Kuhn and the Discovery of Paradigms

In: Philosophy of the social sciences: an international journal = Philosophie des sciences sociales, Band 41, Heft 3, S. 380-397

Abstract

I present a history of Kuhn's discovery of paradigms, one that takes account of the complexity of the discovery process. Rather than emerging fully formed in Structure, the concept paradigm emerged through a series of phases. Early criticism of Structure revealed that the role of paradigms was unclear. It was only as Kuhn responded to criticism that he finally articulated a precise understanding of the concept paradigm. In a series of publications in the 1970s, he settled on a conception of a paradigm as a concrete exemplar that functions as a guide to future research.