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The structure of scientific revolution

The structure of scientific revolution. Thomas Kuhn's perspective. The role of scientific tradition. A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. A PARADIGM must exist.

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The structure of scientific revolution

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  1. The structure of scientific revolution Thomas Kuhn's perspective

  2. The role of scientific tradition • A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. A PARADIGM must exist. • True or false? Is science the only area that needs a paradigm? Can ANYTHING function without a paradigm? • Examples?

  3. What is the role of education? • The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs are firmly fixed in the student's mind. • True or false? Is this true with any kind of education? Is there a difference between "Beginning" and "more advanced" education? • Examples?

  4. What is the role of research? • Research is about confirming existing concepts, and exploring their applications. Research tends to work within a paradigm. • Kuhn says it is "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education". • What do you think? Is it always that way?

  5. How does progress occur? • When an anomaly undermines the basic tenets of the current scientific practice • These tenets and assumptions no longer work • New assumptions must develop • New assumptions –"paradigms" - require the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the re-evaluation of prior facts. • This is difficult and time consuming. Therefore is also strongly resisted by the established community.

  6. Scientific revolution • This process is what Kuhn calls a "scientific revolution", occurring through paradigm-shift

  7. How do paradigms emerge? • Researchers observe phenomena • Various "pre-paradigmatic" interpretations emerge and compete • One interpretation seems better than the others, and gains more and more adherents • That interpretation becomes a "paradigm"

  8. After a paradigm is created… • A paradigm transforms a group into a profession or, at least, a discipline. • From this follows the formation of specialized journals, the foundation of professional bodies and a claim to a special place in academe. • There is a promulgation of scholarly articles "addressed only to professional colleagues, [those] whose knowledge of a shared paradigm can be assumed and who prove to be the only ones able to read the papers addressed to them".

  9. Once a paradigm exists… • It resists change • Why?

  10. Are there paradigms in psychology? • Which ones?

  11. Examples of paradigms in psychology • The Cartesian (after Descartes) or Newtonian paradigm: the person as a mechanism, as a clock, as a computer • The evolutionary paradigm: the person in change, as an adaptive organism, in continuity with the other species • The ecological paradigm: the person as part of a complex system

  12. There are also "sub-paradigms" • Paradigms within sub-fields of psychology. • They dictate what gets published etc.

  13. Why is this relevant to the history of psychology? • Because also, history is told from a certain point of view, from a given paradigm. • What, do you think, are the basic assumptions of the text we are using?

  14. The end

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