Scientific revolutions kun. Philosophical views of T. Kuhn. Public activities and awards

The structure of scientific revolutions in the concept of T. Kuhn

The progress of science and technology in the 20th century brought forward the methodology and history of science actual problem analysis of the nature and structure of those fundamental, qualitative changes in scientific knowledge, which are usually called revolutions in science. In Western philosophy and the history of science, interest in this problem was aroused by the appearance of Thomas Kuhn's work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", which was sensational in the 1970s. T. Kuhn's book aroused great interest not only among historians of science, but also among philosophers, sociologists, psychologists who study scientific creativity, and many natural scientists from around the world.

Briefly, Kuhn's theory is as follows: periods of calm development (periods of "normal science") are replaced by a crisis that can be resolved by a revolution that replaces the dominant paradigm. By paradigm, Kuhn understands a generally accepted set of concepts, theories and methods of research, which provides the scientific community with a model for posing problems and solving them.

The most famous work of Thomas Kuhn is considered to be The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), which discusses the theory that science should be perceived not as gradually developing and accumulating knowledge towards truth, but as a phenomenon that goes through periodic revolutions, called in his terminology "paradigm shifts". The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was originally published as an article for the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. The enormous impact that Kuhn's research had can be seen in the revolution it provoked even in the thesaurus of the history of science: in addition to the concept of "paradigm shift", Kuhn gave a broader meaning to the word "paradigm" used in linguistics, introduced the term "normal science" to define the relatively routine daily work of scientists operating within a certain paradigm, and largely influenced the use of the term "scientific revolutions" as periodic events occurring at different times in various scientific disciplines - in contrast to the single "Scientific Revolution" of the late Renaissance.

In France, Kuhn's concept began to be correlated with the theories of Michel Foucault (the terms Kuhn's "paradigm" and Foucault's "episteme" were correlated) and Louis Althusser, although they rather dealt with the historical "conditions of the possible" scientific discourse. (In fact, Foucault's worldview was shaped by the theories of Gaston Bachelard, who independently developed a view of the history of science similar to Kuhn's.) Unlike Kuhn, who considers different paradigms as incomparable, according to Althusser's concept, science has a cumulative nature, although this cumulativeness is discrete.

Kuhn's work is widely used in social sciences- for example, in the post-positivist-positivist discussion within the framework of the theory of international relations.

As Thomas Kuhn defined in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a scientific revolution is an epistemological paradigm shift.

“By paradigms, I mean scientific advances that are universally recognized and that, over time, provide a model for problem posing and problem solving to the scientific community.” (T. Kuhn)

According to Kuhn, a scientific revolution occurs when scientists discover anomalies that cannot be explained by the universally accepted paradigm within which scientific progress has taken place up to that point. From Kuhn's point of view, the paradigm should be considered not just as a current theory, but as a whole worldview in which it exists, along with all the conclusions made thanks to it.

There are at least three aspects of the paradigm:

A paradigm is the most general picture of the rational structure of nature, a worldview;

A paradigm is a disciplinary matrix that characterizes the set of beliefs, values, technical means, etc. that unite specialists in a given scientific community;

A paradigm is a universally recognized pattern, a template for solving puzzle problems. (Later, due to the fact that this concept of paradigm caused an interpretation inadequate to that which Kuhn gave it, he replaced it with the term "disciplinary matrix" and thereby further removed this concept in content from the concept of theory and connected it more closely with the mechanical the work of a scientist in accordance with certain rules.)

The work of T. Kuhn "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", this work examines the socio-cultural and psychological factors in the activities of both individual scientists and research teams.

T. Kuhn believes that the development of science is a process of alternating two periods - "normal science" and "scientific revolutions". Moreover, the latter are much more rare in the history of the development of science compared to the former. The socio-psychological nature of T. Kuhn's concept is determined by his understanding of the scientific community, whose members share a certain paradigm, adherence to which is determined by his position in a given social organization of science, the principles perceived during his training and becoming a scientist, sympathies, aesthetic motives and tastes. It is these factors, according to T. Kuhn, that become the basis of the scientific community.

The central place in the concept of T. Kuhn is occupied by the concept of a paradigm, or a set of the most general ideas and methodological guidelines in science, recognized by this scientific community. The paradigm has two properties: 1) it is accepted by the scientific community as the basis for further work; 2) it contains variable questions, that is, it opens up scope for researchers. A paradigm is the beginning of any science; it provides the possibility of a purposeful selection of facts and their interpretation. The paradigm, according to Kuhn, or the "disciplinary matrix", as he proposed to call it in the future, includes four types of the most important components: 1) "symbolic generalizations" - those expressions that are used by members of the scientific group without doubt and disagreement, which can be put into a logical form, 2) "metaphysical parts of paradigms" such as: "heat is the kinetic energy of the parts that make up the body", 3) values, for example, concerning predictions, quantitative predictions should be preferable to qualitative ones, 4) generally accepted samples.

All these components of the paradigm are perceived by the members of the scientific community in the process of their learning, whose role in the formation of the scientific community is emphasized by Kuhn, and become the basis of their activities during periods of "normal science". During the period of "normal science" scientists deal with the accumulation of facts, which Kuhn divides into three types: 1) a clan of facts that are especially indicative of revealing the essence of things. Research in this case consists in clarifying the facts and recognizing them in a wider range of situations, 2) facts that, although not of great interest in themselves, can be directly compared with the predictions of the paradigm theory, 3) the empirical work that is undertaken to develop paradigm theory.

However, scientific activity as a whole does not end there. The development of "normal science" within the framework of the accepted paradigm lasts as long as the existing paradigm does not lose its ability to solve scientific problems. At one of the stages in the development of "normal science" there is bound to be a discrepancy between the observations and predictions of the paradigm, and anomalies arise. When enough such anomalies accumulate, the normal course of science stops and a state of crisis sets in, which is resolved by a scientific revolution, leading to the breaking of the old and the creation of a new scientific theory - paradigm.

Kuhn believes that choosing a theory to serve as a new paradigm is not a logical problem: “Neither by logic nor by the theory of probability is it possible to convince those who refuse to enter the circle. The logical premises and values ​​shared by the two camps in arguing about paradigms are not broad enough for this. As in political revolutions, so in the choice of paradigm there is no higher authority than the consent of the respective community. For the role of paradigm, the scientific community chooses the theory that seems to ensure the "normal" functioning of science. The change of fundamental theories looks to the scientist as an entry into new world, in which there are completely different objects, conceptual systems, other problems and tasks are revealed: “Paradigms cannot be corrected at all within the framework of normal science. Instead… normal science eventually only leads to the realization of anomalies and crises. And the latter are resolved not as a result of reflection and interpretation, but due to a somewhat unexpected and non-structural event, like a gestalt switch. After this event, scholars often speak of "the veil falling from the eyes" or "illumination" that illuminates a previously intricate puzzle, thereby adapting its components to be seen in a new perspective, allowing for the first time to reach its solution. Thus, the scientific revolution as a paradigm shift is not subject to a rational-logical explanation, because the essence of the matter is in the professional well-being of the scientific community: either the community has the means to solve the puzzle, or not - then the community creates them.

The opinion that the new paradigm includes the old as a special case, Kuhn considers erroneous. Kuhn puts forward the thesis about the incommensurability of paradigms. When the paradigm changes, the whole world of the scientist changes, since there is no objective language of scientific observation. The scientist's perception will always be influenced by the paradigm.

Apparently, T. Kuhn's greatest merit lies in the fact that he found a new approach to revealing the nature of science and its progress. Unlike K. Popper, who believes that the development of science can only be explained on the basis of logical rules, Kuhn introduces a “human” factor into this problem, attracting new social and psychological motives to solve it.

There are three directions in criticism of T. Kuhn's understanding of "normal science". First, it is a complete denial of the existence of such a phenomenon as "normal science" in scientific activity. This point of view is shared by J. Watkins. He believes that science would not move forward if the main form of activity of scientists was "normal science". In his opinion, such a boring and unheroic activity as "normal science" does not exist at all; a revolution cannot grow out of Kuhn's "normal science".

The second strand in the critique of "normal science" is represented by Karl Popper. He, unlike Watkins, does not deny the existence of a period of "normal research" in science, but he believes that there is no such essential difference between "normal science" and the scientific revolution that Kuhn points out. In his opinion, Kuhn's "normal science" is not only not normal, but also represents a danger to the very existence of science. The "normal" scientist in Kuhn's view evokes a feeling of pity in Popper: he was poorly trained, he is not accustomed to critical thinking, he has been made into a dogmatist, he is a victim of doctrinairism. Popper believes that although a scientist usually works within the framework of some theory, if he wishes, he can go beyond this framework. True, at the same time, it will be in a different framework, but they will be better and wider.

The third line of criticism of Kuhn's normal science assumes that normal research exists, that it is not fundamental to science as a whole, it also does not represent such an evil as Popper believes. In general, one should not ascribe too much to normal science. of great importance, neither positive nor negative. Stephen Toulmin, for example, believes that scientific revolutions happen in science not so rarely, and science generally does not develop only by accumulating knowledge. Scientific revolutions are not at all "dramatic" breaks in the "normal" continuous functioning of science. Instead, it becomes a "unit of measure" within the very process of scientific development. For Toulmin, revolution is less revolutionary and "normal science" less cumulative than for Kuhn.

As can be seen from the above discussion, T. Kuhn's critics focused on his understanding of "normal science" and the problem of a rational, logical explanation of the transition from old ideas to new ones.

As a result of the discussion of T. Kuhn's concept, most of his opponents formed their own models of scientific development and their understanding of scientific revolutions.

Biography

Thomas Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Samuel L. Kuhn, an industrial engineer, and Minette Struck Kuhn.

• Graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in physics.
• During the Second World War, he was assigned to civilian work in the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
• Received a master's degree in physics from Harvard.
• - the beginning of the formation of the main theses: "structure of scientific revolutions" and "paradigm".
• - - held various teaching positions at Harvard; taught the history of science.
• - Completed a PhD in physics from Harvard.
• - served as professor of the history of science in the department of the University of California at Berkeley.
• - - worked on the university department at Princeton, taught the history and philosophy of science.
• - - Professor .
• - - Lawrence S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at the same institute.
• - retired.
• - Kuhn was diagnosed with bronchial cancer.
• - Thomas Kuhn is dead.

Kuhn has been married twice. First time on Katerina Moose (with whom he had three children), and then on Gian Barton.

Scientific activity

The most famous work of Thomas Kuhn is considered - "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962), which discusses the theory that science should be perceived not as gradually developing and accumulating knowledge towards the truth, but as a phenomenon passing through periodic revolutions, called in his terminology "paradigm shifts" (Eng. paradigm shift). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was originally published as an article for the International Encyclopedia for Unified Science, published by the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists, or Neopositivists. The enormous impact that Kuhn's research had can be seen in the revolution it provoked even in the thesaurus of the history of science: in addition to the concept of "paradigm shift", Kuhn gave a broader meaning to the word "paradigm", used in linguistics, introduced the term "normal science" to define the relatively routine daily work of scientists operating within a certain paradigm, and largely influenced the use of the term "scientific revolutions" as periodic events occurring at different times in various scientific disciplines - in contrast to the single "Scientific Revolution" of the late Renaissance.

Stages of the scientific revolution

The course of the scientific revolution according to Kuhn:

• normal science - every new discovery can be explained from the standpoint of the prevailing theory;
• extraordinary science. Crisis in science. The occurrence of anomalies inexplicable facts. An increase in the number of anomalies leads to the emergence of alternative theories. In science, many opposing scientific schools coexist;
• scientific revolution - the formation of a new paradigm.

Public activities and awards

Bibliography

In English

• Bird, Alexander. Thomas Kuhn Princeton and London: Princeton University Press and Acumen Press, 2000.
• Fuller, Steve. Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
• Kuhn, T.S. The Copernican Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957.
• Kuhn, T.S. The Function of Measurement in Modern Physical Science. Isis, 52(1961): 161-193.
• Kuhn, T.S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962) ISBN 0-226-45808-3
• Kuhn, T.S. "The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research". pp. 347-69 in A. C. Crombie (ed.). Scientific Change(Symposium on the History of Science, University of Oxford, 9-15 July 1961). New York and London: Basic Books and Heineman, 1963.
• Kuhn, T.S. The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (1977)
• Kuhn, T.S. Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. ISBN 0-226-45800-8
• Kuhn, T.S. The Road Since Structure: Philosophical Essays, 1970-1993. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. ISBN 0-226-45798-2

In Russian

• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
• The Essential Tension
• Black-Body Theory and Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912.

see also

Links

• Biography of T. Kuhn, outline of the book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (eng.)
• Thomas Kuhn, 73; Devised Science Paradigm (Lawrence Van Gelder, New York Times, 19 June 1996) - obituary
• Thomas S. Kuhn (The Tech p9 vol 116 no 28, 26 June 1996) - obituary

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See what "Kuhn, Thomas" is in other dictionaries:

- (b. 1922), American philosopher and historian of science. He put forward the concept of scientific revolutions as a change in the paradigms of the initial conceptual schemes, ways of posing problems and research methods that prevail in science of a certain historical period ... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (b. 1922) American philosopher and historian of science. He put forward the concept of scientific revolutions as a change in the paradigms of the initial conceptual schemes, ways of posing problems and research methods that prevail in science of a certain historical period. ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Kuhn, Thomas- KUN (Kuhn) Thomas (born in 1922), American philosopher and historian of science. In his well-known work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1963), the history of science is presented as an alternation of episodes of competitive struggle between different ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Koon Thomas- The structure of scientific revolutions Paradigms, "normal" and "abnormal" science Together with Lakatos, Feyerabend and Lautzan, Thomas Kuhn is one of the well-known post-Popperian epistemologists who developed the concept of the history of science. In the famous ... ... Western philosophy from its origins to the present day

- (Kuhn, Thomas Samuel) (1922-1996), American historian and philosopher of science. Born July 18, 1922 in Cincinnati (Ohio). He studied theoretical physics at Harvard University, where in 1949 he defended his doctoral dissertation. He taught from 1949 in ... ... Collier Encyclopedia

My friends and colleagues sometimes ask me why I write about certain books. At first glance, this choice may seem random. Especially given the very wide range of topics. However, there is still a pattern. First, I have "favorite" topics on which I read a lot: the theory of constraints, systems approach, management accounting, Austrian School of Economics, Nassim Taleb, Alpina Publisher… Secondly, in books that I like, I pay attention to the references of the authors and the list of references.

So it is with Thomas Kuhn's book, which, in principle, is far from my subject. For the first time, Stephen Covey gave her a "tip". Here is what he writes in: “The term paradigm shift was first introduced by Thomas Kuhn in his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn shows that almost any significant breakthrough in the field of science begins with a break with traditions, old thinking, old paradigms.

The second time I met Thomas Kuhn was mentioned by Mikael Krogerus in: “Models clearly demonstrate to us that everything in the world is interconnected, they advise how to act in this or that situation, they suggest what is better not to do. Adam Smith knew about this and warned against excessive enthusiasm for abstract systems. After all, models are, after all, a matter of faith. If you're lucky, for approval you can get Nobel Prize like Albert Einstein. Historian and philosopher Thomas Kuhn came to the conclusion that science basically works only to confirm existing models and shows ignorance when the world once again does not fit into them.

And finally, Thomas Corbett in the book, speaking about the paradigm shift in management accounting, writes: “Thomas Kuhn distinguishes two categories of “revolutionaries”: (1) young people who have just been trained, learned the paradigm, but have not put it into practice and (2) older people moving from one field of activity to another. People in both of these categories are, first, operationally naive in the area they have just moved into. They do not understand many of the delicate points of the paradigm-united community they want to join. Second, they don't know what not to do."

So, Thomas Kuhn. The structure of scientific revolutions. – M.: AST, 2009. – 310 p.

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Thomas Kuhn is an outstanding historian and philosopher of science of the 20th century. His theory of scientific revolutions as a paradigm shift became the foundation of modern methodology and philosophy of science, predetermining the very understanding of science and scientific knowledge in modern society.

Chapter 1. The Role of History

If science is seen as a collection of facts, theories and methods collected in textbooks in circulation, then scientists are people who more or less successfully contribute to the creation of this collection. The development of science in this approach is a gradual process in which facts, theories and methods are added up to an ever-increasing stock of achievements, which is scientific methodology and knowledge.

When a specialist can no longer avoid anomalies that destroy the existing tradition of scientific practice, non-traditional research begins, which eventually leads the entire branch of science to new system prescriptions, to a new basis for the practice of scientific research. The exceptional situations in which this change of professional prescriptions occurs will be considered in this paper as scientific revolutions. They are additions to tradition-bound activities in the period of normal science that destroy tradition. We will meet more than once with the great turning points in the development of science associated with the names of Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier and Einstein.

Chapter 2. On the way to normal science

In this essay, the term "normal science" means research that is firmly based on one or more past scientific achievements - achievements that have been recognized for some time by a certain scientific community as the basis for its future practical activities. Today such achievements are expounded, though seldom in their original form, in textbooks, either elementary or advanced. These textbooks clarify the essence of the accepted theory, illustrate many or all of its successful applications, and compare these applications with typical observations and experiments. Before such textbooks became widespread, which happened at the beginning of the 19th century (and even later for the newly emerging sciences), a similar function was performed by the famous classical works of scientists: Aristotle's Physics, Ptolemy's Almagest, Newton's Elements and Optics , "Electricity" by Franklin, "Chemistry" by Lavoisier, "Geology" by Lyell and many others. For a long time, they implicitly determined the legitimacy of the problems and methods of research in each field of science for subsequent generations of scientists. This was possible due to two essential features of these works. Their creation was unprecedented enough to attract for a long time a group of supporters from competing lines of scientific research. At the same time, they were open enough that new generations of scientists could find unsolved problems of any kind within them.

Achievements that have these two characteristics, I will call hereinafter "paradigms", a term closely related to the concept of "normal science". By introducing this term, I meant that some generally accepted examples of the actual practice of scientific research - examples that include law, theory, their practical application and the necessary equipment - all together give us models from which particular traditions arise. scientific research.

The formation of a paradigm and the emergence of a more esoteric type of research on its basis is a sign of the maturity of the development of any scientific discipline. If the historian traces the development of scientific knowledge about any group of related phenomena back into the depths of time, then he will probably encounter a repetition in miniature of the model that is illustrated in this essay by examples from the history of physical optics. Modern physics textbooks tell students that light is a stream of photons, that is, quantum mechanical entities that exhibit some wave properties and at the same time some properties of particles. The investigation proceeds according to these ideas, or rather according to the more developed and mathematicized description from which this ordinary verbal description is derived. This understanding of light, however, has no more than half a century of history. Before it was developed by Planck, Einstein and others at the beginning of this century, physics textbooks said that light is the propagation of transverse waves. This notion was a derivation from a paradigm that goes back ultimately to the work of Jung and Fresnel in optics relating to early XIX centuries. At the same time, the wave theory was not the first to be accepted by almost all researchers in optics. During the 18th century, the paradigm in this field was based on Newton's "Optics", who argued that light is a stream of material particles. At the time, physicists were looking for proof of the pressure of light particles hitting solid bodies; the early adherents of the wave theory did not aspire to this at all.

These transformations of the paradigms of physical optics are scientific revolutions, and the gradual transition from one paradigm to another through a revolution is a common model for the development of a mature science.

When an individual scientist can accept a paradigm without proof, he does not have to rebuild the entire field in his work, starting from the original principles, and justify the introduction of each new concept. This can be provided to the authors of the textbooks. The results of his research will no longer be presented in books addressed, like Franklin's Experiments in Electricity or Darwin's On the Origin of Species, to anyone who is interested in the subject of their research. Instead, they tend to be published as short articles intended only for professional colleagues, only for those who supposedly know the paradigm and are able to read articles addressed to him.

Since prehistoric times, one science after another has crossed the border between what the historian can call the prehistory of a given science as a science, and its proper history.

Chapter 3 The Nature of Normal Science

If a paradigm is a job that is done once, for everyone, then what problems does it leave for the subsequent solution of this group? The concept of a paradigm means an accepted model or pattern. Like a court decision under a general law, it is an object for further development and specification in new or more difficult conditions.

Paradigms acquire their status because their use leads to success rather than competing methods of solving some of the problems that the research team recognizes as the most pressing. The success of the paradigm at the outset is mainly the prospect of success in solving a number of problems of a special kind. Normal science consists in realizing this perspective as knowledge of the facts partially outlined within the framework of the paradigm expands.

Few who are not actually researchers in mature science are aware of how much routine work of this kind is carried out within a paradigm, or how attractive such work can be. It is the restoring of order that most scientists are engaged in in the course of their scientific activities. This is what I call normal science here. One gets the impression that they are trying to “squeeze” nature into the paradigm, as if into a prefabricated and rather cramped box. The goal of normal science in no way requires the prediction of new kinds of phenomena: phenomena that do not fit into this box are often, in fact, generally overlooked. Scientists in the mainstream of normal science do not set themselves the goal of creating new theories, and usually, moreover, they are intolerant of the creation of such theories by others. On the contrary, research in normal science is aimed at developing those phenomena and theories, the existence of which the paradigm presupposes.

The paradigm forces scientists to explore some fragment of nature in such detail and depth as it would be unthinkable under other circumstances. And normal science has its own mechanism to relax these limitations, which make themselves felt in the process of research whenever the paradigm from which they follow ceases to serve effectively. From this point on, scientists begin to change their tactics. The nature of the problems they study is also changing. However, up to that point, as long as the paradigm is functioning successfully, the professional community will solve problems that its members could hardly imagine and, in any case, could never solve if they did not have a paradigm.

There is a class of facts which, as the paradigm testifies, are especially indicative of revealing the essence of things. By using these facts to solve problems, the paradigm tends to refine and recognize them in an ever wider range of situations. From Tycho Brahe to E. O. Lorenz, some scientists have earned their reputation as greats not for the novelty of their discoveries, but for the accuracy, reliability, and breadth of the methods they have developed to refine previously known categories of facts.

Great effort and ingenuity to bring theory and nature into closer and closer correspondence with each other. These attempts to prove such a correspondence constitute the second type of normal experimental activity, and this type is even more explicitly paradigm-dependent than the first. The existence of a paradigm presupposes that the problem is solvable.

For an exhaustive idea of ​​the activity of accumulating facts in normal science, I think we must point to a third class of experiments and observations. He presents the empirical work that is being undertaken to develop a paradigm theory in order to resolve some of the remaining ambiguities and improve the resolution of problems that have previously been touched only superficially. This class is the most important of all the others.

Examples of work in this direction include the determination of the universal gravitational constant, the Avogadro number, the Joule coefficient, the charge of the electron, etc. Very few of these carefully prepared attempts could have been made, and none of them would have borne fruit without paradigm theory that formulated the problem and guaranteed the existence of a certain solution.

Efforts aimed at developing a paradigm can be aimed, for example, at discovering quantitative laws: Boyle's law, relating the pressure of a gas to its volume, Coulomb's law of electric attraction, and Joule's formula, relating the heat radiated by a conductor through which a current flows, with the strength of the current and resistance. Quantitative laws arise through the development of a paradigm. In fact, there is such a general and close connection between the qualitative paradigm and the quantitative law that, after Galileo, such laws were often correctly guessed by means of the paradigm many years before the devices for their experimental detection were created.

From Euler and Lagrange in the 18th century to Hamilton, Jacobi, Hertz in the 19th century, many of the brilliant European mathematical physicists repeatedly tried to reformulate theoretical mechanics so as to give it a form more logically and aesthetically satisfactory without changing its essential content. In other words, they wanted to present the overt and covert ideas of the Elements and all of continental mechanics in a logically more coherent way, one that was both more unified and less ambiguous in its application to the newly developed problems of mechanics.

Or another example: the same researchers who, in order to mark the boundary between different theories of heating, set up experiments by increasing the pressure, were, as a rule, those who offered different options for comparison. They worked with both facts and theories, and their work produced not just new information but a more accurate paradigm by removing the ambiguities that lurked in the original form of the paradigm they were working with. In many disciplines, most of the work that falls within the realm of normal science is just that.

These three classes of problems - the establishment of significant facts, the comparison of facts and theory, the development of theory - exhaust, I think, the field of normal science, both empirical and theoretical. Work within the framework of a paradigm cannot proceed otherwise, and to abandon a paradigm would mean to stop the scientific research that it determines. We will soon show what makes scientists abandon a paradigm. Such paradigm breaks represent moments when scientific revolutions occur.

Chapter 4

By mastering the paradigm, the scientific community has a criterion for choosing problems that can be considered in principle solvable, as long as this paradigm is accepted without proof. To a large extent, these are only those issues that the community recognizes as scientific or worthy of the attention of members of this community. Other problems, including many previously considered standard, are dismissed as metaphysical, as belonging to another discipline, or sometimes simply because they are too questionable to waste time on. The paradigm in this case can even isolate the community from those socially important problems that cannot be reduced to the type of puzzles, since they cannot be represented in terms of the conceptual and instrumental apparatus that the paradigm suggests. Such problems are seen only as diverting the researcher's attention from the real problems.

A problem classified as a puzzle should be characterized by more than just having a guaranteed solution. There must also be rules that limit both the nature of acceptable solutions and the steps by which those solutions are reached.

After about 1630, and especially after the advent of scientific works Descartes, who had an unusually large influence, most physicists assumed that the universe consists of microscopic particles, corpuscles, and that all natural phenomena can be explained in terms of corpuscular shapes, corpuscular dimensions, movement and interaction. This set of prescriptions turned out to be both metaphysical and methodological. As a metaphysical one, he pointed out to physicists what kinds of entities really take place in the Universe and which do not: there is only matter that has a form and is in motion. As a methodological set of prescriptions, he pointed out to physicists what the final explanations and fundamental laws should be: laws should determine the nature of corpuscular motion and interaction, and explanations should reduce any given natural phenomenon to a corpuscular mechanism that obeys these laws.

The existence of such a rigidly defined network of prescriptions - conceptual, instrumental and methodological - provides the basis for a metaphor that likens normal science to solving puzzles. Insofar as this network provides rules that indicate to the researcher in the field of mature science what the world and the science that studies it are, so far he can calmly concentrate his efforts on the esoteric problems determined for him by these rules and existing knowledge.

Chapter 5

Paradigms can determine the nature of normal science without the intervention of discoverable rules. The first reason is the extreme difficulty of discovering the rules that govern scientists within particular traditions of normal research. These difficulties are reminiscent of difficult situation, which the philosopher encounters when trying to figure out what all games have in common. The second reason is rooted in the nature of science education. For example, if a student of Newtonian dynamics ever discovers the meaning of the terms "force", "mass", "space" and "time", then not only incomplete, but generally useful definitions will help him in this. in textbooks, how much observation and application of these concepts in problem solving.

Normal science can develop without rules only as long as the corresponding scientific community accepts without doubt the already achieved solutions to certain particular problems. Rules, therefore, must gradually acquire fundamental importance, and the characteristic indifference to them must disappear whenever confidence in paradigms or models is lost. It is curious that this is exactly what is happening. As long as paradigms remain in place, they can function without any rationalization and regardless of whether attempts are made to rationalize them.

Chapter 6

In science, discovery is always accompanied by difficulties, meets with resistance, is affirmed contrary to the basic principles on which expectation is based. At first, only the expected and the ordinary are perceived, even under circumstances in which an anomaly is later discovered. However, further familiarization leads to the realization of some errors or to finding a connection between the result and what from the previous one led to the error. This awareness of the anomaly opens a period when conceptual categories are adjusted until the resulting anomaly becomes the expected result. Why is it that normal science, while not striving directly for new discoveries and intending at first even to suppress them, can nevertheless be a constantly effective instrument in generating these discoveries?

In the development of any science, the first generally accepted paradigm is usually considered quite acceptable for most of the observations and experiments available to specialists in this field. Therefore, further development, usually requiring the creation of an elaborate technique, is the development of esoteric vocabulary and skill and the refinement of concepts, the resemblance of which to their prototypes taken from the realm of common sense is constantly decreasing. Such professionalization leads, on the one hand, to a strong limitation of the scientist's field of vision and to stubborn resistance to any changes in the paradigm. Science is becoming more and more rigorous. On the other hand, within those areas to which the paradigm directs the efforts of the group, normal science leads to the accumulation of detailed information and to a refinement of the correspondence between observation and theory that could not be achieved otherwise. The more precise and advanced the paradigm, the more sensitive it is as an indicator for anomaly detection, thereby leading to a change in the paradigm. In the normal pattern of discovery, even resistance to change is beneficial. While ensuring that the paradigm is not thrown off too easily, resistance also ensures that the attention of scientists cannot be easily diverted and that only anomalies that permeate scientific knowledge to its very core will lead to a paradigm shift.

Chapter 7 scientific theories

The emergence of new theories, as a rule, is preceded by a period of pronounced professional uncertainty. Perhaps this uncertainty stems from the constant inability of normal science to solve its puzzles as much as it should. The bankruptcy of existing rules means a prelude to the search for new ones.

The new theory appears as a direct reaction to the crisis.

Philosophers of science have repeatedly shown that more than one theoretical construct can always be built on the same set of data. The history of science shows that, especially in the early stages of the development of a new paradigm, it is not very difficult to create such alternatives. But such an invention of alternatives is precisely the means to which scientists rarely resort. As long as the means presented by a paradigm allow us to successfully solve the problems it generates, science advances most successfully and penetrates to the deepest level of phenomena, confidently using these means. The reason for this is clear. As in production, in science, changing tools is an extreme measure, which is resorted to only in case of real need. The significance of crises lies precisely in what they say about the timeliness of a change of instruments.

Chapter 8

Crises are a necessary prerequisite for the emergence of new theories. Let's see how scientists react to their existence. A partial answer, as obvious as it is important, can be obtained by first considering what scientists never do when faced with even strong and prolonged anomalies. Although they may from now on gradually lose confidence in the old theories and then think about alternatives to get out of the crisis, nevertheless, they never easily give up the paradigm that plunged them into the crisis. In other words, they do not consider anomalies as counterexamples. Having once reached the status of a paradigm, a scientific theory is declared invalid only if Alternative option fit to take her place. There is not yet a single process revealed by the study of the history of scientific development, which on the whole would resemble the methodological stereotype of refuting a theory by means of its direct comparison with nature. The verdict that leads a scientist to abandon a previously accepted theory is always based on something more than a comparison of the theory with the world around us. The decision to abandon a paradigm is always at the same time a decision to accept another paradigm, and the judgment that leads to such a decision includes both the comparison of both paradigms with nature and the comparison of paradigms with each other.

In addition, there is a second reason to doubt that the scientist abandons paradigms as a result of encountering anomalies or counterexamples. Defenders of the theory will invent countless ad hoc interpretations and modifications of their theories in order to eliminate apparent contradiction.

Some scientists, although history will hardly record their names, no doubt were forced to leave science because they could not cope with the crisis. Like artists, creative scientists must sometimes be able to get through hard times in a world that is falling into disarray.

Any crisis begins with paradigm doubt and subsequent loosening of the rules of normal research. All crises end in one of three possible outcomes. Sometimes normal science eventually proves its ability to solve the problem that gives rise to the crisis, despite the despair of those who saw it as the end of the existing paradigm. In other cases, even apparently radically new approaches do not correct the situation. Scientists may then conclude that, given the state of affairs in their field of study, a solution to the problem is not in sight. The problem is labeled appropriately and left aside as a legacy to future generations in the hope that it will be solved with better methods. Finally, there is a case that will be of particular interest to us when the crisis is resolved with the emergence of a new contender for the place of the paradigm and the subsequent struggle for its acceptance.

The transition from paradigm to crisis period to a new paradigm, from which a new tradition of normal science may be born, is a process far from cumulative, and not one that could be brought about by a clearer elaboration or extension of the old paradigm. This process is more like a reconstruction of a field on new grounds, a reconstruction that changes some of the most elementary theoretical generalizations in the field, as well as many of the methods and applications of the paradigm. During the transition period, there is a large but never complete overlap of problems that can be solved using both the old paradigm and the new one. However, there is a striking difference in the methods of solution. By the time the transition ends, the professional scientist will have already changed his point of view on the field of study, its methods and goals.

Almost always, the people who successfully undertake the fundamental development of a new paradigm were either very young or new to the field they paradigm-transformed. And perhaps this point does not need clarification, since obviously they, being little connected by previous practice with the traditional rules of normal science, may most likely see that the rules are no longer suitable, and begin to select another system of rules that can replace the previous one. .

Faced with an anomaly or crisis, scientists take different positions in relation to existing paradigms, and the nature of their research changes accordingly. The increase in competing options, the willingness to try something else, the expression of obvious dissatisfaction, the appeal to philosophy for help, and the discussion of fundamental positions are all symptoms of the transition from normal research to extraordinary. It is on the existence of these symptoms, more than on revolutions, that the concept of normal science rests.

Chapter 9. The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions

Scientific revolutions are considered here as such not cumulative episodes in the development of science, during which the old paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by a new paradigm that is incompatible with the old one. Why should a paradigm shift be called a revolution? Given the broad, essential difference between political and scientific development, what parallelism can justify a metaphor that finds revolution in both?

Political revolutions begin with a growing consciousness (often limited to some part of the political community) that existing institutions have ceased to adequately respond to the problems posed by the environment they have partly created. Scientific revolutions in much the same way begin with an increase in consciousness, again often limited to a narrow division of the scientific community, that the existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the study of that aspect of nature to which this paradigm itself previously paved the way. In both political and scientific development, the realization of a dysfunction that can lead to a crisis is the prerequisite for revolution.

Political revolutions aim to change political institutions in ways that those institutions themselves prohibit. Therefore, the success of revolutions forces us to partially abandon a number of institutions in favor of others. Society is divided into warring camps or parties; one party is trying to defend the old social institutions, others are trying to establish some new ones. When this polarization occurred, political way out of the situation is impossible. Like the choice between competing political institutions, the choice between competing paradigms turns out to be a choice between incompatible patterns of community life. When paradigms, as they should, enter the mainstream of debates about paradigm choice, the question of their meaning is of necessity caught in a vicious circle: each group uses its own paradigm to argue in defense of that same paradigm.

Questions of paradigm choice can never be clearly decided solely by logic and experiment.

The development of science could be truly cumulative. New kinds of phenomena might simply reveal orderliness in some aspect of nature where no one had previously noticed it. In the evolution of science, new knowledge would replace ignorance, and not knowledge of a different and incompatible kind. But if the emergence of new theories is caused by the need to resolve anomalies in relation to existing theories in their connection with nature, then a successful new theory must allow predictions that differ from those derived from previous theories. Such a difference might not exist if the two theories were logically compatible. Although the logical incorporation of one theory into another remains a valid option in relation to successive scientific theories, from the point of view of historical research this is implausible.

The most famous and striking example of such a limited understanding of scientific theory is the analysis of the relationship between Einstein's modern dynamics and the old equations of dynamics that followed from Newton's Elements. From the point of view of the present work, these two theories are completely incompatible in the same sense in which the incompatibility of Copernican and Ptolemaic astronomy was shown: Einstein's theory can be accepted only if it is recognized that Newton's theory is erroneous.

The transition from Newtonian to Einsteinian mechanics illustrates with complete clarity the scientific revolution as a change in the conceptual grid through which scientists viewed the world. Although an obsolete theory can always be regarded as a special case of its modern successor, it must be reformed for this purpose. Transformation, on the other hand, is something that can be done using the benefits of hindsight—a distinct application of more recent theory. Moreover, even if this transformation were intended to interpret an old theory, the result of its application must be a theory limited to such an extent that it can only reformulate what is already known. Because of its economy, this reformulation of the theory is useful, but it cannot be sufficient to guide research.

Chapter 10

The change in paradigm forces scientists to see the world of their research problems in a different light. Since they see this world only through the prism of their views and deeds, we may be tempted to say that after the revolution, scientists are dealing with a different world. During a revolution, when the normal scientific tradition begins to change, the scientist must learn to re-perceive the world- in some well-known situations, he must learn to see a new gestalt. A prerequisite for perception itself is a certain stereotype resembling a paradigm. What a person sees depends on what he is looking at and what his prior visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see.

I am acutely aware of the difficulties involved in saying that when Aristotle and Galileo considered the vibrations of the stones, the former saw the fall restrained by the chain, and the latter saw the pendulum. Although the world does not change with a change in paradigm, the scientist after this change works in a different world. What happens in a period of scientific revolution cannot be wholly reduced to a new interpretation of isolated and immutable facts. The scientist who accepts the new paradigm acts rather than as an interpreter, but as a person looking through a lens that reverses the image. Given a paradigm, interpretation of the data is the main element of the scientific discipline that studies them. But interpretation can only develop a paradigm, not correct it. Paradigms cannot be corrected at all within the framework of normal science. Instead, as we have seen, normal science ultimately only leads to the realization of anomalies and crises. And the latter are resolved not as a result of reflection and interpretation, but due to a somewhat unexpected and non-structural event, like a gestalt switch. After this event, scholars often speak of a “veil falling from the eyes” or “illumination” that illuminates a previously intricate puzzle, thereby adapting its components to be seen from a new perspective, allowing for the first time to reach its solution.

The operations and measurements that the scientist undertakes in the laboratory are not "ready-made data" of experience, but rather data "collected with great difficulty." They are not what the scientist sees, at least until his research bears its first fruits and his attention is focused on them. Rather, they are specific indications of the content of more elementary perceptions, and as such they are selected for careful analysis in the mainstream of normal research only because they promise rich opportunities for the successful development of an accepted paradigm. Operations and measurements are determined by the paradigm much more explicitly than the direct experience from which they partly derive. Science does not deal with all possible laboratory operations. Instead, it selects operations that are relevant in terms of matching the paradigm to the direct experience that the paradigm partially defines. As a result, with the help of various paradigms, scientists engage in specific laboratory operations. The measurements to be taken in the pendulum experiment do not correspond to those in the case of a restrained fall.

No language, limited to a description of the world known exhaustively and in advance, can give a neutral and objective description. Two people with the same image on the retina can see different things. Psychology gives many facts of this effect, and the doubts that follow from this are easily reinforced by the history of attempts to represent the actual language of observation. No modern attempt to reach such an end has so far come even close to a universal language of pure perception. The same attempts that have brought the others closer to this goal have one general characteristics, which significantly reinforces the main theses of our essay. From the very beginning they assume the existence of a paradigm taken either from a given scientific theory or from fragmentary reasoning from the standpoint of common sense, and then they try to eliminate all non-logical and non-perceptual terms from the paradigm.

Neither the scientist nor the amateur is accustomed to seeing the world piece by piece or point by point. Paradigms define large areas of experience at the same time. The search for an operational definition or pure observational language can only be started after experience has been thus determined.

After the scientific revolution, many old measurements and operations become inexpedient and are replaced accordingly by others. The same test operations cannot be applied to both oxygen and dephlogisticated air. But changes of this kind are never universal. Whatever the scientist sees after the revolution, he is still looking at the same world. Moreover, much of the language apparatus, like most laboratory instruments, is still the same as it was before the scientific revolution, although the scientist may begin to use them in new ways. As a result, science after a period of revolution always includes many of the same operations, carried out by the same instruments, and describes objects in the same terms as in the pre-revolutionary period.

Dalton was not a chemist and had no interest in chemistry. He was a meteorologist interested (for himself) in the physical problems of absorption of gases in water and water in the atmosphere. Partly because his skills were acquired for another specialty, and partly because of his work in his specialty, he approached these problems from a paradigm different from that of contemporary chemists. In particular, he considered the mixture of gases or the absorption of gases in water as a physical process in which the types of affinity played no role. Therefore, for Dalton, the observed homogeneity of solutions was a problem, but a problem that he believed could be solved if it were possible to determine the relative volumes and weights of the various atomic particles in his experimental mixture. It was necessary to determine these dimensions and weights. But this problem led Dalton to finally turn to chemistry, suggesting from the very beginning the assumption that in a certain limited series of reactions considered as chemical, atoms can only combine in a one-to-one ratio or in some other simple, integer proportion. This natural assumption helped him to determine the sizes and weights of elementary particles, but it turned the law of constancy of relations into a tautology. For Dalton, any reaction whose components did not obey multiple ratios was not yet ipso facto (therefore) a purely chemical process. A law that could not be established experimentally before Dalton's work, with the recognition of this work, becomes a constitutive principle, by virtue of which no set of chemical measurements can be violated. After Dalton's work, the same chemical experiments as before became the basis for completely different generalizations. This event may serve as perhaps the best typical example of the scientific revolution for us.

Chapter 11

I suggest that there are eminently good reasons why revolutions are almost invisible. The purpose of the textbooks is to teach the vocabulary and syntax of the modern scientific language. Popular Literature seeks to describe the same applications by means of a language closer to the language Everyday life. And the philosophy of science, especially in a world that speaks English language, analyzes the logical structure of the same complete knowledge. All three types of information describe the established achievements of past revolutions and thus reveal the basis of the modern tradition of normal science. To perform their function, they do not need reliable information about the way in which these bases were first found and then accepted by professional scientists. Therefore, at least textbooks are distinguished by features that will constantly disorient readers. Textbooks, being a pedagogical vehicle for the perpetuation of normal science, must be rewritten in whole or in part whenever the language, problem structure, or standards of normal science change after every scientific revolution. And once this procedure of rewriting textbooks is completed, it inevitably masks not only the role, but even the existence of the revolutions that brought them to light.

Textbooks narrow scholars' sense of the history of the discipline. Textbooks refer only to that part of the work of scientists of the past, which can be easily perceived as a contribution to the formulation and solution of problems that correspond to the paradigm adopted in this textbook. Partly due to the selection of material and partly due to its distortion, the scientists of the past are unreservedly portrayed as scientists working on the same set of persistent problems and with the same set of canons to which the last revolution in scientific theory and method secured the prerogatives of scientificity. Not surprisingly, textbooks and the historical tradition they contain must be rewritten after every scientific revolution. And it is not surprising that as soon as they are rewritten, science in a new presentation each time acquires to a large extent external signs of cumulativeness.

Newton wrote that Galileo discovered the law according to which a constant force of gravity causes a motion whose speed is proportional to the square of time. In fact, Galileo's kinematic theorem takes such a form when it enters Newton's matrix of dynamical concepts. But Galileo said nothing of the sort. His consideration of the fall of bodies rarely concerns forces, and even more so the constant gravitational force, which is the cause of the fall of bodies. By attributing to Galileo an answer to a question that Galileo's paradigm did not even allow to be asked, the Newtonian description masked the impact of a slight but revolutionary reformulation in the questions that scientists posed about motion, as well as in the answers they thought they could accept. But this just constitutes the type of change in the formulation of questions and answers that explains (much better than new empirical discoveries) the transition from Aristotle to Galileo and from Galileo to Newtonian dynamics. By ignoring such changes and seeking to represent the development of science in a linear way, the textbook hides the process that lies at the origin of most significant events in the development of science.

The foregoing examples reveal, each in the context of a particular revolution, the sources of the reconstruction of history, which constantly culminates in the writing of textbooks reflecting the post-revolutionary state of science. But such a “completion” leads to even more serious consequences than the false interpretations mentioned above. False interpretations make the revolution invisible: textbooks, which give a rearrangement of visible material, depict the development of science in the form of a process that, if it existed, would make all revolutions meaningless. Because they are designed to quickly introduce the student to what the modern scientific community considers to be knowledge, textbooks interpret the various experiments, concepts, laws, and theories of existing normal science as separate and successive as continuously as possible. From the point of view of pedagogy, this technique of presentation is impeccable. But such a presentation, combined with the spirit of complete non-historicity that permeates science, and with systematically repeated errors in interpretation historical facts discussed above, inevitably leads to the strong impression that science reaches its present level through a series of separate discoveries and inventions, which - when put together - form a system of modern concrete knowledge. At the very beginning of the formation of science, as the textbooks present, scientists strive for those goals that are embodied in the current paradigms. One by one, in a process often compared to building a brick building, scientists add new facts, concepts, laws, or theories to the body of information contained in today's textbooks.

However, scientific knowledge does not develop along this path. Many of the puzzles of modern normal science did not exist until after the last scientific revolution. Very few of them can be traced back to the historical origins of the science within which they currently exist. The earlier generations explored their own problems by their own means and according to their own canons of solutions. But it's not just the problems that have changed. Rather, it can be said that the entire network of facts and theories that the textbook paradigm brings into line with nature is undergoing replacement.

Chapter 12

Any new interpretation of nature, whether it be a discovery or a theory, first appears in the head of one or more individuals. These are the ones who are the first to learn to see science and the world differently, and their ability to make the transition to a new vision is facilitated by two circumstances that are not shared by most other members of the professional group. Constantly their attention is intensely focused on the problems that cause the crisis; moreover, they are usually scientists so young or new to a field in crisis that established research practice links them to worldviews and rules that are defined by the old paradigm less strongly than most contemporaries.

In the sciences, the verification operation never consists, as it does in solving puzzles, simply in comparing a particular paradigm with nature. Instead, verification is part of the competition between two competing paradigms to win over the scientific community.

This formulation reveals unexpected and perhaps significant parallels with two of the most popular contemporary philosophical theories of verification. Very few philosophers of science are still looking for an absolute criterion for the verification of scientific theories. Noting that no theory can be subjected to all possible relevant tests, they ask not whether the theory has been verified, but rather its likelihood in the light of the evidence that actually exists, and to answer this question , one of the influential philosophical schools is forced to compare the possibilities of various theories in explaining the accumulated data.

A radically different approach to this whole complex of problems was developed by K. R. Popper, who denies the existence of any verification procedures at all (see, for example, ). Instead, he emphasizes the need for falsification, that is, testing that requires the refutation of an established theory because its result is negative. It is clear that the role thus ascribed to falsification is in many ways similar to the role assigned in this work to anomalous experience, that is, experience which, by causing a crisis, prepares the way for a new theory. However, an anomalous experience cannot be identified with a falsifying experience. In fact, I even doubt whether the latter actually exists. As has been repeatedly emphasized before, no single theory ever solves all the puzzles it faces in given time, and there is not a single solution already achieved that is completely flawless. On the contrary, it is precisely the incompleteness and imperfection of the existing theoretical data that makes it possible at any moment to determine the many puzzles that characterize normal science. If every failure to establish the correspondence of a theory to nature were grounds for its refutation, then all theories could be refuted at any moment. On the other hand, if only serious failure is sufficient to disprove the theory, then Popper's followers will need some criterion of "improbability" or "degree of falsifiability." In developing such a criterion, they will almost certainly encounter the same series of difficulties that the advocates of various probabilistic verification theories face.

The transition from the recognition of one paradigm to the recognition of another is an act of "conversion" in which there can be no place for coercion. Lifelong resistance, especially those whose creative biographies connected with a debt to the old tradition of normal science, does not constitute a violation of scientific standards, but is feature the nature of scientific research itself. The source of resistance lies in the conviction that the old paradigm will eventually solve all problems, that nature can be squeezed into the framework provided by this paradigm.

How is the transition made and how is resistance overcome? This question refers to the technique of persuasion, or to arguments or counterarguments in a situation where there can be no proof. The most common claim made by advocates of the new paradigm is that they can solve the problems that brought the old paradigm into crisis. When it can be made convincingly enough, such a claim is most effective in arguing for the proponents of the new paradigm. There are also other kinds of considerations that may lead scientists to abandon the old paradigm in favor of the new one. These are arguments that are rarely stated clearly, definitely, but appeal to an individual sense of convenience, to aesthetic sense. It is believed that the new theory should be "clearer", "more convenient" or "simpler" than the old one. The value of aesthetic evaluations can sometimes be decisive.

Chapter 13

Why is progress always and almost exclusively an attribute of the kind of activity we call scientific? Note that in a sense this is a purely semantic issue. To a large extent, the term "science" is just intended for those branches of human activity, the paths of progress of which are easily traced. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recurring debate about whether this or that modern social discipline is truly scientific. These disputes have parallels in the pre-paradigm periods of those fields that are today without hesitation endowed with the title "science".

We have already noted that once a common paradigm is adopted, the scientific community is freed from the need to continually reconsider its basic principles; members of such a community can focus exclusively on the subtlest and most esoteric phenomena that interest him. This inevitably increases both the efficiency and effectiveness with which the entire group tackles new problems.

Some of these aspects are consequences of the unparalleled isolation of the mature scientific community from the requests not professionals and everyday life. As far as the degree of isolation is concerned, this isolation is never complete. However, there is no other professional community where individual creative work would be so directly addressed to other members of the professional group and judged by them. Precisely because he works only for an audience of colleagues, an audience that shares his own assessments and beliefs, a scientist can accept without proof single system standards. He doesn't have to worry about what other groups or schools think, and so he can put one problem aside and move on to the next faster. than those who work for a more diverse group. Unlike engineers, most doctors, and most theologians, the scientist does not need to choose problems, since the latter themselves urgently demand their solution, even regardless of the means by which this solution is obtained. In this aspect, thinking about the difference between natural scientists and many social scientists is very instructive. The latter often resort (while the former almost never do) to justify their choice of research problem, whether it be the consequences of racial discrimination or the causes of economic cycles, mainly on the basis of the social significance of solving these problems. It is not difficult to understand when - in the first or in the second case - one can hope for a speedy solution to problems.

The consequences of isolation from society are greatly exacerbated by another characteristic of the professional scientific community - the nature of its scientific education in order to prepare for participation in independent research. In music, fine arts and literature, a person is educated by getting acquainted with the work of other artists, especially earlier ones. Textbooks, excluding manuals and reference books on original works, play only a secondary role here. In history, philosophy and social sciences educational literature is more important. But even in these fields, an elementary university course involves parallel reading of original sources, some of which are classics of the field, others of which are modern research reports that scientists write for each other. As a result, a student of any of these disciplines is constantly aware of the huge variety of problems that the members of his future group intend to solve over time. More importantly, the student is constantly in a circle of multiple competing and disparate solutions to these problems, solutions that he must ultimately judge for himself.

In the modern sciences, the student relies mainly on textbooks until, in the third or fourth year of an academic course, he begins his own research. If there is trust in the paradigms underlying the method of education, few scholars are eager to change it. Why, after all, should a student of physics, for example, read the works of Newton, Faraday, Einstein, or Schrödinger, when everything he needs to know about these works is set out in much shorter, more precise, and more systematic form in many modern textbooks?

Every recorded civilization has technology, art, religion, political system, laws, and so on. In many cases, these aspects of civilizations were developed in the same way as in our civilization. But only a civilization that originates in the culture of the ancient Hellenes has a science that has really come out of its infancy. After all, the bulk of scientific knowledge is the result of the work of European scientists in the last four centuries. In no other place, at no other time, were special communities founded that were so scientifically productive.

When a new paradigm candidate comes into existence, scientists will resist accepting it until they are convinced that the two most important conditions are satisfied. First, the new candidate must apparently be solving some controversial and generally recognized problem that cannot be solved in any other way. Second, the new paradigm must promise to retain much of the real problem-solving ability that has accumulated in science through previous paradigms. Novelty for the sake of novelty is not the goal of science, as is the case in many other creative fields.

The process of development described in this essay is a process of evolution from primitive beginnings, a process whose successive stages are characterized by ever-increasing detail and a more perfect understanding of nature. But nothing that has been or will be said makes this process of evolution directed to anything. We are too accustomed to regard science as an undertaking which is continually drawing nearer and nearer to some goal predetermined by nature.

But is such a goal necessary? If we learn to replace "evolution towards what we hope to know" with "evolution from what we know," then a lot of the problems that irritate us can disappear. It is possible that the problem of induction belongs to such problems.

When Darwin first published in 1859 his book on the theory of evolution explained by natural selection, most professionals were probably not concerned with the concept of species change and the possible origin of man from apes. All of the well-known pre-Darwinian evolutionary theories of Lamarck, Chambers, Spencer, and the German natural philosophers presented evolution as a purposeful process. The “idea” of man and modern flora and fauna must have been present from the first creation of life, perhaps in the mind of God. This idea (or plan) provided the direction and guiding force for the entire evolutionary process. Each new stage of evolutionary development was a more perfect realization of the plan that existed from the very beginning.

For many people, the refutation of evolution of this teleological type was the most significant and least pleasant of Darwin's proposals. The Origin of Species did not recognize any goal set by God or nature. Instead, natural selection, dealing with the interaction of a given environment and the actual organisms that inhabit it, has been responsible for the gradual but steady emergence of more organized, more advanced, and much more specialized organisms. Even such wonderfully adapted organs as the eyes and hands of man - organs whose creation in the first place provided powerful arguments in defense of the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe existence of a supreme creator and an original plan - turned out to be the products of a process that steadily developed from primitive beginnings, but not in the direction of to some purpose. The belief that natural selection, stemming from a simple competitive struggle among organisms for survival, could create man, along with highly evolved animals and plants, was the most difficult and troublesome aspect of Darwin's theory. What could the terms "evolution", "development" and "progress" mean in the absence of a specific goal? For many, such terms seemed self-contradictory.

The analogy that links the evolution of organisms to the evolution of scientific ideas can easily be carried too far. But for the consideration of the issues of this final section, it is quite suitable. The process described in Section XII as the resolution of revolutions is the selection, through conflict within the scientific community, of the most suitable mode of future scientific activity. The net result of such a revolutionary selection, determined by periods of normal research, is a wonderfully adapted set of tools that we call modern scientific knowledge. Successive stages in this process of development are marked by an increase in concreteness and specialization.

Addition 1969

There are scientific schools, that is, communities that approach the same subject from incompatible points of view. . But in science this happens much less frequently than in other areas of human activity.; such schools always compete with each other, but the competition usually ends quickly.

One of the fundamental aids by which the members of a group, whether it be an entire civilization or a community of specialists included in it, learn to see the same things, given the same stimuli, is by showing examples of situations that their predecessors in the group already learned to see similar to one another and unlike situations of a different kind.

When using the term vision interpretation begins where perception ends. The two processes are not identical, and what perception leaves for interpretation depends decisively on the nature and extent of prior experience and training.

I chose this edition for its compactness and paperback (if you have to scan, then hardcover books are less suitable for this). But… the quality of printing turned out to be quite low, which made it really difficult to read. So I recommend choosing another edition.

Another mention of operational definitions. This is very important topic not only in science but also in management. See, for example,

Phlogiston (from the Greek φλογιστός - combustible, flammable) - in the history of chemistry - a hypothetical "hyperfine matter" - a "fiery substance" that allegedly fills all combustible substances and is released from them during combustion.

Thomas Samuel Kuhn(Eng. Thomas Samuel Kuhn; July 18, 1922, Cincinnati, Ohio - June 17, 1996, Cambridge, Massachusetts) - American historian and philosopher of science, who believed that scientific knowledge develops spasmodically, through scientific revolutions. Any criterion makes sense only within the framework of a certain paradigm, a historically established system of views. The scientific revolution is a change of psychological paradigms by the scientific community.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Samuel L. Kuhn, an industrial engineer, and Minette Struck Kuhn.

• 1943 - Graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in physics.
• During the Second World War, he was assigned to civilian work in the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
• 1943 - received a master's degree in physics from Harvard.
• 1947 - the beginning of the formation of the main theses: "the structure of scientific revolutions" and "paradigm".
• 1949 - at Harvard he defended his thesis in physics.
• 1948-1956 - held various teaching positions at Harvard; taught the history of science.
• 1957 - taught at Princeton.
• 1961 - worked as a professor of the history of science at the department of the University of California at Berkeley.
• 1964-1979 - worked on the university department at Princeton, taught the history and philosophy of science.
• 1979-1991 - professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• 1983-1991 - Lawrence S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at the same institute.
• 1991 - retired.
• 1994 - Kuhn was diagnosed with bronchial cancer.
• 1996 - Thomas Kuhn died.

kun was married twice. First time on Katerina Moose (with whom he had three children), and then on Gian Barton.

The most famous work of T omasa kuna it is considered - "", which considers the theory that science should be perceived not as gradually developing and accumulating knowledge towards the truth, but as a phenomenon that goes through periodic revolutions, called "paradigm shifts" in his terminology. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was originally published as an article for the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, published by the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists, or Neopositivists. The enormous impact that Kuhn's research had can be seen in the revolution it provoked even in the thesaurus of the history of science: in addition to the concept of "paradigm shift", Kuhn gave a broader meaning to the word "paradigm" used in linguistics, introduced the term "normal science" to define the relatively routine daily work of scientists operating within a certain paradigm, and largely influenced the use of the term "scientific revolutions" as periodic events occurring at different times in various scientific disciplines - in contrast to the single "Scientific Revolution" of the late Renaissance.

In France, Kuhn's concept began to be correlated with the theories of Michel Foucault (the terms Kuhn's "paradigm" and Foucault's "episteme" were correlated) and Louis Althusser, although they rather dealt with the historical "conditions of the possible" scientific discourse. (In fact, Foucault's worldview was shaped by the theories of Gaston Bachelard, who independently developed a view of the history of science similar to Kuhn's.) Unlike Kuhn, who considers different paradigms as incomparable, according to Althusser's concept, science has a cumulative nature, although this cumulativeness is discrete.
Work Kuna is very widely used in the social sciences - for example, in the post-positivist-positivist discussion within the framework of the theory of international relations.

The course of the scientific revolution according to Kuhn:

• normal science - every new discovery can be explained from the standpoint of the prevailing theory;
• extraordinary science. Crisis in science. The appearance of anomalies - inexplicable facts. An increase in the number of anomalies leads to the emergence of alternative theories. In science, many opposing scientific schools coexist;
• scientific revolution - the formation of a new paradigm.

kun was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1982, Professor Kuhn was awarded the George Sarton Medal in the History of Science.
He had honorary titles of many scientific and educational institutions, including the University of Notre Dame, Columbia and Chicago Universities, the University of Padua and the University of Athens.

A sharp turn in the approach to the study of science was made by the American historian of physics Thomas Kuhn in his work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which appeared in 1962. Science or, more precisely, normal science, according to Kuhn, is a community of scientists united by a rather rigid program, which Kuhn calls a paradigm and which, from his point of view, completely determines the activity of each scientist. It is the paradigm as a kind of transpersonal formation that is in the center of Kuhn's attention. It is with the change of paradigms that he connects the fundamental changes in the development of science - scientific revolutions. But let's consider its concept in more detail.

Normal science, Kuhn writes, is "research firmly based on one or more past achievements - achievements that have been recognized for some time by a certain scientific community as the basis for the development of its future practical activities." It follows from the definition itself that we are talking about tradition, that is, science is understood as tradition.

Past achievements that underlie this tradition act as a paradigm. Most often, this is understood as some fairly generally accepted theoretical concept such as the Copernican system, Newton's mechanics, Lavoisier's oxygen theory, etc. Kuhn primarily connects scientific revolutions with a change in concepts of this kind. Concretizing his idea of ​​the paradigm, he introduces the concept of a disciplinary matrix, which includes the following four elements:

1. Symbolic generalizations such as Newton's second law, Ohm's law, Joule-Lenz's law, etc.

2. Conceptual models, examples of which are general statements of this type: "Heat is the kinetic energy of the parts that make up the body" or "All the phenomena we perceive exist due to the interaction in the void of qualitatively homogeneous atoms."

3. Value attitudes adopted in the scientific community and manifest themselves in the choice of research areas, in assessing the results obtained and the state of science in general.

4. Sample Solutions specific tasks and problems that the student inevitably faces in the learning process. Kuhn attaches special importance to this element of the disciplinary matrix, and in the next paragraph we will dwell on this in more detail.

What is the activity of a scientist within the framework of normal science? Kuhn writes: “On closer examination of this activity in a historical context or in a modern laboratory, one gets the impression that they are trying to squeeze nature into a paradigm, as if into a pre-knit and rather cramped box. The goal of normal science in no way requires the prediction of new kinds of phenomena: phenomena that do not fit into this box are often, in fact, generally overlooked. Scientists in the mainstream of normal science do not set themselves the goal of creating new theories, and usually, moreover, they are intolerant of the creation of such theories by others.

So, within the framework of normal science, a scientist is so rigidly programmed that not only does he not seek to discover or create anything fundamentally new, but he is not even inclined to recognize or notice this new thing. What does he do in such a case? Kuhn's concept would look like an empty fantasy if he did not manage to convincingly show that normal science can develop successfully. Kuhn, however, showed this, showed that tradition is not a brake, but, on the contrary, a necessary condition for the rapid accumulation of knowledge.

Indeed, the strength of tradition lies precisely in the fact that we constantly reproduce the same actions, the same way of behaving over and over again under different, generally speaking, circumstances. Therefore, the recognition of a particular theoretical concept means constant attempts to comprehend more and more new phenomena from its point of view, while implementing standard methods of analysis or explanation. This organizes the scientific community, creating conditions for mutual understanding and comparability of results, and gives rise to the “industry” of knowledge production, which we observe in modern science.

But we are not talking about creating something fundamentally new. According to Kuhn's figurative expression, scientists working in normal science are constantly busy "putting things in order", i.e., checking and clarifying known facts, as well as collecting new facts predicted in principle or isolated by theory. A chemist, for example, may be busy determining the composition of more and more new substances, but the very concept of chemical composition and the methods for determining it are already set by the paradigm. In addition, within the framework of the paradigm, no one doubts that any substance can be characterized from this point of view.

Thus, normal science is developing very rapidly, accumulating vast amounts of information and experience in solving problems. And it develops at the same time not contrary to traditions, but precisely because of its traditional character. We owe this understanding to Thomas Kuhn. He can rightfully be considered the founder of the doctrine of scientific traditions. Of course, traditionalism in the work of a scientist was paid attention before, but Kuhn for the first time made traditions the central object of consideration in the analysis of science, giving them the importance of the main constitutive factor in scientific development.

But how, then, does the tradition itself change and develop, how do new paradigms arise? “Normal science,” writes Kuhn, “does not aim at finding a new fact or theory, and success in normal scientific research does not consist at all in this. Nevertheless, new phenomena that no one suspected existed are discovered again and again by scientific research, and radically new theories are again and again invented by scientists. History even suggests that the scientific enterprise has created an extremely powerful technique in order to deliver surprises of this kind. How exactly do new fundamental facts and theories appear? “They,” Kuhn replies, “are created unintentionally during the course of playing one set of rules, but their perception requires the development of another set of rules.” In other words, the scientist does not strive to obtain fundamentally new results, however, acting according to the given rules, he unintentionally, i.e., randomly and incidentally, comes across such facts and phenomena that require a change in these rules themselves.

Let's sum up some results. It is not difficult to see that Kuhn's concept marks a completely different vision of science in comparison with the normative approach of the Vienna Circle or K. Popper. The focus of the latter is a scientist who makes decisions and acts as a determining and driving force in the development of science. Science is actually considered here as a product of human activity. Therefore, it is extremely important to answer the question: what criteria should a scientist be guided by, what should he strive for? In Kuhn's model, there is a complete reversal of roles: here science in the face of the paradigm dictates its will to the scientist, acting as a kind of faceless force, and the scientist is just a spokesman for the requirements of his time. Kuhn also reveals the nature of science as a transpersonal phenomenon: we are talking about tradition.

Is it possible to object to this rather simple and fundamental model? Two points are questionable. The first was probably a stumbling block for Kuhn himself. How to reconcile the paradigm shift under the pressure of new facts with the statement that the scientist is not inclined to perceive phenomena that do not fit into the paradigm, that these phenomena are "often, in fact, generally overlooked"? On the one hand, Kuhn cites many facts showing that tradition prevents the assimilation of the new, on the other hand, he is forced to recognize such assimilation. This looks like a contradiction.

The doubtfulness of the second point is less obvious. Kuhn sharply contrasts working within normal science, on the one hand, and paradigm shift, on the other. In one case, the scientist works in some tradition, in the other, he goes beyond its limits. Of course, these two points are opposed to each other, but probably not only on the scale of science as a whole, but also in relation to any traditions of a more particular nature. Kuhn, on the other hand, talks mainly about science, and this overly globalizes our understanding of tradition. In fact, it turns out that science is almost one tradition, and this makes it very difficult to analyze what is happening in science. Let us therefore try to somewhat enrich our understanding of scientific traditions. This is absolutely necessary on the path of critical evaluation and improvement of Kuhn's concept, on the path of developing those undoubtedly important prerequisites that are contained in his model of science.