermore, I criticize the attempts to explain the failure of Semmelweis to have his discovery accepted on the basis of the Kuhnian concept of paradigms, and warn that this view may endorse dogmatism as the norm The Kuhnian position also raises the problem of the authoritarian nature of scientific institutions which defend a paradigm against unorthodox, rebellious views, such as in the case of Semmelweis. Popperian philosophy is seen as a challenge to promote a link between an open society and open science with its main aim being to cherish a free critical spirit.

A Scientometric Approach to the Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: Entrenched Biomedical Standardisation and Citation-Exemplar

ABSTRACT Is Kuhn’s notion of exemplar applicable to ongoing biomedical sciences? Many philosophers may be skeptical because Kuhn’s cases are mostly from physics and chemistry. However, how do philosophers test the above (non-)applicability directly? We will use examples to illustrate a scientometric approach to the integrated history and philosophy of science (SciHPS) and argue that SciHPS can provide an empirical basis to empirically test and revise a philosophical concept questioned for its applicability to biomedical sciences. This paper will build on Yan, K., M. L. Tsai, and T. R. Huang. [2021. “Improving the Quality of Case-Based Research in the Philosophy of Contemporary Sciences.” Synthese 198 (10): 9591–9610. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02657-5] heart-rate variability (HRV) case study to examine the biomedical changes within the HRV community from 1970 to 2022. We will investigate how a task force standardises and entrenches methodological standardisations, and argue that some of the task force’s methodological standardisations are tool-afforded by an algorithm. These tool-afforded aspects further explain why an HRV method is robustly dominant in the HRV community despite other HRV scholars having developed alternatives to compete with the dominant one. We will then show how to use SciHPS to empirically test and revise the Kuhnian concept of exemplar into a concept of citation-exemplar that better captures the above tool-afforded aspects of standardisations.

Dragons, Monsters, Emotions, Cavemen and Kuhn’s Epistemology: Scientific Revolutions in Films

Background : There have been many discussions on the importance of teaching philosophy of science in schools, and the need of a teaching focused on the science process, seeking to remedy deformed views that distance children from scientific life. Kuhn is undoubtedly the science philosopher most debated in history and his work “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” has significant potential to construct proper views of the scientist in primary education. Films are important pedagogic tools to transmit concepts and ideas in a rich and engaging way. Objectives : The present work identified the presence of Kuhn ideas in four animated films and the competences of science procedures in their characters. Design : We selected the films “How to Train Your Dragon”, “The Croods”, “Inside Out” and “Monsters, Inc.”. Within those, we seek for paradigms, paradigm shifts, scientific revolutions, and the competences for scientific investigation on the characters. Setting and Participants : This is a theoretical analysis, and therefore does not have participants. The materials used were only bibliographic sources . Data collection and analysis : We used ten scientific competences and made a philosophical reflection of Kuhn's theory in the films. Results : The analysis reveals the occurrence of normal science, recognized anomalies, extraordinary science and break of paradigms in all those films. In addition, we identified the competences of science procedures of the characters. Conclusions : The films make an artistic representation of situations where Kuhn concepts and the scientific competences can be taught in a clear and significant way.

Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms

This study provides key arguments and contributions of Kuhn (1970) concerning paradigms, paradigm shifts, and scientific revolutions. We provide interpretations of Kuhn's (1970) key ideas and concepts, especially as they relate to business management research. We conclude by considering the practical implications of paradigms and paradigm shifts for contemporary business management researchers and suggest that ethical rules of conversation are at least as critical for the health of a scientific community as methodological rules (e.g., the rules of logical positivism) derived from the philosophy of science.

Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) is the bestselling and most-cited book ever published in the history and philosophy of science. Yet very few scholars in those fields would now endorse the book’s main claims, and many are critical of its central premise: namely, that major changes in different disciplines and diverse historical contexts conform to a single “structure.” Key Kuhnian concepts such as “paradigm shift” have become part of everyday language but all but disappeared from specialist publications. Nonetheless, the book still galvanizes readers encountering it for the first time—or even scholars who haven’t reread it since their own student days. Kuhn’s description of allencompassing and incommensurable mental worlds inhabited by scientists who practice in different paradigms resonates with the experience of readers who have experienced seismic changes in moral and political intuitions.

Incommensurability between paradigms, revolutions and common ground in the development of psychoanalysis

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to offer a critical analysis of different uses of the Kuhnian concept of paradigm to study psychoanalysis by showing how this notion may be used to establish a more profitable dialogue between different theoretical systems of psychoanalysis. In order to do so, we will examine how various authors, psychoanalysts and philosophers use this tool to understand psychoanalysis and its history. It will be argued that the understanding of theoretical systems of psychoanalysis as paradigms emphasises both their similarities (in the comprehension of a Freudian common ground) and their incommensurabilities. Additionally, it will be shown that the theories are not subject to communication, but rather the phenomena that such theories enable us to understand; they are, therefore, redescribed in each one of the systems allowing them to develop.

Radical views on cognition and the dynamics of scientific change

Radical views on cognition are generally defined by a cluster of features including non-representationalism and vehicle-externalism. In this paper, I concentrate on the way radical views on cognition define themselves as revolutionary theories in cognitive science. These theories often use the Kuhnian concepts of “paradigm” and “paradigm shift” for describing their ambitions and the current situation in cognitive science. I examine whether the use of Kuhn’s theory of science is appropriate here. There might be good reasons to think that cognitive science is in a situation of foundational crisis, but that does not entail that the classical paradigm (computationalism) is currently displaced to the benefit of a new paradigm. Larry Laudan’s theory of research traditions is more enlightening than Kuhn’s theory for describing the scope and ambitions of radical views on cognition, and their relations with an anti-intellectualist tradition in philosophy.

All That Is Solid

The belief that natural sciences are more scientific than the social sciences has been well documented in the perceptions of both lay and scientific populations. Influenced by the Kuhnian concept of “paradigm development” and empirical studies on the closure of scientific controversies, scholars from divergent traditions associate scientific development with increased consensus and stability. However, both the macro/quantitative and micro/qualitative approaches are limited in key ways. This article is the first comparative ethnography of a natural science (molecular biology) and a social science (psychology) and it highlights important differences between the fields. Molecular biologists engage in a process of “bench-building,” in which they create and integrate new manipulation techniques and technologies into their practice, whereas psychologists have far less opportunity for this type of development. This suggests an alternative conception of the natural/social divide, in which the natural sciences are defined by dynamic material evolution while the social sciences remain relatively stable.

Normal and Extraordinary Conservation Knowledge: Towards a Post-normal Theory of Cultural Materials Conservation

The two fundamental words and concepts that have come to delineate the field of cultural materials conservation—conservation and restoration—represent an essential tension in both theory and practice. Commencing with an historical overview of the use of these two terms, their current meanings as prescribed in the ICOM-CC Definition of the Profession, are then examined drawing on Thomas Kuhn's concepts of ‘paradigm shifts’, ‘normal science’ and ‘extraordinary science’. The implications, opportunities and potential for conservation are then considered through the concept of post-normal science, to propose a democratised, community-centred theory of conservation.

Fifty years of finance research in the Asia Pacific Basin

AbstractIn this paper, we review the history of scholarly finance research in the Asia Pacific Basin. We do this by analysing the four leading regional finance journals – Accounting and Finance, Australian Journal of Management, International Review of Finance and the Pacific‐Basin Finance Journal – along five dimensions. The five dimensions are the most cited papers, noted authors, impact in terms of practice, research areas and a breakdown in terms of the development of the field according to Kuhnian concepts of normal science, anomalies and extraordinary science. We show that the Asia Pacific journals make a crucial contribution to research and practice both in the region and internationally.

Coding Collected Research Papers to Create a Simple Information System

A major issue with research archives is the difficulty of finding contextually relevant information when developing a theory or project. Utilizing a sociotechnological approach, this paper proposes a descriptive markup language to function as a notational system to be used to convert collections of research papers in various disciplines into an information system. Markup codes attached to research papers can significantly improve data retrieval. A theoretical framework for the notational system is proposed, drawn from Charles Fillmore's frame semantics and Thomas Kuhn's conception of a lexicon specific to numerous research areas. Examples of how the notational system can be used are offered and the steps needed for the implementation of the notational system are outlined.

Toward Pragmatically Naturalized Transcendental Philosophy of Scientific Inquiry And Pragmatic Scientific Realism

This paper seeks to show that the turn toward local scientific practices in the philosophy of science is not a turn away from transcendental investigations. On the contrary, a pragmatist approach can very well be (re)connected with Kantian transcendental examination of the necessary conditions for the possibility of scientific representation and cognition, insofar as the a priori conditions that transcendental philosophy of science examines are understood as historically relative and thus potentially changing. The issue of scientific realism will be considered from this perspective, with special emphasis on Thomas Kuhn's conception of paradigms as frameworks making truth-valued scientific statements possible and on Charles S. Peirce's realism about "real generals".

Information Systems as a Professional Discipline: Focus on the Management of Information Technology

This article discusses the identity crisis in the Information Systems (IS) academic discipline. It reviews how Kuhn's (1970) concepts of paradigm and (normal) science apply to IS and argues that IS's scope is too broad and too disconnected from practice. The article proposes that IS become a professional discipline, guided by issues faced by providers and managers of Information Technology (IT). IS research would center on the management of provisioning, operation, and maintenance of IT artifacts. IS researchers would be practitioners similar to those in other professional fields, particularly medicine. The article contains a sample of potential research questions for IS as a professional discipline. Given the ubiquity of IT, the debate about IS identity is as important as ever. This article contributes insights to the debate, in the direction of facilitating a healthy discipline that enables productive and efficient use of IT resources, plus rewarding jobs for its practitioners, educators, and researchers.

The Normal Scientific Point of View of Practicing Scientists

Thomas Kuhn himself was obliged to withdraw his own term paradigm (Kuhn 1970). After that, most academics dropped the use of Kuhnian concepts. Although mostly abandoned in the history of the scient...

What can cognitive science tell us about scientific revolutions?

Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is notable for the readiness with which it drew on the results of cognitive psychology. These naturalistic elements were not well received and Kuhn did not subsequently develop them in his published work. Nonetheless, in a philosophical climate more receptive to naturalism, we are able to give a more positive evaluation of Kuhn's proposals. Recently, philosophers such as Nersessian, Nickles, Ander- sen, Barker, and Chen have used the results of work on case-based reasoning, analogical thinking, dynamic frames, and the like to illuminate and develop various aspects of Kuhn's thought in Structure. In particular this work aims to give depth to the Kuhnian concepts of a paradigm and incommensurability. I review this work and identify two broad strands of research. One emphasizes work on concepts; the other focusses on cognitive habits. Con- trasting these, I argue that the conceptual strand fails to be a complete account of scientific revolutions. We need a broad approach that draws on a variety of resources in psychology and cognitive science.

Thomas Kuhn e seus modificadores intercontinentais

Discuto algumas dificuldades nos escritos de Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan e Michael Friedman, nas quais - no esforço de chegar a uma nova enunciação da normatividade metodológica e da racionalidade da ciência - eles modificam, complicam e expandem a concepção kuhniana do desenvolvimento da ciência, substituindo seu conceito de paradigma por um conceito mais rigoroso, ou complementando-o com vários conceitos de metaparadigmas. Não é claro que qualquer uma das substituições propostas por eles para "paradigma" seja mais (metodologicamente) racional, melhor (logicamente) desenhada e menos monopolística e dogmática. Apresento também mais amplamente a concepção de Stefan Amsterdamski dos ideais de conhecimento e minhas próprias ideias, elaboradas, em alguns casos, há muitos anos, de modo a melhorar a visão de Kuhn. Introduzo o conceito de "tradição intelectual" como uma estrutura de múltiplos níveis, contendo uma camada metafísica e (várias) camadas científicas, a ideia de hierarquia de realizações científicas baseada em sua significação cognitiva diferenciada e um esboço de uma história narrativa da ciência como um processo de autoconstituição.

Alasdair MacIntyre's Analysis of Tradition

I argue that, in analysing the structure and development of moral traditions, MacIntyre relies primarily on Kuhn's model of scientific tradition, rather than (as is held by at least two influential commentators) on Lakatos' model. I unpack three foci of Kuhn's conception of the sciences, namely: the ‘crisis’ conception of scientific development, what I call the ‘systematic conception’ of scientific paradigms, and the view that successive paradigms are incommensurable. I then show that these three foci are integrated into MacIntyre's account of the development of moral traditions with a surprising degree of faithfulness to Kuhn. And crucially, I argue against the overall cogency of his account, given the disparities I pinpoint between scientific and moral traditions. My overall critique is, however, fundamentally friendly, since nothing I have to say invalidates the very notion of a moral tradition, and all I am calling for are less problematic construals of that notion.

Paradigms, Policy and Governance: The Politics of Energy Regulation in the UK Post‐2000

ABSTRACTThis paper considers the debate around energy policy and government regulation in the UK, considering Helm's idea that the current period can be conceptualized as a distinct ideological paradigm in the same way that both nationalization and privatization were enmeshed within particular political and economic goals. As he reasons, the first paradigm was based on nationalization and had the purpose of bringing vital services under public ownership and the second paradigm was constructed around the premises of liberalization and privatization. Drawing on the work of Mitchell, the paper explores Helm's observations on the link between ‘paradigms and policy’ to suggest that the failings of a market‐based approach to addressing climate change and energy security argue that a more radical shift in direction and thinking is needed. In particular, it is argued that the UK Government's more recent targets on reducing carbon emissions suggest the need for an energy policy agenda that is more clearly de‐linked from the current emphasis on market solutions and associated political thinking. It is argued that such a transition in policy would need to revolve around Kuhn's pre‐conditions of a ‘gestalt switch’ – as indicated in both previous UK regulatory approaches to energy. We suggest that, in much the same way as the dominant scientific consensus structured Kuhn's original conception of a paradigm, such a shift in policy will involve a ‘gestalt switch’, and a politically led shift away from the influence of thinking which currently remains rooted in previous infrastructural and ideological legacies. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.