PARADIGMS REVISITED: TOWARDS A PRACTICE-BASED APPROACH
PARADIGMS REVISITED: TOWARDS A PRACTICE-BASED APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: The concept of “paradigm” is among the most influential philosophical ideas of the 20th century. However, as ideas disseminate across disciplinary borders, they lose some of their original sense by a selective reading. Returning to the original works of Thomas S. Kuhn, I argue for a practice-based account that shifts emphasis from the “believing in” to the “doing of” paradigms. In this widely neglected view, paradigms are shared examples of successful research work emanating from past achievements. This practice-based understanding of paradigms becomes most apparent in elementary features of the entry into, execution of and exit from paradigm-bound science. Science-as-practice is an integrative account that bridges the divide of cognitive and social dimensions of science and provides an empirical approach to paradigms.

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