The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

The structure of the cognitive revolution: An examination from the philosophy of science

“…However, Kuhn (1962) has argued that the concept of development by accretion does not account for important breakthroughs of Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier, Planck, Einstein, and Darwin, among others. Rather, these developments are said to have "revolutionized" how subsequent scientists thought about the universe.…”

“…In fact, when such anomalies initially arise, it is the scientist who is to blame, not the paradigm (Bird, 2000). Kuhn (1962) states, Normal science ... often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments ... [however], when the profession can no longer evade anomalies that subvert the existing tradition of scientific practice [the paradigm is in crisis]. (pp.…”

“…In the following quote, Kuhn (1962) defines what he means by scientific revolution: "Scientific revolutions are here taken to be those noncumulative developmental episodes in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one" (p. 91). By "incompatible," Kuhn suggests that "after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world" (p. 111), making competing paradigms largely "incommensurable" (p. 102).…”

Using relations within conceptual systems to translate across conceptual systems

“…This inference, called "translation holism" by Fodor and Lepore (1992), entails that a person cannot have the same concept as another person unless the rest of their conceptual systems are at least highly similar. This view has had perhaps the most impact in the philosophy of science, where Kuhn's incommensurability thesis states that there can be no translation between scientific concepts across scientists that are committed to fundamentally different ontologies (Kuhn, 1962). A chemist indoctrinated into Lavoisier's theory of oxygen cannot translate any of their concepts to earlier chemists' concept of phlogiston.…”

“…The existence of this kind of translation has been taken as a challenge to conceptual web accounts of meaning. Fodor and Lepore (1992) offer an extended critical examination of "translation holism", by which they mean the view that nothing can translate a concept from a system L unless it belongs to a system containing many concepts that are translations of many concepts of L. To take the Kuhn (1962) example, translation holism asserts the impossibility that Lavoisier's notion of oxygen can translate into a pre-Lavoisier chemistry simply by creating a corresponding term in the pre-Lavoisier chemistry. The only way for oxygen to have a corresponding concept would be to generate many terms in this pre-Lavoisier chemistry that correspond to concepts in Lavoisier's chemistry.…”