Central Department of Public Administration CDPA Tribhuvan University
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Kuhn’s Paradigm Shift
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal The ‘received’ view of science 1) There is a sharp distinction between science and other belief systems like religion. 2) Science is cumulative. 3) Science is unified: there is a single set of methods for all sciences, and all natural sciences, in principle, can be reduced to physics. This is called Reductionism. 2
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal The ‘received’ view of science 4) The evaluation of evidence in support of hypotheses are value-free. They are independent of personal views of the individuals involved and are based on the underlying logic involved. Observation and experiment are neutral foundations for science 5) The terms used in science have fixed and precise meaning 3
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Progress of Scientific Knowledge • Is scientific knowledge linear and continuous?
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Answer • No not linear and continuous, new approaches appeared to understanding that scientists would never have considered valid before.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Changing belief • The discovery of Reality is impossible. This extreme skepticism assumes that; a) All truth is limited, approximate, and is constantly evolving b) No theory can ever be proved true (we can only show that a theory is false) c) No theory can ever explain all things d) Thus absolute and certain truth that explains all things is unobtainable.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Progress of Scientific Knowledge 1. Scientific progress is revolutionary rather than steady and cumulative. 2. Scientific change cannot be explained entirely as a rational process; sociology and psychology are needed to explain scientific change.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Progress of Scientific Knowledge 2 • For one thing, it shifted the focus from the context of justification to the context of discovery. • Science does not progress via a linear accumulation of new knowledge, but undergoes periodic revolutions, also called “ paradigm shift”
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Progress of Scientific Knowledge 3 • New theories have been developed which explain more things with less assumptions, and thus help to remove some of the earlier paradoxes and the proliferation of ad hoc solutions to emerging problems
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Paradigm • • • A mindset A formed opinion A way seeing the world A particular way of thinking A fixed pattern or model Your current viewpoint and process which your mind analyses information
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Paradigm • Intellectual perception or view, accepted by an individual or a society as a clear example, model, or pattern of how things work in the world. Thomas Kuhn (1922 -96) used first time in 'The Structure Of Scientific Revolution' to refer to theoretical frameworks within which all scientific thinking and practices operate. • Paradigm is just a common belief in a theory and its principles
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal People can have different view about same thing
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Scientific Paradigm • A scientific paradigm is a framework containing all of the commonly accepted views about a subject, a structure of what direction research should take and how it should be performed.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Problems for Kuhn • If the standards for judging scientific claims as true or false are internal to paradigms, then how may we say that one paradigm is “better” than another? • If we may not say that a new paradigm is “better” than the old one it replaces, then on what grounds may we say that scientific progress occurs across paradigms? • If science is not getting closer and closer to the “truth” about the physical universe, then why should we prefer it over “pseudoscience”?
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Ideology to science • Kuhn has been interested in shedding light on the historical process by which ideology can evolve into science, and on how the scientific explanations of one era (but not the facts unearthed by them) can become obsolete.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Example of paradigm • For example, an Oriental medical researcher, with a profound knowledge of eastern medicine, will inhabit a different paradigm than a purely western researcher.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Four basic ways in which a paradigm indirectly influences the scientific process A paradigm dictates: • What is studied and researched. • The type of questions that are asked. • The exact structure and nature of the questions • How the results of any research are interpreted
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal General Pattern of Scientific Change (according to Kuhn) • • • Pre-science Normal science Crisis New crisis Revolution New normal science New crisis New normal science Revolution Normal science Crisis
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal The revolutionary character of paradigm shifts and the cyclical nature of science (a schematization of Kuhn, 1970) • Preparadigm period – Contending Schools – Random fact gathering – No science • Normal Science – Science begins – One paradigm, no schools – Puzzle solving research • Anomaly • Crisis – – Insecurity Loosening of Paradigm restrictions Contending theories Emergence of new paradigm • Revolution – Younger scientists adhere to new paradigm – Some older scientists switch allegiance – (New paradigm replaces old, new phase of normal science begins) – Important insoluble problem – (Sometimes problem solved within paradigm or shelved) 19
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Pre-Science • “Pre-science”—disorganized and unstructured activity characterized by total disagreement and constant debate over fundamentals
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Normal Science – Puzzle Solving • “Normal science”—structured activity that is directed by a single paradigm, which is uncritically accepted by the (vast majority of the) scientific community
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Revolutionary science • During the period of normal science, the failure of a result to conform to the paradigm is seen not as refuting the paradigm, but as the mistake of the researcher. As anomalous results build up, science reaches a crisis, at which point a new paradigm, which subsumes the old results along with the anomalous results into one framework, is accepted. This is termed revolutionary science.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Anomaly • “Anomaly”—a “puzzle” that resists solution within the current paradigm
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Crisis • “Crisis”—occurs when anomalies become sufficiently numerous and serious to call the current paradigm into question.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Scientific revolution • A scientific revolution occurs, according to Kuhn, when scientists encounter anomalies that cannot be explained by the universally accepted paradigm within which scientific progress has thereto been made.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Revolution • “Revolution”—occurs when a crisis is resolved by the scientific community’s abandoning one paradigm and adopting another paradigm.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Incommensurability • According to Kuhn, competing paradigms are incommensurable • According to rival paradigms, the world is made up of different kinds of things • Rival paradigms regard different kinds of questions as legitimate, meaningful, and/or important • Old terms and concepts have different meanings and different relationships to each other in the new paradigm. • Proponents of different paradigms operate in different worlds.
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Paradigm shift cannot always be explained rationally • According to Kuhn, a “paradigm shift” is in some ways like a “Gestalt switch” or “religious conversion” and cannot be explained entirely on the basis of logic or rationality
Central Department of Public Administration (CDPA), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal Paradigm Shifts in Public Administration • Traditional –Bureaucracy • NPM • Public Value…
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