Kuhn Flashcards
Incommensurability. There is no common scale.
A Ptolemaic interprets phenomena within framework of earth-centered universe. Cannot have meaningful conversation with a Copernican.
Kuhn used the word incommensurable to describe paradigms that represent wholly different world views of the same subject – for example, the mechanics of Aristotle vs Newton, which differ so drastically that there is little common ground between them.
Normal Science.
After a paradigm shift has taken place, Kuhn said, scientists can begin building up facts again, perhaps studying different problems and searching for facts in different places suggested by the new paradigm. He described this period between paradigm shifts as normal science or puzzle solving. “…normal science is what produces the bricks that scientific research is forever adding to the growing stockpile of scientific knowledge.”
Examples of shifts.
Copernicus. Darwin. Einstein. Geological Age of Earth. Aristotelian mechanics to Galilean & Newtonian. Newtonian to Einsteinian. Germ theory.
Copernican Paradigm shift.
Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus provided Kuhn with another example of a paradigm shift. Before De revolutionibus, all facts were interpreted within a framework that said our planet lies at the center of the universe. Within a few decades, all facts were being interpreted within a new framework, which said the earth is actually a planet orbiting the sun.
