Scientific Revolution Thomas Kuhn Analysis

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argues that empirical science does not involve forming reliable beliefs. Instead, empirical science involves forming scientific beliefs simply because they are in accordance with the current paradigm. This would mean that whenever a scientific revolution occurs, old beliefs are thrown away in order to be replaced with new ones. As a result, Kuhn suggests that one cannot have rational justification for moving from one paradigm to another. To support his argument, Kuhn uses the concept that competing paradigms are incommensurable.

One aspect of incommensurability that Kuhn uses to support his argument about the irrational justification of changing paradigms is that proponents of competing
This means that because scientists who support rival paradigms operate under different assumptions of the aspects regarding their work, they tend to perceive the world in different ways from one another when “they look from the same point in the same direction” (150). Kuhn states that for this reason, something that may seem obvious to one group of scientists may seem impossible to another group. In order for both groups to communicate, one must change its paradigm to match the other’s. This “paradigm shift”, according to Kuhn, does not occur over time from reasoning and experience; rather, it just occurs in the mind of a scientist.

Through an analysis of Kuhn’s arguments about the rationality of paradigm shifts, one can make him out to be a justification relativist and a truth relativist. Kuhn can be viewed as a justification relativist because he suggests that proponents of competing paradigms have beliefs that seem rational to them but seem completely irrational to those supporting the other paradigm. This doesn’t mean that one side’s beliefs are completely irrational while the other side’s beliefs are not; rather, each side has its own relative standards of rational justification for