KUNOVA FILOZOFIJA NAUKE RANOG I PRELAZNOG PERIODA: PARADIGME I NESAMERLJIVOST
KUHN’S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE OF EARLY AND TRANSITIONAL PERIOD: PARADIGMS AND INCOMMENSURABILITY

Summary/Abstract: Even though Thomas Kuhn was a physicist by formal education, he is better known for his achievements in philosophy of science than in science itself. He was primarily concerned with history of science and subjects such as development of science, growth of scientific knowledge, changes in science and others. In that sense Kuhn was focused on giving the correct description of scientific reality in human history, that is, on giving the description of the most relevant elements of scientific research. Kuhn claims that scientists base their research on paradigms which are the key factor in scientific practice overall. All other concepts of Kuhn’s philosophy – such as, for instance, normal science, revolutionary science, incommensurability of paradigms – gain their meaning in relation to the concept of a paradigm. However, the concept of a paradigm in its original definition was very problematic, which, later on, led Kuhn to make its meaning more precise. Hence, the task of this paper is to illuminate the nature of that central concept i.e. to determine the essential features of a paradigm in relation to the rest of the conceptual network of Kuhn’s theory, and therefore its role in science and in that conceptual network. At the same time, the meaning of all those elements of Kuhnian science which are in direct relation to the paradigm will be illuminated. I will restrict my research on early and transitional period of Kuhn’s creatorship, and I base this distinction on Sankey’s analysis. The difference between these two periods is determined by Kuhn’s thinking about the formulation of the thesis of incommensurability of paradigms. Accordingly, it is necessary to deal with definition of incommensurability, its division to types and Kuhn’s view on implications of incommensurability for science and its progress.

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