The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

[hanzer]

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas Kuhn

Publication date: 1962
ISBN: 9780226458113

Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of scientific knowledge and triggered an ongoing worldwide assessment and reaction in—and beyond—those scholarly communities. Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in "normal science". Normal scientific progress was viewed as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of such conceptual continuity in normal science were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. The discovery of "anomalies" during revolutions in science leads to new paradigms. New paradigms then ask new questions of old data, move beyond the mere "puzzle-solving" of the previous paradigm, change the rules of the game and the "map" directing new research.

[hanzer]

Kuhn's book unfortunately limits itself to "science". I think the general notion can be applied to many domains where an entire [eco]system is transcended and a new order (or paradigm) emerges.

[ibara]

I am about to get my Ph.D. in the interdisciplinary field of Science & Technology Studies. This book is a foundational text for the discipline. Yes, the term paradigm here (and for Kuhn, really) extends beyond "science."