4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 105
b. A situation in which scientists take the foundations of their field for granted a situation which typically occurs some time later, in the mature stages of a
discipline’s growth Kuhn 1996
:178. In the earlier phase, theoreticians are wrestling with epistemological questions and
striving to define their ontology. In the later phase, they are content to work within a defined ontology and may appeal to that ontology as a means of delimiting their inquiry.
Kuhn elaborates:
The nature of that transition to maturity deserves fuller discussion than it has received in this book [
1962 text], particularly from those concerned with the development of the contem-
porary social sciences. To that end it may help to point out that the transition need not I now think should not be associated with the first acquisition of a paradigm. The members of all
scientific communities, including the schools of the “pre-paradigm” period, share the sorts of elements which I have collectively labeled ‘a paradigm.’ What changes with the transition to
maturity is not the presence of a paradigm but rather its nature.
Only after the change is normal puzzle-solving research possible. Many of the attributes of a developed science which
I have above associated with the acquisition of a paradigm I would therefore now discuss as consequences of the acquisition of the sort of paradigm that identifies challenging puzzles,
supplies clues to their solution, and guarantees that the truly clever practitioner will succeed. Only those who have taken courage from observing that their own field or school has
paradigms are likely to feel that something important is sacrificed by the change.
Kuhn 1996
:179; italics added
Related to Kuhn’s early dichotomy of ‘immature’ and ‘mature’ disciplines was an implicit dichotomization of ‘sciences’ and ‘non-sciences’
1969 ;
1996 :209. Kuhn has
not suggested that the ‘non-sciences’ have no paradigms. Rather, he has suggested that ‘mature sciences’ e.g., physics, astronomy tend to be unified around a single paradigm,
whereas apparently mature ‘non-sciences’ e.g., art, music do not seem to exhibit that same level of unity. While not a crucial point in his theory, the simplistic dichotomization
of ‘sciences’ and ‘non-sciences’ has drawn considerable criticism, particularly from within the social sciences e.g., history, political science, and, as will be discussed,
linguistics.
4.1.8. ‘Revolution’ and the ‘incommensurability hypothesis’
Kuhn explains that disciplines in a mature state engage in what he calls normal science. This is a situation where the practitioners know how to go about the business of
their research and are involved in normal problem solving. They are generally content with the tools their paradigm supplies, and as Kuhn explains, “So long as the tools a
paradigm supplies continue to prove capable of solving the problems it defines, science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply through confident employment of those tools”
1996 :76.
Eventually researchers begin hitting upon more and more areas which prove anomalous for their paradigm. Of researchers in the normal science phase, he states,
“Though they may begin to lose faith and then to consider alternatives, they do not renounce the paradigm that has led them into crisis. They do not, that is, treat anomalies
106 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
as counter-instances, though in the vocabulary of philosophy of science that is what they are”
Kuhn 1996 :77. Kuhn explains that “once it has achieved the status of paradigm
[i.e., a canonical position within the disciplinary matrix], a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternative candidate is available to take its place”
1996 :77.
56
How scientists handle crises in their paradigms is, of course, a significant issue. The standard view of falsification suggests that scientists simply compare the accounts
provided by the theories in their disciplinary matrix to the reality of the natural world. If the two do not match, then they develop a new theory.
Kuhn argues that a study of the history of science should require us to reject such a simplistic description of the process. He argues that scientists engaged in normal science
will not immediately abandon their theories in the face of anomalies, but rather “will devise numerous articulations and ad hoc modifications of their theory in order to
eliminate any apparent conflict”
1996 :78. Kuhn likens the process of normal science to
that of playing chess:
In so far as he is engaged in normal science, the research worker is a solver of puzzles, not a tester of paradigms. Though he may, during the search for a particular puzzle’s solution, try
out a number of alternative approaches, rejecting those that fail to yield the desired result, he is not testing the paradigm when he does so. Instead he is like the chess player who, with a
problem stated and the board physically or mentally before him, tries out various alternative moves in the search for a solution. These trial attempts, whether by the chess player or by the
scientist, are trials only of themselves, not of the rules of the game. They are possible only so long as the paradigm itself is taken for granted. Therefore, paradigm-testing occurs only after
persistent failure to solve a noteworthy puzzle has given rise to crisis.
Kuhn 1996 :144–145;
italics in original
A crisis can be created in numerous ways: the advent of new discoveries, advance- ments in technology, or through the simple cumulative weight of anomalies. Whatever
the cause, dissatisfaction builds. Sometimes the crisis is felt in the community as a whole and sometimes only within subgroups, but the crisis creates a special situation. If during
this time a new theory is proposed which serves to re-characterize the subject and manner of study, scientists may begin to change allegiance, abandoning the earlier paradigm and
building a new one around the new theory. Kuhn emphasizes that there is no intermediate stage wherein scientists have abandoned an earlier paradigm and entered a paradigm-free
or neutral state. As he explains, “The decision to reject one paradigm is always simul- taneously the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision
involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other”
Kuhn 1996
:77.
57
56
Readers should note that this quotation is from the 1962
section of Structure, in which Kuhn also used the term paradigm in referring to what he later
1970 identified as the disciplinary matrix.
57
Caution is warranted here, for it appears that Kuhn is contradicting himself, suggesting that in such a situation paradigms are commensurable. Kuhn has not suggested that the practitioners may never consider alternative
paradigms. Rather, he is pointing out that there is seldom, if ever, a neutral position from which one may make such comparisons.
4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 107
This change of allegiance is a process Kuhn calls scientific revolution. It has since become additionally known as the process of paradigm shift. Again, it is not simply a
matter of adjusting one’s perspective, as is done during normal science. It is better viewed as a matter of gestalt switch—in a relative instant the scientist finds himself or
herself considering the world of inquiry in a new and different way. This, of course, refers to a shift in the conceptual framework of the individual, but when this sort of shift
occurs in the framework used by several individuals in a community, it thereby assumes a social dimension as well.
58
In discussing the gestaltic nature of such changes in conceptual commitments, Kuhn writes:
Looking at the moon, the convert to Copernicanism does not say, “I used to see a planet, but now I see a satellite.” That locution would imply a sense in which the Ptolemaic system had
once been correct. Instead, a convert to the new astronomy says, “I once took the moon to be or saw the moon as a planet, but I was mistaken.”
Kuhn 1996 :115
Understandably, this period of revolution can create a most interesting social and intellectual environment, for scientists who previously shared a perspective are no longer
seeing the world through the same lenses. The manner in which scientists evaluate para- digms is a source of much debate in the philosophy of science. The present discussion
will not attempt to summarize that debate. However, it is important to point out that the process is the basis of Kuhn’s incommensurability hypothesis.
59
Kuhn argues that, even if an observer could gain a neutral position, it would be difficult and rarely productive to compare paradigms, for they stem from differing
underlying presuppositions about the subject of inquiry and sometimes the method of science itself
1996 :147–150, 198–204. When the differing paradigms represent the
effect of scientific revolution, resistance is expected, for as Kuhn expresses it, “what were ducks in the scientist’s world before the revolution are rabbits afterward”
1996 :111. Even though the languages of competing paradigms may sound similar, the
proponents intend different things through their use 1996
:149. Kuhn suggests that, instead of debate, the participants in such communication breakdown can, at best,
“recognize each other as members of different language communities and then become translators”
1996 :202. It should be noted, however, that in Kuhn’s view, incom-
mensurability prevents the process of translation from ever yielding complete communication. Nevertheless, by approximating such communication, and repeating the
effort in various ways, the members of various communities may help to bring about a gestalt-switch experience see
Borradori 1994 :161–165.
60
He writes:
58
In the foreword to Hoyningen-Huene 1993
:xii–xiii, Kuhn comments on the individual nature of group gestalt switch, stating: “Groups do not have experiences except insofar as all their members do”
Kuhn 1993 :xiii.
59
Incommensurable: “not commensurable: … lacking a basis of comparison in respect to a quality normally subject to comparison”
Mish 1983 . Commensurable: “having a common measure: … divisible by a common unit an integral
number of times” Mish 1983
.
60
Borradori 1994
is an introduction to various philosophers. Chapter nine includes an interview with Kuhn.
108 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
To translate a theory or worldview into one’s own language is not to make it one’s own. For that one must go native, discover that one is thinking and working in, not simply translating
out of, a language that was previously foreign. That transition is not, however, one that an individual may make or refrain from making by deliberation and choice, however good his
reasons for wishing to do so. Instead, at some point in the process of learning to translate, he finds that the transition has occurred, that he has slipped into the new language without a
decision having been made. Or else, like many of those who first encountered, say, relativity or quantum mechanics in their middle years, he finds himself fully persuaded of the new view
but nevertheless unable to internalize it and be at home in the world it helps to shape. Intel- lectually such a man has made his choice, but the conversion required if it is to be effective
eludes him. … for he lacks the constellation of mental sets which future members of the community will acquire through education.
Kuhn 1996 :204
Of the process of paradigm evaluation and its relationship to the incommensurability problem, Kuhn writes:
It makes a great deal of sense to ask which of two actual and competing theories fits the facts better. … This formulation, however, makes the task of choosing between paradigms
look both easier and more familiar than it is. If there were but one set of scientific problems, one world within which to work on them, and one set of standards for their solution, paradigm
competition might be settled more or less routinely by some process like counting the number of problems solved by each. But, in fact, these conditions are never met completely. The
proponents of competing paradigms are always at least slightly at cross-purposes. Neither side will grant all the non-empirical assumptions that the other needs in order to make its case. …
they are bound partly to talk through each other. Though each may hope to convert the other to his way of seeing his science and its problems, neither may hope to prove his case. The
competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs.
Kuhn 1996
:147–148
4.1.9. The conceptual arrangement of paradigms
