** noun - Paradigm: One that serves as a pattern or model. A set or list of all the inflectional forms of a word or of one of its grammatical categories. the paradigm of an irregular verb. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline. **

Date:   1/2/2014 10:22:25 AM ( 10 y ago)

Paradigm:

Intellectual perception or view, accepted by an individual or a society as a clear example, model, or pattern of how things work in the world.

This term was used first by the US science fiction historian Thomas Kuhn (1922-96) in his 1962 book 'The Structure Of Scientific Revolution' to refer to theoretical frameworks within which all scientific thinking and practices operate.

See also paradigm shift.
Fundamental change in an individual's or a society's view of how things work in the world.
For example;
- the shift from earth to sun as the center of solar system.
- humors' to microbes as causes of disease.
- heart to brain as the seat of thinking and feeling.

**

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the basic meaning of the term paradigm as "a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model".

The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave it its contemporary meaning when he adopted the word to refer to the set of practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time.
In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as: "universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners.

i.e., what is to be observed and scrutinized
the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject
how these questions are to be structured as to how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted.
Or how is an experiment to be conducted, and what equipment is available to conduct the experiment.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn saw the sciences as going through alternating periods of normal science, when an existing model of reality dominates a protracted period of puzzle-solving, and revolution, when the model of reality itself undergoes sudden drastic change. Paradigms have two aspects.

- Firstly, within normal science, the term refers to the set of exemplary experiments that are likely to be copied or emulated.
- Secondly, underpinning this set of exemplars are shared preconceptions, made prior to – and conditioning – the collection of evidence. These preconceptions embody both hidden assumptions and elements that he describes as quasi-metaphysical; the interpretations of the paradigm may vary among individual scientists.

Kuhn was at pains to point out that the rationale for the choice of exemplars is a specific way of viewing reality: that view and the status of "exemplar" are mutually reinforcing. For well-integrated members of a particular discipline, its paradigm is so convincing that it normally renders even the possibility of alternatives unconvincing and counter-intuitive. Such a paradigm is opaque, appearing to be a direct view of the bedrock of reality itself, and obscuring the possibility that there might be other, alternative imageries hidden behind it.

The conviction that the current paradigm is reality tends to disqualify evidence that might undermine the paradigm itself; this in turn leads to a build-up of unreconciled anomalies. It is the latter that is responsible for the eventual revolutionary overthrow of the incumbent paradigm, and its replacement by a new one. Kuhn used the expression paradigm shift for this process, and likened it to the perceptual change that occurs when our interpretation of an ambiguous image "flips over" from one state to another.
(The rabbit-duck illusion is an example: it is not possible to see both the rabbit and the duck simultaneously.) This is significant in relation to the issue of incommensurability.

A currently accepted paradigm would be the standard model of physics. The scientific method would allow for orthodox scientific investigations into phenomena which might contradict or disprove the standard model; however grant funding would be proportionately more difficult to obtain for such experiments, depending on the degree of deviation from the accepted standard model theory which the experiment would be expected to test for.

To illustrate the point, an experiment to test for the mass of neutrinos or the decay of protons (small departures from the model) would be more likely to receive money than experiments to look for the violation of the conservation of momentum, or ways to engineer reverse time travel.
Mechanisms similar to the original Kuhnian paradigm have been invoked in various disciplines other than the philosophy of science. These include: the idea of major cultural themes, worldviews, ideologies, and mindsets. They have somewhat similar meanings that apply to smaller and larger scale examples of disciplined thought.

In addition, Michel Foucault used the terms episteme and discourse, mathesis and taxinomia, for aspects of a "paradigm" in Kuhn's original sense.

- Paradigm shifts:

*** Main article: Paradigm shift

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn wrote that "Successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science."

Paradigm shifts tend to be most dramatic in sciences that appear to be stable and mature, as in physics at the end of the 19th century. At that time, a statement generally attributed to physicist Lord Kelvin famously claimed,
"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."

Five years later, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity, which challenged the very simple set of rules laid down by Newtonian mechanics, which had been used to describe force and motion for over two hundred years.
In this case, the new paradigm reduces the old to a special case in the sense that Newtonian mechanics is still a good model for approximation for speeds that are slow compared to the speed of light.

Philosophers and historians of science, including Kuhn himself, ultimately accepted a modified version of Kuhn's model, which synthesizes his original view with the gradualist model that preceded it.
Kuhn's original model is now generally seen as too limited.

Kuhn's idea was itself revolutionary in its time, as it caused a major change in the way that academics talk about science. Thus, it may be that it caused or was itself part of a "paradigm shift" in the history and sociology of science.
However, Kuhn would not recognize such a paradigm shift. Being in the social sciences, people can still use earlier ideas to discuss the history of science.


-Paradigm paralysis

Perhaps the greatest barrier to a paradigm shift, in some cases is the reality of paradigm paralysis: the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking. This is similar to what psychologists term Confirmation bias.

Examples include rejection of Galileo's theory of a heliocentric universe, the discovery of electrostatic photography, xerography and the quartz clock






 

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