![]() ![]() ![]() Still, the theory provides a model for change within disciplines, and we may view the study of English as a field where diverse paradigms have succeeded each other, or coexisted with one another. Others challenge the theory itself (For an example see MacIntyre’s essay in the recommended readings at the end of this lecture). Some scholars are of the opinion that Kuhn’s paradigm shift theory does not apply to subjects within the humanities and thus to our field of studies, English. How many ideas can you find in this short excerpt that are about relationships between elements of a system? What are these systems? How are these various contexts comparable? Note: the meaning of the expression “all in relation” in the second line is not identical to the present meaning!Īs university students of English, you have to be aware of the fact that everything that is included in your curriculum is the result of the definition of English as a university subject – a definition that has changed with time, similarly to the way the scientific approach to topics connected to “serpents and dragons” has changed. None of that kind of which he is but he.” Prince, subject, father, son are things forgot, An early 17 th century poetic reaction to the epistemological change is the following excerpt: These questions are treated not only by epistemology as a branch of philosophy, but are also frequently – although perhaps indirectly – addressed by literature and the arts. Potentially all paradigm shifts raise such questions, since it is not only the previous paradigm that they shatter, but the reliability of any knowledge. That was a particularly influential event, including epistemological implications: doubts about the way knowledge is possible. Not all paradigm shifts have such far-reaching consequences outside the discipline in which they happen as the Copernican revolution. It was difficult to accept its claims, since it restructured not only the whole known universe, but also the formerly central position of the human being. Copernicus’s work was banned since it was thought that it contained views conflicting with the teaching of the Bible. Partly because of the censorship of the Church, it took several decades until Copernicus’s theory became a paradigm, a widely accepted view. Copernicus agreed to publish his hypothesis in a work entitled On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres in 1543. Copernicus discovered that the inaccuracies in the contemporary explanations about the movement of celestial bodies may be explained by the introduction of a new model, in which the center of the universe was not the Earth, but the Sun – the heliocentric model. This model is called the geocentric or Ptolemaic model after the Greek scholar who described it. In Copernicus’s time people believed that the center of the physical universe was the Earth, and all the celestial bodies revolved around it. These two characteristics create a conflict that is called essential tension.Īn example illustrating a paradigm shift is the Copernican revolution. On the one hand, they are necessarily conservative, since this is required for the institutional continuity maintaining them, but on the other hand they are also characterized by the impetus for innovation of the younger generation of researchers. The fact that not all former achievements are preserved in a new paradigm is called the Kuhn–loss.ĭisciplines by nature have two conflicting characteristics. Once a new paradigm is established, explaining the former anomalies, some previously explained phenomena that made sense in the previous paradigm may remain unexplained. Revolutionary phases are not cumulative, but phases when a whole previous system of explanations, a paradigm, is questioned and eventually replaced by a new one. Normal phases work similarly to the pre-Kuhnian understanding, characterized by puzzle solving and accumulating knowledge. The Kuhnian explanation, on the other hand, distinguishes between two phases in the development of science: normal and revolutionary phases. The novelty in Kuhn’s explanation of scientific change lies in the following: previously this change was understood as a gradual process of accumulating knowledge, a progress through which scientists would come closer to truth, and if needed, they would correct previous errors. His book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions explains his understanding of the relationship between continuity and discontinuity in academia, in other words the fact that there are sometimes gradual changes and occasionally there are drastic shifts of methods used within disciplines. One of the founders of this discipline is Thomas Kuhn, who was interested in the ways scientific changes happen. ![]()
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