Thomas Kuhn and scientific paradigm shifts

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions And Its Influence On Postmodern Art

The intention of this paper is not to present an in-depth discussion of the complex debate and intricate arguments, and dissent surrounding Thomas Kuhn's famous work the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, but rather to trace the connections between the theory of scientific paradigm creation and shift, and the development of modern and postmodern thinking in the arts. This particularly refers to Kuhn's influence on post-structural philosophy and language theory.

It should be stated at the outset that there can be no attempt to suggest that Kuhn intended his work to act as a conduit for post modern theory. In fact many theorists such as Bernstein and others clearly refute the idea that Kuhn advocated or adhered to an irrationalist or non-logocentric approach to science or the arts.

However, Kuhn's work, whether intended or not, has had a profound influence and effect on the intellectual and artistic world. It has often been used as justification and rationale for modern art theories and especially as an underlying substantiation and argument for the post-structural thesis and deconstruction. The intention of this paper is therefore to trace some of these connections and to indicate to what extent Kuhn's major work has been influential and connected to the modern artistic and linguistic movements.

It is also one of the contentions of this paper that, in order to show the linkage clearly between Kuhn's theories and modern art, his work cannot be understood outside of the broader historical context in which it was written. This refers to the fact that Kuhn's work was part of a larger movement in the arts and sciences and in the intellectual world generally which formed part of a larger 'paradigm shift' in the arts and resulted in the development of post-structural theories of language.

2. The impact of the Structure of Scientific Revolutions

The influence of the publication of Thomas Kuhn's Book the Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962 was extensive and still has ramifications for scientific, philosophical and artistic thought today. "By the mid-1980s, it was the most frequently cited twentieth-century book in the 'Arts and Humanities Citation Index'. (Philosophy: Knowledge-more or less)

The first reactions to the theories in the book were immediate and critical. "Kuhn's leading ideas were absurd, contradictory, and wrong. It was even suggested that they were immoral and irrational. His views were caricatured and ridiculed."

Bernstein 51) However, after the first furor at the outlandish implications of the book, the significance and possibilities that the work suggested began to find adherents in the scientific community. "After the first flurry of heated polemic, calmer voices came to his defense and argued that although not without difficulties and ambiguities, many of his theses were warranted. "

What Kuhn hypothesized in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions was that scientific thought and theory did not progress in a consecutive linear fashion. New concepts or theoretical paradigms came about in a non-sequential and sudden fashion and were not coterminous or even necessarily theoretically related to the previous scientific paradigm. The following is a very simplistic outline of his theory but it encompasses the central tenets and aspects that made his work so influential.

Firstly, science had been based on presumptions of certainty and objective infallibility. The central concept that characterized classical science was that it was a normative and sequential progression of knowledge and understanding of reality. The following quotation expressed this view of science. It is cited at length in order to clearly establish this essential point at the outset.

A science, say astronomy, is dominated for a long period by a 'paradigm', such as Ptolemy's theory that the sun and planets revolve around a stationary earth. Most work is on 'normal science', the solving of standard problems in terms of the reigning paradigm. But anomalies -- results the paradigm cannot explain -- accumulate and eventually make the paradigm unsustainable. The Science enters a revolutionary phase as a new paradigm such as Copernicus's heliocentrism comes to seem more plausible. Defenders of the old order, who cannot accommodate the change and usually cannot even understand the concepts in which it is expressed, gradually die out and the new paradigm is left in control of the field. Then the process is repeated. (Fanklin, T.)

Kuhn's work contradicts this central and essential perception of the value and role of science.

The cumulative and progressive nature of modern science has been challenged by Thomas Kuhn, who has pointed to the discontinuous and revolutionary nature of change in the sciences. In his most radical assertions, he has denied the possibility of 'scientific' knowledge of nature at all, since all 'paradigms' by which scientists understand nature ultimately fail. (ibid)

The essential point of Kuhn's theory lies in the implications of the theory for science, as well as for all other academic and artistic disciplines. It must be remembered that for centuries science had been the model and measure of validity for all the other disciplines. If scientific knowledge and progress was to be understood as not constructively building on the theories of the past but rather advancing though drastic and radical changes of direction, as the theory of paradigm shift suggests, then the central tenets of scientific certainty is put into doubt. If certainty is questioned, then the edifice of science as infallible knowledge is questioned as well. The aspect of certainty should be kept in mind as it is one of the central aspects that appear in postmodern and post-structural thinking.

From the above a number of issues can be highlighted which are pertinent to the present discussion. Through his hypothesis of paradigm shift

Kuhn undermines the central assumption that scientific thought and theory is objective and an unbiased picture of understanding of reality. This is an essential linking point with the postmodern debate. Paradigm shift implies that the shift in radical and non-consecutive and not coherently related to the theories before it.

In science, Kuhn tells us, paradigm shifts happen when there are anomalies, disparate, odd scientific results that cannot be explained away by inadequate method. When sufficient anomalies occur, those in any science must begin to consider that the paradigm under which they are doing their work is no longer of use or is actually dysfunctional. Today we are faced with the same kind of situation in the world overall, where our paradigm is dysfunctional and a large minority is saying that we have to move to different fundamental assumptions.

Ray, M.)

In fact paradigm shift is likened to an intellectual revolution where the very foundational beliefs of the past are overturned. It is this new paradigm shift instigated by Kuhn and others that leads to an understanding of post-modern thought and art.

2.1 Relativity

The above outline leads the most important implication of Kuhn's theory for post-modern and post-structural art and thought. This is the concept of the relativity of all knowledge, which is a central outcome of the theory of paradigm shift theory and which lies at the centre of all post-modern and post-structural thinking, whether it be in art or science.

The concept of the relativity of knowledge is also extended to mean that all truth is no longer certain or 'fixed' but relative to various social and philosophical contexts. One of the central tenets of post modernism is that there can be no final or certain knowledge - all knowledge is luminal and therefore final truth is continually out of reach and is in fact a fallacy. As will be discussed, to the modernist and the post-modern mind the idea of the veracity of science is an illusion and all knowledge is partial and only relevant within a certain context.

While it would be unfair and incorrect to see these ideas as directly related to Kuhn's work, yet the rest of this paper will to show that the influence of his work provided a basis - one of many during the Twentieth Century - for the development of post-structural thinking. The central connection between Kuhn's theories and post-structural theory lies within the ambit of the concept of relativity and the innate separation and difference in paradigm shifts.

According to Kuhn, scientific truth is 'paradigm relative'. For example, what was considered true under the Ptolemaic view of the solar system differs from what we, having read Copernicus, believe. But that difference, Kuhn says, does not mean that one paradigm is truth and the other is false. Different paradigms, he insists, are 'incommensurable': they cannot legitimately be compared.

(Philosophy: Knowledge-more or less?)

The impact of scientific relativism, which Kuhn's work to a large extent precipitated, is that there is no single correct and infallible answer to the question of knowledge and understanding but only answers relative to specific periods of history. This was a devastating blow to centuries of scientific thought as a system of truth. This in turn led to the modern age of scientific skepticism which is a central foundation of the post-modern world view.

What they had regarded as the most certain of all theories turned out to be in need of serious revision. In reaction, they resolved never again to bestow their faith in scientific truth unconditionally. Skepticism, not certainty, became their watchword. (ibid)

The implication of Kuhn's work was that science was seen to be dependent on history. It was no longer superior to historical analysis but could only be understood within the context of history. This too is another post-modern concept which is very important in deconstruction theory. "Philosophers therefore turned to a more serious study of history than they would have considered desirable even a few years earlier. They also learned more about the internal workings of the sciences than their earlier, much more abstract epistemological approach would ever have justified or even tolerated." (ibid)

3. Postmodern thought

Thomas Kuhn's groundbreaking work in the field of the philosophy of science is often quoted as a cardinal factor in the development of post modern and post-structural thought. While the consequences - and the differences - between the theory of paradigm shift and postmodernism are complex and intricate there are a number of central issues that outline this relationship. One of the cardinal concepts is the idea of non-linear progression which is a fundamental phrase used in postmodern discourse.

The key to understanding the relationship between Kuhn's work and modern art as well as post-structure linguistic theory lies in the term irrational and the attack on a logocentric view of reality. Non-linearity means that advancement in science takes place in a non-logical, seemingly irrational way. The idea of a nonlinear world and a non-logocentric vision are essential aspects in understanding the works of postmodern and post-structural philosophers like Derrida and Lacan.

Another possibility that was opened up by Kuhn's work was that due to the relative nature of scientific knowledge, science becomes just another 'fiction' which could be deconstructed or shown to be built up of contingent precepts and context-related perceptions of reality.

As Kuhn's interpretation took hold, a new generation of historians of science turned to examine the social contexts in which science had been pursued; favorite topics included the institutions of science, and sophisticated analyses of science and religious belief. In the history of medicine in particular this was complemented by Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1977) and the Order of Things (1970), which fertilized a growing perception that medicine in the past might have more to do with other aspects of life and conduct in the past than with medicine in the present.

Boon 38)

This aspect is strengthened by the central fact that from this point-of-view science is no longer seen objectively but rather as essentially subjective. Scientific theory is viewed as relative to the scientist or researchers' particular position and orientation in time and space.

The scientist's observations are already profoundly affected by a congeries of subjective elements. His point was simply that the encompassed and embedded subject is always surrounded by certain horizons, the forestructure of the inquiring interpreter, which inexorably and profoundly affect the researcher's understanding of the 'observed facts'. Because of the essential Vorverstandnis of the scientist, Kuhn concluded that there was no "basic vocabulary consisting entirely of words which are attached to nature in ways that are unproblematic and, to the extent necessary, independent of theory."

Guarino)

3.1 What is Postmodern?

In order to fully comprehend the implications of Kuhn's theories one has to understand how postmodernism developed from modernism. Many people are confused by the term postmodern. It has become a term that is bandied about in intelligent conversation, while many people use it loosely to mean almost anything new and innovative. Postmodernism is related to the term 'modernism'. Post means to come after. In other words, postmodern thought is that which comes after or develops from modernistic thought. Firstly one has to understand modernism.

Modernism refers to a certain period of western cultural, artistic and sociological history. This period covers the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - including the devastating effects of the First Word War on European consciousness.

Coupled with events like war were discoveries in science and other disciplines which overturned centuries of belief and convention. One needs only think of Einstein and relativity theory and Freud and the theory of the unconscious, in this regard. Freud's theory of the unconscious opened up a new world of previously unimagined human experience and led to a new perception of the self as well as new art and art forms. Karl Jung continued this idea and developed the theory of archetypes that suggests that all humanity, across cultural and racial barriers, share a common memory. There were many other historical, philosophical and scientific changes during this period. The common factor here is that all these events led to a deep and radical questioning of the status quo. The world and the view of reality that had been generally dominant in western society for centuries were questioned and overturned.New disciplines and particularly new art forms emerged as a reaction to the old ways of seeing things. Some of the major figures that helped to change and redefine literature were Woolf, Joyce, Eliot, Pound, Stevens, Proust, Mallarme, Kafka, and Rilke. In this context we can understand the relevance of Kuhn's views of science as a relative system of knowledge.