THOMAS KUHN'S THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS.

LISA J. ROBERTS [*]

In the preface to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn cites as unifying many of his studies a problem-structure and orientation including "the way in which the experimental bases of a new theory are accumulated and assimilated by men committed to an incompatible older theory" (SSR p.ix). [1] This phenomenon contributed greatly to the movement in Kuhn's career from physics, to historiography, to more philosophical issues concerning the nature of scientific development itself. As the result of his studies, Kuhn emphasized the role of community in scientific "development." He challenged the brick-to-building metaphor endorsed by normal science textbooks, suggesting instead that scientific progress occurs in the form of revolutions and does not follow an uninterrupted linear path, as traditional schoolbooks would lead us to believe. These scientific revolutions erupt not as the direct result of the emergence of new data, but only after a scientific community embraces a new model in place of an o ld one. Kuhn identified these "universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners," as "paradigms" (SSR p.x).

As the pool of scientific knowledge grows in quality as well as quantity, documenting who did what and when becomes more difficult beyond just recognizing and ordering the "scientific" aspects of what we have long since dismissed as myth or superstition. Historians attempting to refine our knowledge of scientific history encounter many problems as they evaluate past events based on current knowledge. Contemporary methods of historical research have given way to problems in categorizing inventions and discoveries, while they further call into question the concept of development-by-accumulation assigned to scientific process. The simple piling up of facts as a means of documenting scientific chronology ignores a very important factor in scientific progress -- the community of practitioners involved. Thus, Kuhn argued for a new method of historiography which addresses a theory of scientific revolutions.

Kuhn states clearly the fundamental objective of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as that of "urg[ing] a change in the perception and evaluation of familiar data" (pp.x-xi). He exemplifies his scientific paradigms by re-evaluating "normal science" -- particularly that of physics -- which he defines as "research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice" (p.10). Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions represents the "tradition-shattering complements to the tradition-bound activity of normal science" (p.6), namely the orientations which contribute to a community's acceptance or rejection of a new theory. Traditional historiography would have one believe that scientific progress relies on the discovery of facts, or of truth, and that any number of scientists presented with the same problem will obtain the same "factual" solution. Not so, said Kuhn. The proba bility of "accurate" research results may depend on the scientist's proper use of the scientific method, but it also depends on his social-scientific orientation: Does he define a swinging pendulum by the laws of gravity or by those of motion? Today, anyone with a basic knowledge of science would acknowledge both, but years ago one theory clashed incommensurably with the other. Thus, devotion to one paradigm or another involves more than empiricism; it depends on the community to which a practitioner belongs.

In Chapter I of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn overviews his theory of paradigms and offers a rationale for the remaining twelve sections of the book. Chapter II anticipates the inevitable role of incommensurability. In Chapters III, IV, and V, Kuhn expands upon the function of normal science and the "conceptual boxes" that accompany it. The elements of arbitrariness and anomaly comprise the next three chapters, followed by a discussion of the "nature" of scientific revolutions in IX and X. The final three chapters answer remaining questions by examining more closely the textbook tradition, the revolutionary competition between the old normal-scientific tradition and the new, and the compatibility of revolutionary development with the "apparently unique character of scientific progress" (SSR p.8). Why have revolutions remained so hard to see? How does competition affect rejection and adoption of theories? What characteristics of the scientific community make this possible? Kuhn's book addresses these large questions as his discussion moves away from articulation of his theory into practical issues surrounding it.

Kuhn deliberately defined "paradigm" in quite a number of ways, emphasizing the importance of both content and function. The contribution of knowledge to science loosely involves a new scientific theory ([paradigm.sub.1]), while the paradigm functions as a focal point for commitment and consensus ([paradigm.sub.2]) of the scientific community on what constitutes normal science. Kuhn points out that "scientists are the men who, successfully or not, have striven to contribute one or another element to that particular constellation" of "facts, theories, and methods collected in current texts" (SSR p.1). A paradigm offers model problems and model solutions to scientists, dependent upon which texts, schools, etc. contribute to their scientific background:

Observation and experience can and must drastically restrict the range of admissible scientific belief, else there would be no science. But they cannot alone determine a particular body of such belief. An apparently arbitrary element, compounded of personal and historical accident, is always a formative ingredient of the beliefs espoused by a given scientific community at a given time. (SSR p. 4.)

This "deep hold on the scientific mind" exerted by normal science education greatly influences the direction in which a scientist proceeds (p.5). It further affects the scientific process by presenting to the practitioner what Kuhn labels a "conceptual box," a map already drawn, into which he must delineate nature via research. [2] This at times subverts the discovery of even fundamental novelties, for researchers among a community want to fit empirical data into their current map of the world. When they find themselves incapable of doing this, an anomaly occurs, demanding a "shift of professional commitments" which results in a scientific revolution (SSR p.6). Drawing on such historical examples as the scientific paradigm shifts associated with Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier, and Einstein, Kuhn offered three clear characteristics of the scientific revolution: First, it requires the rejection of one long-held theory for another incompatible with it; second, it results in a shift in problems available for norma l scientific investigation and in standards for defining admissible problems and possible solutions; and third, it reconstructs the scientific imagination in a way that necessitates redefining the world itself in which science takes place (p.6).

Incommensurability plays a large role in scientific revolutions. Kuhn tells us in Chapter II that the study of paradigms "prepares the student for membership in the scientific community with which he will later practice. Because he there joins men who learned the bases of their field from the same concrete models, his subsequent practice will seldom evoke overt disagreement over fundamentals" (SSR p.11). Members of a shared paradigm use the same methods and standards for scientific practice, and normal science relies partially on this consensus. Paradigms permit the kind of esoteric study accomplished by normal science -- sometimes hindering its achievements because of the narrowing effect on a practitioner's performance, but often yielding a clarifying focus that a random starting point would not allow. As the fundamental unit for the student of science, the shared paradigm cannot divide into logical components that will work in its place. A student arrives in the lab less than free to consider new foundati ons based on unlimited options; the options that he does perceive extend from groundwork established by his community and often remain incommensurable with fundamentals held by another group of scientists studying the same problem.

Kuhn illustrated this point by examining the field of optics in its earliest days. Before Newton, the discipline's scientists had no basis of assumed facts -- no paradigm -- from which to extend their own work. Thus, each practitioner drew his own non-predetermined set of methods and the earliest writings on optics offered wildly differing and often rather unscientific theories. Not until after Newton's time did a community of scientists working on optics begin to develop and share a predetermined set of methods and phenomena.

In the absence of a paradigm, a scientist finds relevant all the facts associated with a given field. Therefore, initial fact-gathering in particular involves a very broad and largely random process. Furthermore, without a reason for developing a more precise form of working with information, the scientist finds himself restricted to the wealth of data at hand. Kuhn conceded the importance of this method of fact-collecting for the emergence of new sciences (people did not discover crafts like calendar making and metallurgy by accident), but he pejoratively labels the inevitable result a "morass" (p.16).

But from these quagmires seep the schools representing the early stages of a science. Soon a theoretical and methodological base develops for selecting, evaluating, and articulating information. Initial quarrels about fundamentals disappear as practitioners focus on a clear set of information and reject the rest. Here lies the line of incommensurability -- that where communities meet but cannot agree. Camps do not reach this point easily, however; members follow a rigorous process of investigation which focuses on three specific points. First, scientists continually strive for higher levels of precision of measurement concerning data relevant to their studies. They create special apparatus and devote much time solely to this purpose. Second, they attempt to find agreement between raw data and theory through repeated experimental work. This work relies heavily upon a paradigm, for it defines the problem to begin with. Third, experimenters undertake further empirical work in order to articulate the theory, cla rify remaining incertitudes, and solve problems previously only pointed out by the problem at large (SSR pp.25-27). These three categories nearly exhaust the theoretical as well as empirical literature of normal science -- indeed they offer a concise definition of the process of normal science itself. When work falls to fall into the categories of determining fact, matching it with theory, and articulating that theory, normal science ceases. This sets the stage for a revolution.

But much occurs before this. When a scientist can take a paradigm for granted, he no longer must justify the phenomena surrounding his particular interest. His work becomes more focused and esoteric. Members form societies, publish specialized journals, and take on a level of importance in the curriculum. Those unwilling to support the paradigm must work independently or find another community.

Paradigms accumulate status because they outdo competitors in solving problems, but their success does not depend on completely resolving a set of issues. Rather, it depends as much on a promise of progress through selection, evaluation, and clarifying criticism. Kuhn likened this process to that of solving a puzzle, and he applied the various standard meanings of the puzzle-solving process to the function of paradigms. Puzzle-solving tests ingenuity and skill in unraveling a problem, which in turn implies an eventual solution. While practitioners take for granted the established paradigm, they also assume the existence of a solution. Desire to find this solution drives them, for scientists choose problems which remain unsolved only due to their own lack of ingenuity. The puzzle-solving analogy further implies the use of rules, which Kuhn equates with "established viewpoint" or "preconception" (SSR p.39). These rules limit both the processes and the solutions, but they do not, however, precede the paradigm i tself. As Kuhn notes, "Scientists can [ldots] agree in their identification of a paradigm without agreeing on, or even attempting to produce, a full interpretation or rationalization of it" (p.44, author's emphasis). In other words, paradigms could direct normal science without the intervention of rules, as long as the community accepts without question the solutions already achieved. These "established viewpoints" or "preconceptions" of normal science fall into four categories -- conceptual, theoretical, instrumental, and methodological, the last of which Kuhn found indispensable to the science profession because it implies a concern to increase the order of the world through scrutiny and improvement of theories (p.42). The scientist may personally feel the immediate challenge of the puzzle, but a larger goal involves a sense of benevolence toward his community and a need for higher order in nature. If a scientist questions without resolve the viewpoints established thus far, he will eventually abandon the f ailed paradigm in order to adopt one more promising of success.

When, according to the paradigmatic expectations governing normal science, a break in the order of nature does occur, the community finds itself facing an anomaly. Normal science does not search for anomalies of fact (discovery) or of theory (invention) and, when successful, encounters none; in fact, an anomaly represents a phenomenon for which the paradigm does not prepare the investigator. But when a new phenomenon does arise, members of a community must assimilate it so as to predict it as one of the expected. Does the process of assimilation change the paradigm? Yes, Kuhn said, for scientists adjust conceptual categories to accommodate the discovery or theory. They do this only after great resistance, however, encountering much friction between expectation and novelty. As a paradigm matures, it restricts the scientist's vision while at the same time strengthening his resistance to change, which, ironically, increases the chances of an anomaly occurring. Anomaly arises only from a foundation provided by a paradigm. The more elaborate a paradigm becomes, the more sensitive to error between fact and theory and thus the greater likelihood it will identify novelty. A scientist will then put up a great fight for the current paradigm, surrendering only when he sees no remaining possibility of fitting the anomaly onto his current map. This ensures that the novelty will not impulsively (and wrongly) affect a road or two, but, if not resolved, will rightly justify rethinking the entire layout. Nevertheless, if the scientist comes to fear the need of an entirely new key to his map -- an entirely new theory altogether -- crisis ensues.

The invention of new theories, like discoveries, proves both destructive and constructive. After the assimilation of a discovery, a community has a deeper understanding of the phenomena at hand, but usually only after discarding some information previously held as fact. The same process occurs with novel theories. Awareness of an anomaly precedes all acceptable changes in theory; yet, on a scale more intense than that often associated with discovery, the community enters a period of "pronounced professional insecurity" precipitated by repeated failure of pieces to fit the puzzle (SSR pp.67-68). The novel theory responds directly to crisis. Much time often passes from the first awareness of anomaly -- or even the partial anticipation of a solution beforehand -- to the occurrence of a revolution, and a crisis always precedes this change.

"The significance of crises is the indication they provide that an occasion for retooling has arrived," Kuhn states (SSR p.76). All crises begin with the obscuring of a paradigm and the successive loosening of the rules for normal research. "The proliferation of competing articulations, the willingness to try anything, the expression of explicit discontent, [and] the recourse to philosophy and to debate over fundamentals" all typify the transition from normal to extraordinary research (p.91). Normal science becomes extraordinary as the community deems the crisis more than just another puzzle. It gains more and more interest among scientists, sometimes becoming the center of study. At this point, research takes on the characteristics of the pre-paradigm period, as scientists resist the anomaly by restating their paradigm and reaching for ad hoc explanations. "It is a poor carpenter who blames his tools," Kuhn analogizes (p.80), and likewise a community cannot blame the paradigm for failing but rather themselv es; indeed, failure to find a solution discredits the scientist, not the theory. From any perspective of normal science, one might find a counter-instance which suits entirely another perspective. Normal science exists because of these counter-instances, and no paradigm ever completely solves all of its problems. But when a crisis does come to an end, it follows one of three paths identified by Kuhn: Sometimes the community handles the crisis-provoking problem and maintains its paradigm. On other occasions, scientists write off the crisis as insoluble at the present state of research, and they put it aside for future query. Or, as in most cases, a new paradigm emerges and communities battle over its acceptance. For a time, both paradigms will offer solutions to the same problem, but at the end of this transition, the field will have a new set of fundamentals, having changed its overall perspective, methods, and goals.

Kuhn likened this process to a gestalt switch, in which a set of marks on paper suddenly looks, for example, like a bird and not an antelope (SSR p.85). A community finding itself discarding one paradigm will at the same time adopt another, switching at once its view of the world. Kuhn did warn of the incomplete nature of this analogy, however, for the process of the fundamental paradigm shift does not share other characteristics of the gestalt switch. Scientists do not see nature as something; they simply see it. Also, the random reversals between or among images common to the gestalt switch do not occur in normal science. The new paradigm, or a hint of it, emerges "all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply immersed in crisis" (p.90), and it comes after much resistance and ponderance, not likely to flee once again out of view. In this sense the gestalt switch, for the community of practitioners, happens once and only once between two possible paradigms, and if the new pa radigm survives the battle with the old, the resulting conversion marks the scientific revolution.

Why did Kuhn label this change of paradigm a "revolution"? He offers a lengthy discussion in Chapters IX and X concerning the essence of this phenomenon, explaining what he sees as a necessity of both science and nature. How does a scientific revolution parallel a political one? Clearly, in both political and scientific development, the sense of malfunction possibly leading to crisis necessarily precedes a revolution. This malfunction arises from a growing sense "that existing institutions have ceased adequately to meet the problems posed by an environment that they have in part created" (SSR p.92), or, that a paradigm ceases to provide a small group of scientists with answers concerning an aspect of nature that it previously revealed. Also, scientific revolutions, like political ones, only seem revolutionary to those whose paradigms it affects. Kuhn emphasizes even further a third point: like the choice between political camps at odds, that choice between competing paradigms represents a choice between "inc ompatible modes of community life" (p.94). The success of a revolution relies on the partial or complete overthrow of fundamentals. During this period, community members function without order until they commit themselves to restoring it in the form of a new paradigm. As groups become polarized in supporting the old or the new, scientific recourse fails, for each camp uses its own paradigm to defend itself, denying the process of normal science in evaluating the data at hand. Thus, the factor of persuasion takes on importance as logic alone cannot determine the acceptance of one paradigm or another. The group most capable of persuading members to join takes over as the new paradigm.

The differences between successive paradigms remain both necessary and irreconcilable. In substance, paradigms give us new information concerning the world and its behavior. But the character of paradigms provides that they also reflect upon the science they define, sometimes demanding a larger redefinition. This redefinition, a transformation through development of new fundamental standards and procedures, renders the new paradigm not only incompatible but indeed incommensurable with the discarded one. Likewise, two communities in debate over their paradigms will talk at and through one another, but not to one another in the way of sharing information and increasing overall understanding. Questions concerning values, the definition of data, and measurement convolute the debate process and, as noted earlier, camps must look outside of normal science altogether for resolutions.

"Though the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the scientist afterward works in a different world," Kuhn asserts (SSR p.121). He has thus far established that paradigms constitute science, and he suggests that they metaphysically define nature as well. The environment and the specific normal science tradition together determine the way students of that tradition see the world. The interpretation of data remains central to a given paradigm, but such interpretations can only articulate a paradigm, not correct it. Scientists rely primarily upon their senses -- upon empirical data -- for information about the world, and when new data do not fit the current paradigm, they develop extraordinary science, and a new paradigm emerges to accommodate the current view of the terrain. Although the world itself does not change, i.e., the chemical and biological makeup of our surroundings remains the same, the organized nature of paradigms leads scientists to see the world differently after a major shift.

Thus, science does not fit the ideal image of cumulativeness conventionally ascribed to it. Although normal research does accumulate knowledge, it does so only as it remains normal and relies on scientists choosing problems the solutions of which they find at least somewhat visible in their current maps. Unexpected novelty arises only in the event that a community wrongly anticipates nature, and that community therefore makes discoveries in no other effective manner. Kuhn applied the same principle to theories, identifying three categories of phenomena leading to such: those already explained by paradigms, those suggested by existing paradigms but in need of clarification, and those stubbornly refusing to fit the current map whatsoever (SSR p.97). Thus he asserted the need for paradigms in defining all phenomena -- either as accepted theory or as anomaly -- in the world of normal science.

In light of the imperative nature of scientific revolutions, why, then, do they remain so difficult to recognize? Kuhn attributes this invisibility to an "authoritative source that systematically disguises -- partly for important functional reasons -- the existence and significance of scientific revolutions" (SSR p.136). Typical genres of scientific literature, including textbooks, pamphlets, and philosophies of science, all record the final outcome of revolutions and therefore display only the fundamentals of the current normal tradition. Because of the reliance upon textbooks as the primary source of knowledge for both members and nonmembers of the normal scientific discipline, the occurrence of revolutions necessitates their rewriting. A change in puzzle-solving structure, standards, or taxonomy requires a change in pedagogy, for it emphasizes normal-scientific advancement rather than historiography. But once rewritten, these textbooks conceal the very existence of revolutions as well as the role they play . "Unless he has personally experienced a revolution in his own lifetime," Kuhn warns, "the historical sense either of the working scientist or of the lay reader of textbook literature extends only to the outcome of the most recent revolutions in the field" (p.137). Textbooks usually contain little more than a negligible amount of history, creating rather a false image of unbroken linear progress and tradition. The scientists who do receive recognition come from a group whose work apparently contributes directly to the text's paradigms. These texts, through comparing the tradition of normal science to the process of adding bricks to a building, imply that scientists have asked the same questions and worked toward the same puzzle solutions and theories since the preparadigm stages of the discipline. But past scientists had their own problems, and their own tools and standards for measuring and analyzing them. As discussed earlier, the emergence of a paradigm involves a community re-seeing the world, and likewi se the earlier communities of scientists saw a different world -- as defined by their knowledge at that time -- than we see now.

How did such paradigms come to succeed their predecessors? Logical positivism cannot alone determine the viability of one paradigm over another, so how does a community of rational scientists go about persuading others to support its paradigm? How does the paradigm gain enough supporters to even initiate a community? Kuhn tells us that two circumstances affect the initial acceptance of a candidate for paradigm as the pioneering practitioners give it support. First, these few individuals have devoted much time to the problem which causes the crisis; and second, as novices "so young or so new to the crisis-ridden field that practice has committed them less deeply than most of their contemporaries to the world view and rules determined by the old paradigm," these neophyte contemporaries in the community find it easier to abandon tradition for what appears more accurate and aesthetic (SSR p.144.). Kuhn found particularly that young males involved in the various normal science disciplines characteristically lead scientific revolutions.

After one or two practitioners pronounce a challenging paradigm, how do they convince others to convert? The scientist to whom the gestalt switch occurs in the middle of the night shares the epiphany with his closest cohorts, and they begin testing the new paradigm against the current one, but how do they convince others? Testing of paradigms themselves comes about only after the testing of a problem leads to crisis rather than solution, and the crisis facilitates a new paradigm candidate. In testing the given paradigms, scientists do not look for absolute solutions, for no theory can solve a puzzle completely. Rather, experimenters look for promise of success through "probabilistic verification" and "falsification" (SSR p.145). They attempt to verify which theory fits the facts better -- which has the higher probability of future as well as past success. Or in emphasizing falsification, a negative outcome results in the rejection of one paradigm, which in turn requires finding a new one to take its place.

But how does one determine future promise of a paradigm? Likewise, how does one camp determine the present validity of another's paradigm? The rule of incommensurability makes this issue even harder to articulate. Incommensurability blocks the sensible pathway of seeking out the "best" paradigm, for the communities in effect speak different languages incapable of translation. Different camps maintain contrasting sets of scientific problems, diverse views of the world, and differing standards for measurement, complicating the role of logic in resolving revolutions. Competitors will remain at cross-purposes on non-empirical issues, granting no chance for legitimacy to one another's theories. Further, within' each new paradigm, terms and concepts shift in relation to one another. Any outsider, not understanding the new alignment of facts and ideas, will entirely misunderstand explanations coming from that particular camp. A third important type of incommensurability involves the differing worlds among which com munities of practitioners do their work. All scientists follow the same normal scientific process in collecting and evaluating data, etc., but communities working in varying paradigms hold dissimilar fundamentals concerning the very tradition of science itself, from its past accomplishments to the philosophies determining its future.

The eventual transposition between incommensurables must happen all at once, like the gestalt switch. One set of practitioners cannot force this conversion on another; nor, as already discussed, can they rely on logic. Kuhn says,

In short, if a new candidate for paradigm had to be judged from the start by hard-headed people who examined only relative problem-solving ability, the sciences would experience very few major revolutions. Add the counter arguments generated by what we previously called the incommensurability of paradigms, and the sciences might experience no revolutions at all. (SSR p.157)

In addition to arguing a paradigm's ability to solve problems, a group of proponents will often imply its abstract measures of appropriateness or aestheticism, making subjective appeals based largely on intuitive faith in the paradigm's potential. The argument ostensibly over relative problem-solving ability actually concerns future promise of a paradigm. Kuhn saw this as the main -- though often implicit -- function of paradigm debates. Experts choose among alternate ways of practicing normal science, and eventually one paradigm gains enough members to stimulate extensive experiments, stronger arguments, and conclusive literature in support of its theories, resulting in the "increasing shift in the distribution of professional allegiances" (p.158).

Kuhn's final chapter offers an alternative to the traditional explanation concerning scientific progress. Having denounced the linear brick-to-building metaphor, he proposed a new articulation of the scientific imperative. On a semantic level, Kuhn pointed out, the term "science" delineates fields that do involve progress. But how does one define "scientific progress"? The field does not expand in breadth as it does in depth. It loses ground, perhaps, in the narrowing of scope and development of esoteric taxonomies. Nonetheless, it always emphasizes process, choice, and the normal scientific community. As discussed earlier, textbooks serve to simplify the historical perspective of normal science by smoothing the terrain of discoveries and theory inventions, and they further contribute a second phenomenon to normal science with which Kuhn disagreed: Traditionally, both scientific and lay persons perceive evolution as a process of humans having arrived from some primitive place in order to continue moving on t o a quite different and highly understood place, and science textbooks support this concept. How, after all, could scientists discuss evolution, progress, and development without a future goal? Kuhn, in agreement with Charles Darwin, suggested that evolution, or progress, does involve an arrival at such point in time but does not imply a final destiny. In comparing the evolution of science to that of organisms, Kuhn endorsed the process of "evolution-from-what-we-do-know" rather than "evolution-toward-what-we-wish-to-know" (SSR p.171). On a practical level, scientific revolutions remain indispensable and will continue as scientific communities continue to solve the puzzles at hand.

In 1969, seven years after publishing the first edition The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn added a postscript to the second edition in order to respond to both positive and negative commentary generated to that point. A substantive contribution, the postscript contains a structured elaboration of terms and ideas, particularly of the word "paradigm" itself. Kuhn clarifies its double role as "the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community" ([paradigm.sub.1]) and also as "one sort of element in that constellation, the concrete puzzle-solutions which, employed as models or examples, can replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science" ([paradigm.sub.2]) (SSR p.175). This clarification agrees with his prior designation of both content and function, or theory and commitment, as important to the concept of paradigm.

Notably, Kuhn closed his postscript by responding in brief to various suggestions that his theory suits disciplines outside normal science. Although not entirely in agreement due to his various articulations of the unique nature of the normal science process itself, Kuhn did concede the transferability of the "succession of tradition-bound periods punctuated by non-cumulative breaks" to other fields (SSR p.208). "Periodization in terms of revolutionary breaks in style, taste, and institutional structure have [sic] been among their standard tools," he notes, adding further that "notorious difficulties surrounding the notion of style in the arts may vanish if paintings can be seen as modeled on one another rather than produced in conformity to some abstracted canons of style" (pp.208-209). Thus, one might also pattern a non-normal-scientific study not only on exemplary shifts among periods, but also on the practicality of using model problems for model solutions.

(*.) Lisa Roberts completed her MA in Composition and Rhetoric at South Dakota State University in 1998. She teaches writing (including general semantics) at SDSU in Brookings, SD and at Southeast Technical Institute in Sioux Falls, SD. Her other continuing interests are media studies and science fiction. Reprinted from E-Prime, [Sigma]EOS, and the General Semantics Paradigm: Revolution, Devolution, or Evolution? published by the International Society for General Semantics, Concord, California, 1999.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1.) All citations in this chapter refer to Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1996. (This abbreviates to SSR for in-text citations.)

(2.) Circa 1957, Kuhn used the pronoun he, following the paradigmatically conventional disregard for gender inclusion in the rhetoric of science.

A forthcoming ETC will feature a Symposium addressing controversial aspects of Lisa Roberts' monograph, E-Prime, [Sigma]EOS, and the General Semantics Paradigm: Revolution, Devolution, or Evolution?, in which the author employs Kuhn's theory to analyze changes in the general semantics paradigm.