In the course of these casual studies, for which I had time left from my internship, I managed to come across an almost unknown monograph by L. Fleck, “The Emergence and Development of a Scientific Fact” (Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Basel, 1935), which anticipated many of my own ideas. L. Fleck's work, together with the comments of another trainee, Francis X. Sutton, made me realize that these ideas might need to be considered within the framework of the sociology of academia. Readers will find few further references to these works and conversations. But I owe them a lot, although now I often can no longer fully understand their influence.

During the last year of my internship, I received an offer to lecture at the Lowell Institute in Boston. Thus, for the first time, I had the opportunity to test my not yet fully formed ideas about science in a student audience. The result was a series of eight public lectures given in March 1951 under the general title “The Quest for Physical Theory.” The following year I began teaching the history of science itself. Almost 10 years of teaching a discipline that I had never systematically studied before left me little time to more accurately formulate the ideas that once brought me to the history of science. Fortunately, however, these ideas served as a latent source of orientation and a kind of problematic structure for much of my course. I must therefore thank my students for providing invaluable lessons both in the development of my own views and in the ability to communicate them clearly to others. The same problems and the same orientation gave unity to much of the largely historical and seemingly very different research that I published after my Harvard fellowship ended. Several of these works have focused on the important role that certain metaphysical ideas play in creative scientific inquiry. Other works explore the way in which the experimental basis of a new theory is accepted and assimilated by adherents of an old theory that is incompatible with the new one. At the same time, all studies describe that stage in the development of science, which below I call the “emergence” of a new theory or discovery. In addition, other similar issues are considered.

The final stage of the present study began with an invitation to spend one year (1958/59) at the Center for Advanced Research in the Behavioral Sciences. Here again I have the opportunity to focus my full attention on the issues discussed below. But perhaps more importantly, after spending one year in a community composed primarily of social scientists, I was suddenly confronted with the problem of the difference between their community and the community of natural scientists among whom I had trained. In particular, I was struck by the number and degree of open disagreement among sociologists about the legitimacy of posing certain scientific problems and methods for solving them. Both the history of science and personal acquaintances have led me to doubt that natural scientists can answer such questions more confidently and more consistently than their social scientist colleagues. However, be that as it may, the practice of scientific research in the fields of astronomy, physics, chemistry or biology usually does not provide any reason to challenge the very foundations of these sciences, whereas among psychologists or sociologists this occurs quite often. Trying to find the source of this difference led me to recognize the role in scientific research of what I later came to call “paradigms.” By paradigms I mean universally recognized scientific achievements that, over time, provide the scientific community with a model for posing problems and their solutions. Once this part of my difficulties was resolved, the initial draft of this book quickly emerged.

It is not necessary to relate here the entire subsequent history of the work on this initial sketch. A few words should only be said about its shape, which it retained after all the modifications. Even before the first draft was completed and largely revised, I assumed that the manuscript would appear as a volume in the Unified Encyclopedia of Sciences series. The editors of this first work first stimulated my research, then monitored its implementation according to the program and, finally, waited with extraordinary tact and patience for the result. I am indebted to them, especially to C. Morris for his constant encouragement to work on the manuscript and for his helpful advice. However, the scope of the Encyclopedia forced me to present my views in a very concise and schematic form. Although subsequent developments have to a certain extent relaxed these restrictions and the possibility of simultaneous self-publication has presented itself, this work still remains more of an essay than the full-fledged book that the topic ultimately requires.

Since my main goal is to bring about a change in the perception and assessment of facts well known to everyone, the schematic nature of this first work should not be blamed. On the contrary, readers prepared by their own research for the kind of reorientation that I advocate in my work will probably find its form both more thought-provoking and easier to understand. But the short essay form also has its disadvantages, and these may justify my showing at the outset some possible avenues for extending the scope and deepening the inquiry which I hope to pursue in the future. Much more historical facts could be cited than those I mention in the book. In addition, no less factual data can be gleaned from the history of biology than from the history of the physical sciences. My decision to limit myself here exclusively to the latter is dictated partly by the desire to achieve the greatest coherence of the text, partly by the desire not to go beyond the scope of my competence. Moreover, the view of science to be developed here suggests the potential fruitfulness of many new kinds of both historical and sociological research. For example, the question of how anomalies in science and deviations from expected results increasingly attract the attention of the scientific community requires detailed study, as does the emergence of crises that can be caused by repeated unsuccessful attempts to overcome an anomaly. If I am correct that every scientific revolution changes the historical perspective for the community that experiences that revolution, then such a change in perspective should influence the structure of textbooks and research publications after that scientific revolution. One such consequence—namely, a change in the citation of literature in scientific research publications—perhaps needs to be seen as a possible symptom of scientific revolutions.

The need for an extremely concise presentation also forced me to abandon the discussion of a number of important problems. For example, my distinction between pre-paradigm and post-paradigm periods in the development of science is too schematic. Each of the schools, the competition between which characterized the earlier period, is guided by something very reminiscent of a paradigm; There are circumstances (though, I think, quite rare) in which the two paradigms can coexist peacefully at a later period. Possession of a paradigm alone cannot be considered a completely sufficient criterion for that transitional period in development, which is discussed in Section II. More importantly, I have said nothing, except in brief and few asides, about the role of technological progress or external social, economic and intellectual conditions in the development of science. It is enough, however, to turn to Copernicus and to the methods of compiling calendars to be convinced that external conditions can contribute to the transformation of a simple anomaly into a source of acute crisis. The same example could show how conditions external to science can influence the range of alternatives available to a scientist who seeks to overcome a crisis by proposing one or another revolutionary reconstruction of knowledge 4
These factors are discussed in the book: T.S. Kuhn. The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Cambridge, Mass., 1957, p. 122–132, 270–271. Other impacts of external intellectual and economic conditions on scientific development proper are illustrated in my articles: “Conservation of Energy as an Example of Simultaneous Discovery.” – “Critical Problems in the History of Science,” ed. M. Clagett. Madison, Wis., 1959, p. 321–356; "Engineering Precedent for the Work of Sadi Carnot". – “Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences”, XIII (1960), p. 247–251; "Sadi Carnot and the Cagnard Engine". – “Isis”, LII (1961), p. 567–574. Therefore, I consider the role of external factors to be minimal only in relation to the problems discussed in this essay.

A detailed consideration of this kind of consequences of the scientific revolution would not, I think, change the main points developed in this work, but it would certainly add an analytical aspect that is of paramount importance for understanding the progress of science.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, space limitations have prevented us from revealing the philosophical significance of the historically oriented image of science that emerges in this essay. There is no doubt that this image has a hidden philosophical meaning, and I tried, if possible, to point out it and isolate its main aspects. It is true that in doing so I have generally refrained from considering in detail the various positions taken by modern philosophers in discussing the relevant problems. My skepticism, where it appears, relates more to the philosophical position in general than to any of the clearly developed trends in philosophy. Therefore, some of those who know and work well in one of these areas may feel that I have lost sight of their point of view. I think they will be wrong, but this work is not designed to convince them. To try to do this, it would be necessary to write a book of more impressive length and altogether completely different.

I began this preface with some autobiographical information in order to show how much I owe most to both the work of scholars and the organizations that have helped shape my thinking. I will try to reflect the remaining points on which I also consider myself a debtor in this work by quoting. But all this can give only a faint idea of ​​the deep personal gratitude to the many people who have ever supported or guided my intellectual development with advice or criticism. It has been too long since the ideas in this book began to take more or less clear shape. The list of all those who could detect the stamp of their influence in this work would almost coincide with the circle of my friends and acquaintances. Given these circumstances, I am forced to mention only those whose influence is so significant that it cannot be overlooked even with poor memory.

I must name James W. Conant, then president of Harvard University, who first introduced me to the history of science and thus began to restructure my ideas about the nature of scientific progress. From the very beginning, he generously shared ideas, criticism, and took the time to read the original draft of my manuscript and suggest important changes. An even more active interlocutor and critic during the years when my ideas began to take shape was Leonard K. Nash, with whom I co-taught the course on the history of science founded by Dr. Conant for 5 years. In the later stages of developing my ideas, I really missed the support of L.K. Nesha. Fortunately, however, after I left Cambridge, my colleague at Berkeley, Stanley Cavell, took over his role as a stimulator of creativity. Cavell, a philosopher who was interested mainly in ethics and aesthetics and who came to conclusions much like my own, was a constant source of stimulation and encouragement to me. Moreover, he was the only person who understood me perfectly. This type of communication demonstrates an understanding that enabled Cavell to show me a path by which I could bypass or bypass many of the obstacles encountered in the preparation of the first draft of my manuscript.

After the initial text of the work was written, many of my other friends helped me in finalizing it. They, I think, will forgive me if I name only four of them, whose participation was the most significant and decisive: P. Feyerabend from the University of California, E. Nagel from Columbia University, G.R. Noyes of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and my student J. L. Heilbron, who often worked directly with me in preparing the final version for printing. I find all their comments and advice extremely helpful, but I have no reason to think (rather, there is some reason to doubt) that everyone I mentioned above fully approved of the manuscript in its final form.

Finally, my gratitude to my parents, wife and children is of a significantly different kind. In different ways, each of them also contributed a piece of their intelligence to my work (and in a way that is most difficult for me to appreciate). However, they also, to varying degrees, did something even more important. They not only encouraged me when I started the work, but also constantly encouraged my passion for it. Everyone who has fought to implement a plan of this magnitude is aware of the effort it takes. I can't find words to express my gratitude to them.

Berkeley, California

February, 1962

I
Introduction. The role of history

History, if viewed as more than just a repository of anecdotes and facts arranged in chronological order, could become the basis for a decisive restructuring of the ideas about science that we have developed to date. These ideas arose (even among scientists themselves) mainly on the basis of the study of ready-made scientific achievements contained in classical works or later in textbooks, from which each new generation of scientists is trained in the practice of their field. But the purpose of such books by their very purpose is a convincing and accessible presentation of the material. The concept of science derived from them probably corresponds to the actual practice of scientific research no more than information gleaned from tourist brochures or from language textbooks corresponds to the real image of national culture. This essay attempts to show that such ideas about science lead away from its main paths. Its goal is to outline, at least schematically, a completely different concept of science, which emerges from the historical approach to the study of scientific activity itself.

However, even from the study of history, a new concept will not emerge if one continues to search and analyze historical data mainly in order to answer questions posed within the framework of an ahistorical stereotype formed on the basis of classical works and textbooks. For example, from these works the conclusion often arises that the content of science is represented only by the observations, laws and theories described on their pages. Typically, the above-mentioned books are understood as if the scientific method simply coincides with the methodology for selecting data for the textbook and with the logical operations used to relate this data to the theoretical generalizations of the textbook. The result is a concept of science that contains a significant amount of speculation and preconceived notions regarding its nature and development.

If science is considered as a body 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 body. The development of science in this approach is a gradual process in which facts, theories and methods add up to an ever-increasing stock of achievements, which is scientific methodology and knowledge. The history of science becomes a discipline that records both this successive increase and the difficulties that hindered the accumulation of knowledge. It follows that a historian interested in the development of science sets himself two main tasks. On the one hand, he must determine who and when discovered or invented each scientific fact, law and theory. On the other hand, he must describe and explain the presence of a mass of errors, myths and prejudices that prevented the rapid accumulation of the components of modern scientific knowledge. Many studies were carried out in this way, and some still pursue these goals.

However, in recent years it has become increasingly difficult for some historians of science to perform the functions that the concept of the development of science through accumulation prescribes for them. Having taken upon themselves the role of recorders of the accumulation of scientific knowledge, they find that the further research progresses, the more difficult, but by no means easier, it becomes to answer some questions, for example, when oxygen was discovered or who was the first to discover the conservation of energy. Gradually, some of them have a growing suspicion that such questions are simply incorrectly formulated and the development of science is perhaps not at all a simple accumulation of individual discoveries and inventions. At the same time, these historians find it increasingly difficult to distinguish the “scientific” content of past observations and beliefs from what their predecessors readily called “error” and “superstition.” The more deeply they study, say, Aristotelian dynamics or the chemistry and thermodynamics of the phlogiston era, the more clearly they feel that these once generally accepted concepts of nature were, on the whole, neither less scientific nor more subjectivist than those currently prevailing. If these outdated concepts are to be called myths, then it turns out that the source of the latter may be the same methods, and the reasons for their existence turn out to be the same as those with the help of which scientific knowledge is achieved in our days. If, on the other hand, they are to be called scientific, then it appears that science included elements of concepts quite incompatible with those which it currently contains. If these alternatives are inevitable, then the historian must choose the last one. Outdated theories cannot in principle be considered unscientific simply because they have been discarded. But in this case, it is hardly possible to consider scientific development as a simple increase in knowledge. The same historical research that reveals the difficulties in determining the authorship of discoveries and inventions also gives rise to deep doubts about the process of accumulation of knowledge through which all individual contributions to science were once thought to be synthesized.

My friends and colleagues sometimes ask me why I write about certain books. At first glance, this choice may seem random. Especially considering the very wide range of topics. However, there is still a pattern. Firstly, I have “favorite” topics on which I read a lot: theory of constraints, systems approach, management accounting, Austrian economic school, Nassim Taleb, Alpina Publisher... Secondly, in books that I like I pay Pay attention to the authors' references and bibliography.

So it is with Thomas Kuhn’s book, which, in principle, is far from my topic. It was Stephen Covey who first gave a “tip” to her. Here is what he writes in: “The term paradigm shift was first coined by Thomas Kuhn in his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” Kuhn shows that almost every significant breakthrough in science begins with a break with tradition, old thinking, old paradigms."

The second time I came across a mention of Thomas Kuhn was from Mikael Krogerus in: “Models clearly demonstrate to us that everything in the world is interconnected, they advise how to act in a given situation, they suggest what it 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, you can get a Nobel Prize for your statement, like Albert Einstein. The historian and philosopher Thomas Kuhn concluded that science mostly works only to confirm existing models and is ignorant when the world once again does not fit into them.”

And finally, Thomas Corbett in his book, speaking about paradigm change in management accounting, writes: “Thomas Kuhn identifies two categories of “revolutionaries”: (1) young people who have just completed training, have studied the paradigm, but have not applied it in practice, and (2) older people moving from one sphere of activity to another. People from both of these categories, firstly, are characterized by operational naivety in the field into which they have just moved. They do not understand many of the delicate aspects of the paradigmatic community they want to join. Secondly, 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 twentieth 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 considered 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 add 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, unconventional research begins, which ultimately leads the entire given branch of science to a new system of prescriptions, to a new basis for the practice of scientific research. Exceptional situations in which this change in professional regulations occurs will be considered in this work as scientific revolutions. They are additions to tradition-bound activities during the period of normal science that destroy traditions. More than once we will encounter 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 accepted for some time by a particular scientific community as the basis for its future practice. Nowadays, such achievements are presented, although rarely in their original form, in textbooks - elementary or advanced. These textbooks explain 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 Principia 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 thanks to two significant features of these works. Their creation was sufficiently unprecedented to attract a long-lasting group of supporters from competing areas of scientific research. At the same time, they were open enough that new generations of scientists could find unsolved problems of any kind within their framework.

Advances that have these two characteristics I will henceforth call “paradigms,” a term closely related to the concept of “normal science.” In introducing this term, I meant that certain generally accepted examples of the actual practice of scientific research - examples that include law, theory, their practical application and the necessary equipment - all together provide us with models from which specific traditions of scientific research arise.

The formation of a paradigm and the emergence on its basis of a more esoteric type of research 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, he is likely to encounter a repetition in miniature of the model which 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 particle properties. The investigation proceeds in accordance with these ideas, or rather in accordance with a more elaborate and mathematical description from which this ordinary verbal description is derived. This understanding of light, however, has a history of no more than half a century. Before it was developed by Planck, Einstein and others at the beginning of this century, physics textbooks taught that light was the propagation of transverse waves. This concept was a derivation from a paradigm that ultimately goes back to the work of Jung and Fresnel on optics dating back to the early 19th century. At the same time, the wave theory was not the first, which was accepted by almost all optics researchers. During the 18th century, the paradigm in this field was based on Newton's “Optics,” which argued that light was a stream of material particles. At that time, physicists were looking for evidence of the pressure of light particles hitting solid bodies; the early adherents of the wave theory did not strive for this at all.

These transformations of physical optics paradigms are scientific revolutions, and the sequential transition from one paradigm to another through revolution is the usual pattern of development of mature science.

When an individual scientist can accept a paradigm without proof, he does not have to rebuild the entire field from scratch in his work and justify the introduction of each new concept. This can be left to textbook authors. The results of his research will no longer be presented in books addressed, like Franklin's Experiments ... on Electricity or Darwin's Origin of Species, to anyone who is interested in the subject of their research. Instead, they tend to appear in short articles intended only for fellow professionals, only for those who presumably know the paradigm and happen to be able to read the articles addressed to it.

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

Chapter 3. The nature of normal science

If a paradigm is a job that is done once and for everyone, then the question is, what problems does it leave for a given group to solve later? The concept of paradigm means an accepted model or pattern. Like a decision made by a court within the framework of general law, it represents an object for further development and concretization in new or more difficult conditions.

Paradigms gain their status because their use is more likely to achieve success than competing approaches to solving some of the problems that the research team recognizes as most pressing. The success of a paradigm initially represents mainly the opening prospect of success in solving a number of problems of a special kind. Normal science consists of realizing this perspective as the knowledge of facts partially outlined within the paradigm expands.

Few who are not actually researchers in mature science realize how much routine work of this kind goes on within a paradigm, or how attractive such work can be. It is the establishment of order that most scientists are engaged in during their scientific activities. This is what I call normal science here. It seems as if they are trying to “squeeze” nature into a paradigm, as if into a pre-built 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, completely overlooked. Scientists in the mainstream of normal science do not set themselves the goal of creating new theories; moreover, they are usually intolerant of the creation of such theories by others. On the contrary, research in normal science is aimed at developing those phenomena and theories whose existence the paradigm obviously assumes.

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

There is a class of facts that, as evidenced by the paradigm, are especially indicative of revealing the essence of things. By using these facts to solve problems, the paradigm creates a tendency to refine them and to recognize them in an ever-widening range of situations. From Tycho Brahe to E. O. Lorenz, some scientists have earned their reputations as great not for the novelty of their discoveries, but for the accuracy, reliability, and breadth of the methods they developed to clarify previously known categories of facts.

Enormous efforts and ingenuity aimed at bringing theory and nature into ever closer correspondence with each other. These attempts to prove such correspondence constitute the second type of normal experimental activity, and this type depends on the paradigm even more clearly than the first. The existence of a paradigm obviously presupposes that the problem is solvable.

For a comprehensive idea of ​​the activity of accumulating facts in normal science, one should point, as I think, to a third class of experiments and observations. It presents the empirical work that is being undertaken to develop a paradigmatic theory in order to resolve some remaining ambiguities and improve solutions to problems that have previously been only superficially addressed. This class is the most important of all the others.

Examples of work in this direction include the determination of the universal gravitational constant, Avogadro's 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 a paradigmatic a theory that formulated a problem and guaranteed the existence of a specific solution.

Efforts aimed at developing a paradigm may be aimed, for example, at the discovery of quantitative laws: Boyle's law, which relates the pressure of a gas to its volume, Coulomb's law of electrical attraction, and Joule's formula, which relates the heat emitted by a conductor carrying a current to 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 using the paradigm many years before the instruments for their experimental detection were created.

From Euler and Lagrange in the 18th century to Hamilton, Jacobi, and Hertz in the 19th century, many of the brightest European specialists in mathematical physics have repeatedly tried to reformulate theoretical mechanics so as to give it a form that is more satisfactory from a logical and aesthetic point of view, without changing its fundamental content. In other words, they wanted to present the explicit and implicit ideas of the Principia and the whole of continental mechanics in a logically more coherent version, one that was both more unified and less ambiguous in its applications 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, carried out experiments by increasing pressure, were, as a rule, those who proposed various options for comparison. They worked with both facts and theories, and their work produced not just new information, but also a more accurate paradigm by removing the ambiguities hidden in the original form of the paradigm with which they worked. In many disciplines, much of the work that falls within the realm of normal science consists of just this.

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

Chapter 4. Normal Science as Puzzle Solving

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

A problem classified as a puzzle must 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 appearance of the scientific works of Descartes, which had an unusually great influence, most physical scientists accepted that the universe consists of microscopic particles, corpuscles, and that all natural phenomena can be explained in terms of corpuscular forms, corpuscular dimensions, motion and interactions. This set of prescriptions turned out to be both metaphysical and methodological. As a metaphysical, he pointed out to physicists which types of entities actually exist 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 indicated to physicists what the final explanations and fundamental laws should be: the laws should determine the nature of corpuscular motion and interaction, and the explanations should reduce any given natural phenomenon to a corpuscular mechanism that obeys these laws.

The existence of such a tightly defined network of prescriptions—conceptual, instrumental, and methodological—provides the basis for the metaphor that likens normal science to puzzle solving. Since this network provides rules that indicate to the researcher in the field of mature science what the world and the science studying it are like, he can calmly concentrate his efforts on the esoteric problems determined for him by these rules and existing knowledge.

Chapter 5. Priority of paradigms

Paradigms can determine the character of normal science without the interference of discoverable rules. The first reason is the extreme difficulty of discovering the rules that guide scientists within particular traditions of normal research. These difficulties are reminiscent of the difficult situation that a philosopher faces 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 studying Newtonian dynamics ever discovers the meaning of the terms “force,” “mass,” “space,” and “time,” he will be helped in this not so much by incomplete, although generally useful, definitions in textbooks, how much observation and application of these concepts in solving problems.

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

Chapter 6. Anomaly and the emergence of scientific discoveries

In science, a discovery is always accompanied by difficulties, meets resistance, and is established contrary to the basic principles on which the expectation is based. At first, only what is expected and normal is perceived, even under circumstances in which an anomaly is later discovered. However, further familiarization leads to the awareness of some errors or to the discovery of a connection between the result and what preceded it led to the error. This awareness of the anomaly initiates a period in which conceptual categories are adjusted until the resulting anomaly becomes the expected outcome. Why can normal science, not directly striving for new discoveries and even intending at first to suppress them, 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 the field. Therefore, further development, which usually requires the creation of carefully developed technology, is the development of an esoteric vocabulary and skill and the refinement of concepts, the similarity of which with their prototypes taken from the field 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 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 correspondence between observation and theory that could not be achieved otherwise. The more accurate and developed the paradigm, the more sensitive an indicator it is for detecting an anomaly, thereby leading to a change in the paradigm. In a normal discovery pattern, even resistance to change is beneficial. While ensuring that the paradigm is not thrown away too easily, resistance also ensures that the attention of scientists cannot be easily diverted and that only anomalies that permeate scientific knowledge to the core will lead to paradigm change.

Chapter 7. The crisis and the emergence of scientific theories

The emergence of new theories is usually preceded by a period of pronounced professional uncertainty. Perhaps such uncertainty arises from the persistent failure of normal science to solve its puzzles to the extent that it should. The failure of existing rules is a prelude to the search for new ones.

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

Philosophers of science have repeatedly shown that it is always possible to construct more than one theoretical construct from 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 invention of alternatives is precisely the kind of means that scientists rarely resort to. As long as the means presented by a paradigm allow one to successfully solve the problems generated by it, 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 when truly necessary. The significance of crises lies precisely in the fact that they indicate the timeliness of changing tools.

Chapter 8. Response to the crisis

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 long-lasting anomalies. Although they may gradually lose confidence in previous theories from that point on and then think about alternatives to overcome the crisis, they never easily give up the paradigm that plunged them into the crisis. In other words, they do not treat anomalies as counterexamples. Having once achieved the status of a paradigm, a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternative version is suitable to take its place. There is not yet a single process revealed by the study of the history of scientific development, which as a whole would resemble the methodological stereotype of refuting a theory through its direct comparison with nature. A judgment 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 simultaneously a decision to accept another paradigm, and the judgment leading to such a decision involves both a comparison of both paradigms with nature and a comparison of the paradigms with each other.

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

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

Any crisis begins with a doubt in the paradigm and the subsequent loosening of the rules of normal research. All crises end in one of three possible outcomes. Sometimes normal science eventually proves capable of solving the problem causing the crisis, despite the despair of those who saw it as the end of the existing paradigm. In other cases, even apparently radical new approaches do not improve the situation. Then scientists may come to the conclusion that, given the current state of affairs in their field of study, there is no solution to the problem in sight. The problem is labeled accordingly and left aside as a legacy for a future generation in the hope that it will be solved using better methods. Finally, there may be 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 a paradigm in a period of crisis to a new paradigm from which a new tradition of normal science can be born is a process far from cumulative and not one that could be achieved through a more precise elaboration or expansion of the old paradigm. This process is more like a reconstruction of a field on new grounds, a reconstruction that modifies some of the field's most basic theoretical generalizations as well as many of the paradigm's methods and applications. During the transition period, there is a large, but never complete coincidence of problems that can be solved with the help of both the old paradigm and the new one. However, there is a striking difference in the solution methods. By the time the transition ends, the professional scientist will have already changed his point of view about the field of study, its methods and goals.

Almost always, the people who successfully carry out the fundamental development of a new paradigm were either very young or new to the field whose paradigm they 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 .

When faced with an anomaly or crisis, scientists take different positions in relation to existing paradigms, and the nature of their research changes accordingly. The proliferation of competing options, the willingness to try something else, the expression of obvious dissatisfaction, the recourse to philosophy and the discussion of fundamental principles are all symptoms of the transition from normal to extraordinary research. 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 change be called a revolution? Given the wide, 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 that they themselves partly created. Scientific revolutions, in much the same way, begin with a growing consciousness, again often limited to a narrow subdivision of the scientific community, that the existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the study of that aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself previously paved the way. In both political and scientific development, awareness of a dysfunction that can lead to a crisis constitutes a precondition 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, a political way out of this situation turns out to be impossible. Like the choice between competing political institutions, the choice between competing paradigms turns out to be a choice between incompatible models of community life. When paradigms, as they should, become involved in debates about the choice of paradigm, the question of their meaning is necessarily caught in a vicious circle: each group uses its own paradigm to argue in favor of that same paradigm.

Issues of choosing a paradigm can never be clearly resolved solely by logic and experiment.

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

The most famous and striking example associated with 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 Principia. From the point of view of this work, these two theories are completely incompatible in the same sense in which the astronomy of Copernicus and Ptolemy was shown to be incompatible: Einstein's theory can only be accepted 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 outdated theory can always be regarded as a special case of its modern successor, it must be transformed for this purpose. Transformation is something that can be accomplished by taking advantage of hindsight - a distinct application of more modern theory. Moreover, even if this transformation was intended to interpret an old theory, the result of its application must be a theory limited to the extent that it can only restate what is already known. Because of its parsimony, this reformulation of the theory is useful, but it may not be sufficient to guide research.

Chapter 10. Revolution as a change in view of the world

A 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 want 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 perceive the world around him anew - in some well-known situations, he must learn to see a new gestalt. The prerequisite for perception itself is a certain stereotype, reminiscent of a paradigm. What a person sees depends on what he is looking at and on what prior visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see.

I am acutely aware of the difficulties raised by the statement that when Aristotle and Galileo looked at the vibrations of stones, the former saw a chain-restrained fall, and the latter a pendulum. Although the world does not change with a paradigm shift, the scientist works in a different world after this change. What happens during a scientific revolution cannot be reduced entirely to a new interpretation of isolated and unchangeable facts. A scientist who accepts a new paradigm acts less as an interpreter and more as a person looking through a lens that inverts the image. If a paradigm is given, then the interpretation of data is the main element of the scientific discipline that studies it. But interpretation can only develop a paradigm, not correct it. Paradigms generally cannot be corrected within the framework of normal science. Instead, as we have already seen, normal science ultimately leads only to awareness of anomalies and crises. And the latter are resolved not as a result of reflection and interpretation, but due to some degree of unexpected and non-structural event, like a gestalt switch. Following this event, scientists often speak of a “scale lifted from the eyes” or an “epiphany” that illuminates a previously perplexing puzzle, thereby adjusting its components to be seen from a new perspective, allowing the solution to be achieved for the first time.

The operations and measurements that the scientist undertakes in the laboratory are not the “ready data” of experience, but rather data “collected with great difficulty.” They are not what the scientist sees, at least not until his research bears fruit 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 possibilities for the successful development of the accepted paradigm. Operations and measurements are determined by the paradigm much more clearly than by the direct experience from which they partly derive. Science does not deal with all possible laboratory operations. Instead, it selects operations that are relevant from the point of view of matching the paradigm with the direct experience that that paradigm partially determines. As a result, scientists engage in specific laboratory operations using different paradigms. The measurements that must be made in the pendulum experiment do not correspond to the measurements in the case of a restrained fall.

No language that limits itself to describing a world known exhaustively and in advance can provide a neutral and objective description. Two people can see different things with the same retinal image. Psychology provides abundant evidence of a similar effect, and the doubts which follow from it are easily strengthened by the history of attempts to present the actual language of observation. No modern attempt to reach such an end has yet come even close to a universal language of pure perceptions. The same attempts that have brought closest to this goal have one common characteristic that significantly strengthens the main theses of our essay. They assume from the very beginning the existence of a paradigm, taken either from a given scientific theory or from fragmentary reasoning from the standpoint of common sense, and then try to eliminate from the paradigm all non-logical and non-perceptual terms.

Neither the scientist nor the layman is accustomed to seeing the world in parts or point by point. Paradigms define large areas of experience simultaneously. The search for an operational definition or a pure language of observation can only begin after experience has been thus determined.

After the scientific revolution, many old measurements and operations become impractical and are replaced by others accordingly. 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 of the laboratory instruments, are still the same as they were before the scientific revolution, although the scientist may begin to use them in new ways. As a result, science after the revolutionary period always involves 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 (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 that differed from that of the chemists of his day. In particular, he considered the mixture of gases or the absorption of gases in water as a physical process in which affinities played no role. For Dalton, therefore, 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 finally forced Dalton to turn to chemistry, prompting him from the very beginning to assume that in some limited series of reactions considered as chemical, atoms could be combined only in a one-to-one ratio or in some other simple, whole-number proportion. This natural assumption helped him 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 a purely chemical process. The law, which could not be established experimentally before Dalton's work, with the recognition of this work becomes a constitutive principle by virtue of which no series 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 can serve for us as perhaps the best typical example of a scientific revolution.

Chapter 11. Indistinguishability of revolutions

I suppose there are extremely good reasons why revolutions are almost invisible. The purpose of textbooks is to teach the vocabulary and syntax of modern scientific language. Popular literature tends to describe the same applications in a language closer to the language of everyday life. And philosophy of science, especially in the English-speaking world, 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 require reliable information about the manner in which these foundations were first discovered and then accepted by professional scientists. Therefore, at the very least, textbooks are distinguished by features that will constantly disorient readers. Textbooks, being the pedagogical means for perpetuating normal science, must be rewritten in whole or in part whenever the language, problem structure, or standards of normal science change after each scientific revolution. And as soon as this procedure of reshaping textbooks is completed, it inevitably masks not only the role, but even the existence of the revolutions, thanks to which they saw the light.

Textbooks narrow scientists' sense of the history of a given discipline. Textbooks refer only to that part of the work of past scientists that can be easily perceived as a contribution to the formulation and solution of problems corresponding to the paradigm adopted in this textbook. Partly as a result of the selection of material, and partly as a result of its distortion, the scientists of the past are unreservedly portrayed as scientists who worked on the same range of constant problems and with the same set of canons to which the last revolution in scientific theory and method secured the prerogatives of scientism. It is not surprising that textbooks and the historical tradition they contain must be rewritten after each 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 the constant force of gravity causes motion, the speed of which is proportional to the square of time. In fact, Galileo's kinematic theorem takes this form when it enters the matrix of Newton's dynamic concepts. But Galileo said nothing of the kind. His consideration of falling bodies rarely concerns forces, much less the constant gravitational force, which causes bodies to fall. By attributing to Galileo the answer to a question that Galileo's paradigm did not allow even to be asked, Newton's account obscured the impact of a small but revolutionary reformulation in the questions scientists posed about motion, as well as in the answers they thought they could accept. But this constitutes precisely 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 glossing over such changes and attempting to present the development of science in a linear manner, the textbook conceals the process that lies at the origins of most significant events in the development of science.

The preceding examples reveal, each in the context of a separate 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 “completion” leads to even more serious consequences than the false interpretations mentioned above. False interpretations make the revolution invisible: textbooks, in which the rearrangement of visible material is given, depict the development of science in the form of a process which, if it existed, would make all revolutions meaningless. Since they are designed to quickly familiarize the student with what the modern scientific community considers knowledge, textbooks interpret the various experiments, concepts, laws and theories of existing normal science as separate and following each other as continuously as possible. From a pedagogical point of view, this presentation technique is impeccable. But such a presentation, coupled with the spirit of complete unhistoricity that pervades science, and with the systematically repeated errors in the interpretation of historical facts discussed above, inevitably leads to the formation of a strong impression that science reaches its present level thanks to a series of isolated discoveries and inventions, which - when they collected together - form a system of modern concrete knowledge. At the very beginning of the development of science, as textbooks present, scientists strive for the goals that are embodied in current paradigms. One by one, in a process often compared to building a brick building, scientists are adding new facts, concepts, laws, or theories to the body of information contained in modern 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. 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, we can say that the entire network of facts and theories that the textbook paradigm brings into conformity with nature is undergoing replacement.

Chapter 12. Resolution of revolutions

Any new interpretation of nature, be it a discovery or a theory, arises first in the mind of one or more individuals. These are the ones who first 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. Their attention is constantly intensely focused on the problems causing the crisis; Moreover, they are usually scientists so young or new to a field in crisis that established research practice binds them less strongly to the world views and rules that are defined by the old paradigm than most of their contemporaries.

In the sciences, the operation of verification never consists, as it happens in solving puzzles, simply in comparing a particular paradigm with nature. Instead, verification is part of the competition between two rival paradigms to win favor with 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 still seek 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 light of the evidence that exists in reality, and to answer this question , one of the influential philosophical schools is forced to compare the capabilities of various theories in explaining the accumulated data.

A radically different approach to this entire set 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 refuting an established theory because its result is negative. It is clear that the role thus assigned 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 emphasized many times before, no theory ever solves all the puzzles it faces at a given time, nor has any solution ever been achieved that is completely flawless. On the contrary, it is precisely the incompleteness and imperfection of existing theoretical data that makes it possible at any time to identify many of the 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 a serious failure is sufficient to disprove a theory, then Popper's followers will require some criterion of “improbability” or “degree of falsifiability.” In developing such a criterion they will almost certainly encounter the same set of difficulties that arise among defenders of various theories of probabilistic verification.

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 by those whose creative biographies are associated with a debt to the old tradition of normal science, does not constitute a violation of scientific standards, but is a characteristic feature of the nature of scientific research in itself. The source of resistance lies in the belief that the old paradigm will ultimately solve all problems, that nature can be squeezed into the framework provided by this paradigm.

How is the transition accomplished and how is resistance overcome? This question relates to the technique of persuasion or to arguments or counter-arguments in a situation where there cannot be evidence. The most common claim made by advocates of the new paradigm is the belief that they can solve the problems that brought the old paradigm into crisis. When this can be made convincingly enough, such a claim is most effective in arguing for proponents of a new paradigm. There are also other considerations that may lead scientists to abandon the old paradigm in favor of a new one. These are arguments that are rarely stated clearly, definitely, but appeal to the individual sense of convenience, to the aesthetic sense. It is believed that the new theory should be “clearer”, “more convenient” or “simpler” than the old one. The importance of aesthetic assessments can sometimes be decisive.

Chapter 13. Progress brought by revolutions

Why does progress remain constantly and almost exclusively an attribute of the kind of activity that we call scientific? Note that in some sense this is a purely semantic question. To a large extent, the term “science” is precisely intended for those branches of human activity, the paths of progress of which are easily traced. Nowhere is this more evident than in the occasional debate about whether any given modern social science discipline is truly scientific. These debates have parallels in the pre-paradigm periods of those fields that today are unhesitatingly given the title “science.”

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

Some of these aspects are consequences of the unprecedented isolation of the mature scientific community from the demands of Not professionals and everyday life. If we touch on the question of the degree of isolation, this isolation is never complete. However, there is no other professional community where individual creative work is so directly addressed to and evaluated by other members of the professional group. It is precisely because he works only for an audience of colleagues, an audience that shares his own assessments and beliefs, that a scientist can accept a unified system of standards without proof. He doesn't have to worry about what any other groups or schools will think, and so he can put aside one problem 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 respect, thinking about the differences between natural scientists and many social scientists is quite instructive. The latter often resort (while the former almost never do) to justify their choice of research problem, be it 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 second case - one can hope for a speedy solution to the problems.

The consequences of isolation from society are greatly amplified by another characteristic of the professional scientific community - the nature of its scientific education in preparation for participation in independent research. In music, the visual arts, and literature, one is educated by exposure to 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, a basic university course involves parallel reading of original sources, some of which are classics of the field, others of which are modern research reports that scholars write for each other. As a result, the student studying any of these disciplines is constantly aware of the enormous variety of problems that the members of his future group intend to solve over time. More importantly, the student is constantly surrounded by multiple competing and incommensurable solutions to these problems, solutions that he must ultimately judge for himself.

In modern natural 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 educational method, few scientists 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 presented much more briefly, in a more precise and more systematic form in a variety of modern textbooks?

Every documented civilization had technology, art, religion, a 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 has its origins in the culture of the ancient Hellenes has a science that has truly emerged from 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 societies founded that were so scientifically productive.

When a new paradigm candidate comes along, scientists will resist accepting it until they are convinced that the two most important conditions are satisfied. First, the new candidate must appear to be solving some controversial and generally recognized problem that cannot be solved in any other way. Second, the new paradigm must promise to preserve much of the real problem-solving ability that science has accumulated 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 increasing detail and a more refined 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 view science as an enterprise that is constantly moving closer and closer to some goal predetermined by nature.

But is such a goal necessary? If we can learn to replace "evolution toward what we hope to know" with "evolution from what we know," then many of the problems that irritate us may disappear. Perhaps the problem of induction is one of these problems.

When Darwin first published his book in 1859 outlining the theory of evolution explained by natural selection, most professionals were likely not concerned with the concept of change in species or the possible descent of man from the ape. All the well-known pre-Darwinian evolutionary theories of Lamarck, Chambers, Spencer and the German natural philosophers presented evolution as a goal-directed process. The “idea” of man and of modern flora and fauna must have been present from the first creation of life, perhaps in the thoughts 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 implementation of a 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 purpose established by God or nature. Instead, natural selection, which deals with the interaction of a given environment and the actual organisms that inhabit it, was 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 ​​​​the existence of a supreme creator and a primordial plan - turned out to be the products of a process that steadily developed from primitive beginnings, but not in the direction towards some goal. The belief that natural selection, resulting from simple competition between organisms for survival, was able to create man, along with highly developed animals and plants, was the most difficult and troubling aspect of Darwin's theory. What could the concepts of “evolution”, “development” and “progress” mean in the absence of a specific goal? For many, such terms seemed self-contradictory.

An analogy that relates the evolution of organisms to the evolution of scientific ideas can easily go too far. But it is quite suitable for considering the questions of this final section. 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 revolutionary selection, determined by periods of normal research, is the wonderfully adapted set of instruments which we call modern scientific knowledge. Successive stages in this developmental process are marked by increasing specificity and specialization.

1969 addition

There are scientific schools, that is, communities that approach the same subject from incompatible points of view . But in science this happens much less often 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 members of a group, whether of a whole civilization or a community of specialists included in it, learn to see the same things, given the same stimuli, is to be shown examples of situations which their predecessors in the group have already learned to see similar to one another and dissimilar to 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 to interpretation depends decisively on the nature and extent of previous experience and training.

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

Another mention of operational definitions. This is a 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 “superfine matter” - a “fiery substance” that supposedly fills all flammable substances and is released from them during combustion.

Structure of scientific revolutions Thomas Kuhn

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Title: The structure of scientific revolutions

About the book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Kuhn is one of the most famous and influential American historians and philosophers of science of the twentieth century. His acclaimed book entitled “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is one of the most popular and cited works in the entire period of the development of science. The theory of scientific revolutions presented by him as a paradigm shift served as a solid basis for the formation of methodology, as well as philosophy of science, making a great breakthrough in the issue of understanding science and assessing scientific knowledge in modern society. This work will be interesting to read not only for researchers, but also for everyone who is connected by their hobbies or occupation with philosophy, history and culture.

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a fundamental and rigorous analysis of the history of science. Its publication entailed great changes in the field of sociology of knowledge, and, in addition, introduced the concept of a paradigm into everyday use. This term is based on generally accepted scientific achievements, which over a certain period of time provide the scientific community with a kind of model for posing a question and ways to answer it. According to the author, the development of scientific knowledge occurs spasmodically, with the help of so-called scientific revolutions. Moreover, any information has meaning only within the framework of a specific paradigm, a historically formed system of principles and beliefs. A scientific revolution in this context is a change in existing paradigms or a fundamental replacement of them with new ones.

In his work “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” Thomas Kuhn urges his readers to abandon the boring idea of ​​science as a socio-historical mechanism for collecting facts about the world around us. We present to you a fascinating essay devoted to the sociology of science, which is fundamentally an attempt to understand and comprehend how many generations of scientists produce revolutionary shifts in their perception of reality. The book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” examines the most general and universal patterns inherent in scientific knowledge as an integral part of the universal cultural heritage. This work at one time received the widest resonance and recognition, so reading it will be useful for both historians of science and specialists in various subject areas.

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