![]() We seem to lack new tools to account for these changes and to invent the future, especially in the age of the Anthropocene and the digital revolution. Concepts such as the state, power and identity have become inadequate to think our present. The post-2008 global financial crisis, the 2011 Arab Spring, the Occupy movement and the 2013 Edward Snowden controversy have challenged traditional political theories and categories. Benoît Dillet (Loughborough University, Politische Theorie), Junior Fellow "The Ontological Turn in Contemporary Political Theory" (1990-2015), November 19, 2015ĭr. In other words: Physics is paradigmatic for Kuhn's paradigm shifts. By understanding the conceptual changes associated with these revolutions in physics, we can therefore develop a deep intuition for Kuhn's concept of a paradigm shift in general. Being a physicist by training, Kuhn's paradigm shifts were inspired by and modelled on physics and its two major revolutions of the time: The replacements of Newtownian physics by special and general relativity, and of classical mechanics by quantum mechanics, respectively. His central notion is the paradigm shift, which is a very radical change in the whole structure of a scientific discipline. In his famous work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", the philosopher Thomas Kuhn tried to give a general account of how scientific knowledge develops (or possibly progresses?) over time. Stefan Buhmann (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Physik), Junior Fellow "Paradigm Shifts in Physics", November 5, 2015ĭr. In this Lunch Lecture series, FRIAS Fellows from the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural and life sciences address questions including the following: Which paradigm shift(s) has the relevant discipline experienced in the course of past 50 years? What was their nature, which basic assumptions did/do they challenge, which effects did/do they have? To what extent has technological progress, notably the digital revolution, contributed to that? Are paradigm shifts in the humanities and social sciences of a different nature than in the natural and life sciences? Can paradigm shifts involve scientific progress? To what extent can new paradigms incorporate elements of old paradigms? Furthermore, according to Kuhn, all sciences have been, and continue to be, subject to fundamental changes and re-evaluations, resulting in paradigm shifts which may ultimately trigger scientific revolutions. ![]() This involves such key issues of scientific research as defining the object or problem of investigation, the questions to be asked, predictions to be tested, methods to be used, results to be interpreted, etc. For him, a paradigm is not constituted primarily by theory, but defined by "universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners” ( The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 1962). ![]() A paradigm, according to the historian of science Thomas Kuhn, is a set of practices that defines a scientific discipline at any particular period of time.
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