Thomas Kuhn describes the development of science as repeating the process of normal science, in which the existing paradigm is maintained and studied, and scientific revolution, in which critical debate leads to a new paradigm. However, FireAvent argues that Kuhn’s argument does not fit with historical examples, and that even during periods of normal science, critical debate and the existence of alternative theories make revolutions possible.
Thomas Kuhn is a philosopher of science who coined the new concept of “paradigm,” which he defined in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as “a collective framework or set of concepts that combines the scientific perceptions, theories, conventions, ideas, ideas, and values that dominate an epoch. Specialized research activities based on a particular paradigm are called normal science, which is inherently inhibitory to novelty because it attempts to fit the subject of study into the framework of the paradigm. This is the most basic characteristic of normal science. Kuhn argues that the conventional view of science is shaped by this very characteristic, and that the search for a new paradigm begins only when the existing paradigm can no longer avoid the anomalies that disrupt the tradition of scientific activity. In summary, Kuhn argues that normal science does not aim for new facts or theories, and that critical discussion only occurs when paradigms are not working effectively. Since accounts of history, as well as the history of science, need to be factually accurate, we need to make sure that Kuhn’s account can be justified. After describing what Kuhn means by “scientists engage in critical debate only in times of crisis,” I will present FireAbend’s rebuttal, and then criticize FireAbend’s failure to address it.
In order to understand Kuhn’s explanation, it is necessary to understand the concepts of “crisis” and “critical discussion” correctly. A scientific revolution is an event that marks the end of a period of normal science and a paradigm shift. Kuhn explains that a paradigm is established as research progresses in the absence of a paradigm, and that the paradigm is in crisis when anomalies emerge during the period of normal science. This is followed by a transition from the old paradigm to a new one. The anomalies that lead to the crisis are phenomena that cannot be explained by normal science, even though they are activities that are consistent with normal science. In order to solve important problems in these anomalies, normal scientists relax the rules of problem solving and use auxiliary hypotheses, which Kuhn says is when the paradigm is blurred and the rules of normal science are violated, and the crisis begins.
To better understand Kuhn’s position on critical discussion, it’s important to note how he explains the concept of paradigm. Kuhn argued that without a shared set of beliefs (a paradigm) that can be taken for granted, scientists would have to attack the fundamental principles of other schools of thought and justify their own. He believed that doing this without basic agreement is philosophy, not science, and so he came to the conclusion that stopping critical discussion of fundamental principles is the beginning of science. In other words, when a mainstream paradigm exists, research within it should not ask questions about its fundamental principles. Kuhn’s “critical discussion” of a paradigm’s basic principles is the same “critical discussion” that is necessary to generate alternative theories. This is because competing paradigms often differ in many basic principles. For example, when the speed of light is very small, relativity’s laws take the same form as Newton’s laws, but the meaning of “mass” is completely different in the two theories. The debate between Dolton and Bertollet over the definition of a compound also stemmed from their different ways of defining it. Since the most basic concepts of the two competing paradigms are different, it is impossible to create an alternative theory without criticizing the underlying principles. Consequently, we can see that Kuhn’s “critical discussion” of basic principles is a necessary prelude to generating an alternative theory. Now that we know Kuhn’s position on “crisis” and “critical discussion,” let’s look at FireAvent’s rebuttal to Kuhn’s account.
Feyerabend is one of the most prominent critics of Kuhn’s concept of normal science. Criticizing Kuhn’s notion of normal science as a form of specialization that increases the barriers to entry into science through the formation of paradigms, he argues that Kuhn’s notion of normal science is a form of specialism and that normal science is inadequate as a methodological prescription. The criticism that normal science is dogmatic is a controversial point that Kuhn himself has made, and he counters that it is not dogmatic because the uncritical acceptance of normal science merely provides a “framework” for scientists to think within, and that in order to say that normal science is dogmatic, it must be “something that can be criticized but is not criticized,” when in fact it is “something that cannot be criticized” because criticism is too difficult. He gives examples of how dogmatic defense of a particular paradigm through ad hoc hypotheses has led to new discoveries, showing the positive side of tenacity in sticking to a theory. Even FireAvent acknowledges that no theory should be easily discarded, as it is not easy to determine whether it can be improved upon, and we cannot ignore the possibility of errors in experimental results or observations, or the lagging development of ancillary sciences.
However, FireAvent argues that no single anomaly can eliminate the existing paradigm in this way, and that a paradigm shift cannot be achieved by adhering to one theory alone, requiring the “principle of multiplication,” which states that alternative theories must always exist. In order for an alternative theory to exist during a crisis, it must have been created beforehand, during the period of normal science, and this requires an attempt to solve the problem in a way other than the existing paradigm. In other words, scientific revolutions are possible only when the existing paradigm is critically debated during the period of normal science.
FireAvent also argues that Kuhn’s explanation of “critical debate only in times of crisis” is not consistent with actual history. In the 19th century, three incompatible paradigms coexisted: the mechanistic view, the phenomenological theory of heat, and the electromagnetism of Faraday and Maxwell. FireAvent argues that there was actually an active interaction between these three paradigms, and that without this interaction, the explorations that led to the relativity revolution, the quantum revolution, and the statistical revolution would not have occurred if the focus had been on solving puzzles within each paradigm. While Kuhn’s position would seem to suggest that this is highly unusual, FireAvent argues that it is not the puzzle-solving, but the activities of a small number of scientists across paradigms that produced the major advances in science, even if these explorations were few in number. This means that Kuhn’s account of the temporal separation between revolutions (periods of proliferation) and normal science (periods of monistic scientific activity) fails. After all, the revolution was possible because critical debate occurred even during normal science.
In addition to Kuhn’s argument being logically impossible and inconsistent with actual history, as FireAvent suggests, there are additional problems. For one thing, we can’t be sure that a crisis is a crisis. When normal scientists fail to solve anomalous cases with normal science, they try to protect their paradigm by relaxing the rules of the game or by developing auxiliary hypotheses. In this process, agreement on the scope of the paradigm becomes impossible and the paradigm becomes ambiguous, and Kuhn argues that “all crises begin with a paradigm becoming ambiguous and the rules of normal science being violated.” However, “blurring” and “breaking” are not clear-cut terms, and different scientists may recognize different moments as crises. Paradigms enable ongoing research by providing problems to solve and rules to follow, so anomalies are bound to continue to emerge, but not all of them are paradigm crises. Normal science is itself an activity that solves anomalies as puzzles. Kuhn’s argument is that since competing paradigms are incommensurable, there cannot be a “criterion of crisis” that can be applied to both paradigms: whether or not a particular anomaly is considered a crisis is a matter of perspective. Kuhn argues that crises are indicators of when it’s time to change tools (paradigms), but I’m not convinced that they actually play this role.
Kuhn’s explanation can also be refuted with respect to the historical role of science. Turning to Popper’s critique, he says the following.
Kuhn’s “normal scientists” are pitiful people who have been indoctrinated with a dogmatic spirit, and their attitude is a threat not only to science but to our civilization itself.
Just as Newton’s mechanical clockwork contributed significantly to the Enlightenment, science has played an important role in replacing God with reason. It is conventional wisdom that science enlightens and advances us, and indeed it has done so, so Kuhn’s claim that scientists have only engaged in critical debate during paradigm crises is difficult to accept. The role of science does not change during times of normal science. For science to fulfill this role, critical debate should have occurred at any time.
A final problem with Kuhn’s account of critical debate in times of crisis has to do with the way he phrases it. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn presents the same explanation as above and even claims that “critical debate should only occur in times of crisis”. Specifically, within a single paragraph, Kuhn offers the following explanation and argument together
The creation of alternatives is something that scientists rarely do, except during the paradigm-shifting phase of scientific development, and then only in very special cases in the progress that follows.
As in productive activity, the creation of new extensions of science is a kind of luxury reserved for occasions that demand it.
While the above sentence is more of an “explanation” that the creation of alternatives almost always occurs only in times of crisis, the sentence below seems to be Kuhn’s personal view that changing tools in non-crisis times is a luxury. Of course, given that Kuhn pioneered the new field of historical philosophy of science, one might expect his position on this topic to be more of a “does” or “has” statement than a “should” assertion. However, Kuhn could have been a bit clearer and more consistent in his presentation of his arguments.
Kuhn explains that new theories emerge only after seeing significant failures in normal problem-solving activities, but we can see that for a scientific revolution to exist, critical discussions must take place even during normal scientific times, according to FireAvent’s “multiplicative principle,” and actual history does not support his explanation. Furthermore, we were able to refute Kuhn’s explanation by considering the role of science in crisis situations and the lack of certainty that a crisis is a crisis. In the process, we came to the conclusion that Kuhn’s account of the history of science is wrong. If scientists have only engaged in critical debate in times of crisis, as Kuhn describes, then we can assume that critical debate should continue to be limited to times of crisis because it has led to scientific progress. This is a very dangerous idea, however, because the lack of critical debate when the wrong paradigm is chosen, such as the now-abandoned alchemy or pendulum theory, can slow down revolutions and prolong their stay here, and much research can be wasted. An accurate account of the history of science is needed to avoid the contingencies of Kuhn’s inaccurate narrative.
