Comparing Peirce, Bacon, Kuhn And Polkinghorn

While Peirce, Bacon, Kuhn and Polkinghorn are all Empiricists, I can relate mostly with Kuhn’s position regarding universality and objectivity of the scientific method. Kuhn acknowledged that paradigms established by the scientific community shift periodically as new discoveries are made. These new paradigms lead to new questions of existing data and possibly a new direction in the research field. Not simply relying on past research and experience, but instead being open to exploring alternatives to long-held beliefs will enable the scientific community to experience a greater level of progress. Peirce on the other hand would argue that Kuhn’s viewpoint brings along the risk of us being “contrite fallibilists”- a discovery of error prompting a revision of our opinions. Peirce wants us to be aware that mistakes in the scientific process are not only possible but to be expected and does not want us to be skeptics. Once mistakes are discovered, corrections should be made, but not as drastic as proposed by Kuhn with changing all paradigms. Peirce, an American philosopher instead is proposing a pragmatist maxim for testing hypotheses. By applying a “checks and balances” system a scientist is able to experiment with his/her environment and gain knowledge from these experiments. This is a much more conservative approach to science and stands in contrast to Kuhn. Kuhn rejected this “development-by-accumulation” of accepted facts and theories. He suggested that discovering “anomalies” during scientific revolutions force us to change entire scientific
This makes science not purely scientific since the existing fundamental beliefs influence the scientific method. While Peirce stressed the importance of the scientific method, he does not see pre-existing beliefs as a threat to science being able to move