TagThomas Kuhn

This blog post critically examines whether Kuhn’s paradigm theory can be validly applied to biology through examples from genetics and evolutionary theory.   In everyday life, the term ‘paradigm’ is a very commonly used word. When the way we explain a situation undergoes a major shift, people generally say the paradigm has changed. The starting point for the term ‘paradigm’ becoming...

This blog post examines Kuhn’s argument, presented in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, that science develops through revolution, not accumulation.   A New Perspective on Scientific Research Gained Through the History of Science ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ has exerted considerable influence on the scientific and philosophical communities for nearly 50 years since...

This blog post examines whether the concept of normal science in Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolution truly excludes criticism and only shifts paradigms during crises.   Thomas Kuhn, a philosopher of science who coined the new concept of ‘paradigm,’ defined it in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as “a total framework or set of concepts that combines scientific...

This blog post examines whether Kuhn’s paradigm theory can fully explain scientific development, exploring its limitations and complementary aspects through various case studies.   Introduction Philosopher of science Thomas Samuel Kuhn explained how science progresses in his book ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’. While disciplines like chemistry or geology align well with his...

Is science advancing toward absolute truth, or is it just a repetition of paradigms? In this blog post, I will reflect on the nature and purpose of science centered around this question.   While reading books on the philosophy of science, I learned about discussions on how science accumulates knowledge and progresses. Through my reading, I examined various positions in the philosophy of...

This blog post examines the validity and limitations of new paradigms, focusing on Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions.   Before Thomas Kuhn, people believed science progressed by gradually building upon past research to accumulate knowledge. This is well captured in Isaac Newton’s famous statement about standing on the shoulders of giants to see farther. However, Kuhn...

This blog post explores whether science progresses or merely shifts, focusing on Thomas Kuhn’s concept of incommensurability.   Thomas Kuhn’s ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’, which introduced his paradigm thesis, was published in 1962 and immediately sparked the ‘Kuhnian Revolution’. Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific development and change, condensed into the...

This blog post delves deeply into the relationship between the essence of academic research and the motivations felt by researchers, based on Thomas Kuhn’s concepts of normal science and paradigms.   I discovered an interesting book. Thanks to it, I found an opportunity to reflect on the psychological background I’d been struggling to grasp recently. I began reading Thomas...

This blog post explores the essence of change by examining how paradigms determine the direction and pace of scientific progress, moving beyond the common notion that science advances continuously.   Thomas Kuhn introduced the concept of the paradigm in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” The term “paradigm,” now used across various fields, carried a profoundly shocking...