The question of paradigms in the structure of scientific revolutions of Thomas Kuhn

• Grant number: 19/22424-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2020
• End date: February 28, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Epistemology
• Principal Investigator: Silvio Seno Chibeni
• Grantee: Ana Clarice Rodrigues Costa
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The central philosophical element in Thomas Kuhn's classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) is the concept of paradigm. Nevertheless after its publication, the use of the word 'paradigm' generated a flood of doubts and criticisms on the nature, usefulness and the polysemic character of this term. In the last paragraph of Chapter IX of the Structure, Kuhn wrote that the concept of paradigm had, up to that point, been articulated as a constitutive element in science and in the scientific communities; but that from then on, he would explore the role of paradigms in the constitution of the natural world itself. The present study aims to investigate this intriguing thesis, trying to clarify how exactly Kuhn understood and defended it in the final chapters of the Structure; how he apparently distanced himself, in later writings, from the extreme, relativistic interpretive possibilities identified by both his critics and sympathizers; and what are the moderate alternatives that have been proposed by others authors. It also proposes to examine the current debate about this thesis half a century after its appearance, which seems to have gained some autonomy from Kuhn's work, being sometimes discussed in relation to epistemological and metaphysical classical approaches developed outside the specific circle of the philosophy of science. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

COSTA, Ana Clarice Rodrigues. Paradigm shifts as world changes in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2022. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas Campinas, SP.