Kuhn's Conception Research Articles

From Rostow to Gunder Frank: Conflicting paradigms in the analysis of underdevelopment

The Kuhnian concept of a scientific revolution can be usefully applied to development economics to explain how the predominant ‘paradigm’, exemplified by the works of Rostow, is being increasingly challenged by a new ‘paradigm’, as represented by the writings of Gunder Frank. The basic conflicts between the paradigms, and their interaction (or lack of it), are briefly discussed.

The History of Psychology and its Retrieval from Historiography II: Some Lessons for the Methodology of Scientific Research

Part I of this essay' argued that (i) the problematic nature of the history of science prevents one from assessing non-justificational methodologies of scientific research by means of the extant histories of science; (ii) therefore, the assessment of such a theorist's views with regard to psychology cannot be made on the basis of 'textbook' history of psychology. The history of psychology, like that of any science, must be retrieved rather than recorded. Part II must examine the criteria according to which history isto beretrieved. Its burden is to argue (i) that the 'metacriterion' that Lakatos2 has proposed for the assessment of methodologies (to the effect that that methodology is preferable which renders more of the history in question rational and internal) is inadequate and requires supplementation (if not supplantation) by a second metacriterion; (ii) that when this second metacriterion is employed, all the extant nonjustificational methodologies are seen to be inadequate; and (iii) that the best methodology currently available combines large amounts of Kuhn's conception of science and its progress with a lesser amount of Lakatos' reinterpretation of Popper's methodology. Implicit throughout this argument is the claim that the psychological sciences are adequate to the task of explicating the nature of science and its growth. Philosophy may provide a reconstruction of scientific knowledge once it is achieved, but it falls to psychology and sociology to explain the nature

The History of Psychology and its Retrieval from Historiography

Stimulated by the popularity of T. S. Kuhn's monograph The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a number of writers have concerned themselves with the question of the applicability of Kuhn's account of scientific development for the discipline of psychology. They have attacked or defended allegedly 'Kuhnian ideas' in a multitude of guises, and have offered an alarming profusion of 'refutations' or 'corrections' to 'Kuhn's conception of science'.' Relatively unnoticed, but of crucial importance in attempting to assess the merit of these articles, is the fact that virtually all these writers have a theoretical axe to grind in supporting or attacking (what they perceive to be) Kuhn's views. Equally important, that axe may have either or both a methodological and historiographical, or substantive psychological, character. Both affirmations and denials of Kuhn's views result in large part from the methodology of scientific research that the writer accepts, from the historiography of science that he endorses, and in psychology especially, from the ongoing research programme and conceptual framework in which he works. Another factor of crucial importance is that with few exceptions, these theorists assume that the history of psychology is an unproblematic issue, and

Paradigms and Normal Science in Psychology

Several writers have construed T. S. Kuhn's conception of science and methodology of scientific research' as though it were a template. They have looked at the match between what they perceive Kuhn's template as saying and what they perceive their scientific discipline to be. When their account of their science does not fit the pattern that they attribute to Kuhn, they conclude either that their science is not susceptible to a Kuhnian analysis because it is not a 'good' (i.e. normal or mature, etc.) science, or that Kuhn's account is wrong.2 In broad outline, the model of science that Kuhn proposed in I962 iS now familiar. This model rejects the (heretofore dominant) picture of science as a cumulative record of factual discoveries and theoretical generalizations based upon them in favour of a conception of mature science as a series of alternating periods of relatively continuous puzzle-solving research ('normal science'), on the one hand, and anomaly collection, which induces revolutionary reconceptualizations (rather than 'crises'), on the other.a But beyond this broad outline, there is evidence of considerable misunderstanding. Perhaps most misunderstanding is generated by Kuhn's conceptions of 'paradigms' and 'normnal science', and the relationships

Sociological Paradigms: Analogies of Teleology, Apocalypse and Prophecy

Following Thomas Kuhn's conception of the periodic revolutions that interrupt the normal accretive growth of a science, an analogy is drawn between the typology of theological postures (teleology, apocalypse, and prophecy) offered by Harvey Cox and paradigms central to an understanding of the crisis confronting contemporary sociology. Correlated with the teleological stance is the system image that stood as sociologically orthodox through the 1950's; the conflict image which threatened to replace system in the 1960's is immediately congruent with an apocalyptic posture; and there is increasing evidence that the system-conflict polarity will be resolved in decade of the 1970's in a manner analogous to the stance of the Old Testament prophet. A dialectical' image is coming to the fore which is motivated, as were the nabi, by the assumption that the revelation of modes of present and past social order will operate in the longer run to free those who become aware of such order from its compulsive repetiton.