The paradigm theory proposed by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions explains that science develops through crises and revolutionary changes in the status quo. In this process, the incommensurability and contradictory comparability of paradigms has been criticized, and debates continue to center on incompatibility, incommensurability, and untranslatability.
Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions occupies an important place in the history of the philosophy of science, and his theories have sparked much debate. People in different camps in the debate over this book have different interpretations that make it hard to believe they’ve all read the same book, which is probably due to the interpretive flexibility of its content. The underlying reason for this flexibility is the introduction of the term ‘paradigm’. This diversity of interpretations has led critics to criticize Kuhn’s theory from different directions.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn explained paradigm shifts using various examples from science, often comparing two paradigms that explain different but identical phenomena. However, on the one hand, he argues for the incommensurability of paradigms through incommensurability, but on the other hand, he seems to compare paradigms when necessary. This seems inconsistent. In addition to the categorical ambiguity of paradigms, we will examine the contradictions in Kuhn’s account of paradigm theory through incompatibility, incommensurability, and translatability.
Kuhn explains how science develops in the structure of scientific revolutions. When a certain normal science is established and anomalous cases continue to emerge that cannot be explained by the existing normal science, the existing paradigm is questioned and a crisis arises. To resolve this crisis, a new theoretical framework is proposed, and through further research, a scientific revolution occurs in which the new theoretical framework replaces the old paradigm, and a new normal science is established.
By “normal science,” Kuhn means research that is firmly grounded in one or more scientific achievements. These achievements are those that are recognized by a group of scientists over a period of time as the basis for future research. These achievements are listed, albeit not in their original form, in primary or secondary science textbooks, which describe a set of orthodoxies, give examples of successful applications, and present examples of experiments. For example, a college physics textbook is based on Newton’s classical mechanics, with theoretical explanations, verifiable examples and experiments, and application problems.
Aristotle’s Natural Science, Ptolemy’s Almagest, Newton’s Principes and Optics, Franklin’s Electricity, Lavoisier’s Chemistry, Lyell’s Principia of Geology, and others have served to define legitimate problems and methodologies in the work of past scientists. These achievements were prominent enough to attract a group of followers that excluded competing ways of doing science, and open enough to present a wide range of problems to newly formed researchers. Achievements with these two characteristics are what Kuhn calls “paradigms,” which are closely associated with “normal science.
Scientific revolutions have three characteristics Incompatibility, incommitment, and untranslatability. First, incommitment means that a previously trivial problem can become the prototype for a major scientific achievement with the emergence of a new paradigm. As problems change, the criteria for finding scientific answers can also change, whether through metaphysical reasoning, changes in terminology, or mathematical manipulation. The legitimate scientific traditions that emerge from a scientific revolution are often incompatible with previous ones, and cannot be measured by the same standard. Incompatibility means that theories explaining the same natural phenomenon are different and incompatible before and after the scientific revolution. Finally, untranslatability means that incompatible and incommensurable theories cannot be translated into each other. For example, Ptolemy’s epicycles and Copernicus’ heliocentrism may explain day and night on Earth, but they imply radically different perspectives.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn argues that incommensurability is incompatible and incomparable because the two paradigms have different worldviews and use different tools. However, in Commensurability, Comparability, and Communicability, Kuhn seems to leave some room for evasion by suggesting that incommensurability is local rather than global. This can be interpreted in a metaphorical sense as ‘no common language’. It means that most of the common terms in both paradigms preserve their meaning, and only some terms change meaning, making them difficult to translate. Incommensurability represents a softened position, meaning that the statements of both theories cannot be translated into a neutral language without loss of meaning.
In response to the criticism that “incommitment is untranslatable,” Kuhn compares the process of translation to the process of language acquisition, and argues that understanding the incommitment paradigm is not translation, but language acquisition. He argues that the difference depends on knowing both languages, and that understanding the different paradigms is a step-by-step learning process, just like learning a language. This seems to be a softening of the initial claims of incompatibility and incommensurability.
Among Kuhn’s critics, Sheffier and Scheffler criticize his theory as follows. Sheffier criticized Kuhn’s view by arguing that various biases interfere with the objective judgment that scientists are supposed to make, and that it is the role of sociology to eliminate these biases. Schaeffler also criticized Kuhn for introducing into his conclusions the very concepts he sought to reject in his discussion, noting that no compelling reason is given to deny objectivity in the process of critically evaluating scientific theories. Kuhn’s predictive criteria, the existence of anomalous cases and crises, and the preservation of problem-solving capabilities are argued to contradict the thesis that paradigm shifts in science are not driven by critical evaluation.
A common point made by Kuhn’s critics is that paradigms are scientific frameworks that differ from reality, yet Kuhn contradicts the relationship between frameworks. However, Kuhn’s revised definition of paradigms after The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is somewhat different. If paradigms were merely formal frameworks for perceiving science, they would not be real. The argument is that the way a scientist perceives the world involves more than a formal framework. There are two uses of paradigm. First, a “paradigm” encompasses commitments shared by a particular group of scientists. Second, it has the sense of partially isolating specific commitments. It would be unreasonable to apply paradigm in this dual sense to every scientific development, with variations as needed.
In addition, Kuhn’s theory raises the question of how far the category of paradigm should be viewed in describing past and future theories. Applying paradigmatic theory to each scientific theory requires a lot of effort. Kuhn’s paradigm theory, which explains the process of scientific development, seems to be inadequate, given the idea that explaining phenomena with a simple theory is closer to the truth.
In explaining paradigm shifts, Kuhn avoids direct attacks by comparing incommensurable and incomparable paradigms and by using the contradictory term local holism. The use of vague and ambiguous language, which makes it difficult to refute counter-examples and counter-evidence, contradicts the logic that the better scientific theories are, the closer they are to the truth.
