Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Losing Faith in the Objectivity of Science
In his book, The Foundation of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn challenged the prevailing belief of how science was conducted, and people in the Humanities found his book compelling, even disruptive. Why would people in the Humanities consider Kuhn’s theories on the nature of science, a different discipline, relevant to their work? Those in the Humanities believed that science was the standard for objective research and the discovery of truth. Consequently, they believed that truth in the Humanities could be attained by modeling their research techniques on scientific methods. However, Kuhn concluded in his book that the very scientism that those in the Humanities had depended on was powerfully and historically shaped, and ignorantly formed, and did not describe what scientists were doing. Kuhn proposed that science is not an empirical, cumulative, progressive pursuit towards an objective truth. Rather, it is conducted through the utilization of subjective paradigms, which are commonly accepted theories that, “provide models from which spring particular traditions of scientific research beliefs,” and that these paradigms influence the way scientists perceive reality. Further, the scientific community abruptly discards and replaces paradigms via “scientific revolution,” based on an “act of faith” that the new paradigm is better than the previous one. When a scientist moves from one paradigm to another, he moves to “a different world,” and thus he sees his physical world in a completely different way. Due to these abrupt changes in orientation, scientific progress is not cumulative, because its successive stages cause previous understandings to be discarded.
Through his theories, Kuhn showed that a scientist’s relationship with the physical world is more complex and subjective than previously understood. He theorized that a scientist’s observations are constrained and influenced by an intrusion between the scientist and
In his book, The Foundation of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn challenged the prevailing belief of how science was conducted, and people in the Humanities found his book compelling, even disruptive. Why would people in the Humanities consider Kuhn’s theories on the nature of science, a different discipline, relevant to their work? Those in the Humanities believed that science was the standard for objective research and the discovery of truth. Consequently, they believed that truth in the Humanities could be attained by modeling their research techniques on scientific methods. However, Kuhn concluded in his book that the very scientism that those in the Humanities had depended on was powerfully and historically shaped, and ignorantly formed, and did not describe what scientists were doing. Kuhn proposed that science is not an empirical, cumulative, progressive pursuit towards an objective truth. Rather, it is conducted through the utilization of subjective paradigms, which are commonly accepted theories that, “provide models from which spring particular traditions of scientific research beliefs,” and that these paradigms influence the way scientists perceive reality. Further, the scientific community abruptly discards and replaces paradigms via “scientific revolution,” based on an “act of faith” that the new paradigm is better than the previous one. When a scientist moves from one paradigm to another, he moves to “a different world,” and thus he sees his physical world in a completely different way. Due to these abrupt changes in orientation, scientific progress is not cumulative, because its successive stages cause previous understandings to be discarded.
Through his theories, Kuhn showed that a scientist’s relationship with the physical world is more complex and subjective than previously understood. He theorized that a scientist’s observations are constrained and influenced by an intrusion between the scientist and