The Life of Facts I: Their Nature and Construction

Kuhn’s Revolution

Thomas Kuhn was one of the first to use the term “Paradigm”. It has now become widely (and often inappropriately) used. Kuhn has himself been accused of using the word “paradigm” in multiple ways and has contributed to the confusion regarding this important word. Paradigm refers, in essence, to a community or cluster of ideas, practices, standards, criteria (who can sit at the table), institutional allegiances – and assumptions.

A revolution occurs when the dominant paradigm in a particular science is overturned—to be replaced by an alternative paradigm that does a better job of addressing what Kuhn calls anomalies. These anomalies are phenomena in a specific scientific domain that are not understood, explained or amendable to either prediction or control when the current paradigm is applied. Anomalies are first ignored and are often addressed only by those members of this particular scientific community who are marginalized because of gender, location, race, ethnicity or social-economic status. These marginalized players often lack the credentials or sufficient prestige to be taken seriously by the mainstream of a scientific community.

The successful attempts by these marginalized players to apply a new paradigm to the elusive anomaly can be effectively ignored – for a while. Eventually, however, the message gets out that something “interesting” or even “important” is occurring in this backwater location by this backwater researcher or theorist. Gradually, there is acceptance of the ideas and practices embedded in the new paradigm and successful work with the anomaly. Expansion of the marginalized approach and answers eventually leads to a revolution.

The new approach and answers become the new dominant paradigm. Many of the “old-timers” hang on to their precious but outmoded paradigm, but their time in the scientific spotlight has passed. They are now only acknowledged in the history of science textbooks. It is important to recall that Kuhn focused primarily on the physical sciences. He believed that psychology (and most of the other social and behavioral sciences) are “pre-paradigmatic”—meaning that they are operating at the present time without a dominant paradigm or (to be a bit more generous) are operating with paradigms that are frequently overturned or significantly modified.

The Epistemological Pyramid

In recent years, we have tried to expand on the important analysis offered by Thomas Kuhn. We have been aided in this effort by our work during the last decades of the 20th Century with a remarkable collaborator: David Halliburton. David was the member of multiple departments at Stanford University, having made significant contributions in such diverse fields as literary interpretation and philosophy. It is quite unfortunate that David passed away recently. He had much more to contribute to the many disciplines in which he operated.