4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 95
In 1996, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was republished in a third edition, which, apart from the addition of an index, includes no changes from the 1970 volume.
51
If the present discussion of the code model is to benefit from use of Kuhn’s theory, an effort must be made to untangle both the theory and certain criticisms. Several authors
provide discussion and bibliographical listings of debate over Kuhn’s theory Burrichter
1979 ;
Gutting 1980 ;
Hacking 1981 ;
Hoyningen-Huene 1993 ;
Kisiel and Johnson 1974 ;
Laudan 1984 ;
Laudan, Donovan, Laudan, Parker, Brown, Leplin, Thagard, and Wykstra 1986
; Spiegel-Rösing 1973
; and Stegmüller 1973
. No attempt will be made here to re- view the breadth of that literature. Rather, attention is given to how the theory fits within
this study, as well as addressing how various linguists have responded to Kuhn. Since
linguists have not displayed agreement regarding how, or even if, Kuhn’s theory provides a satisfactory account for the history of their discipline, that question is addressed in this
section. In particular, the study builds upon four main components of Kuhn’s theory:
•
Kuhn’s two major senses of ‘paradigm’, shared examples and constellation of group commitments.
•
Kuhn’s idea of a disciplinary life-cycle, as regards immaturity and maturity, and the role of a paradigm within that cycle
•
Kuhn’s ideas regarding contrasts between the phases of normal science and revolutionary science
•
Kuhn’s idea of incommensurability, particularly as it applies to the pre- and post- revolution paradigm communities
Each of these four components will be summarized, followed by discussion of linguists’ responses and the significance each component has for the present study. The
study now turns to a review of Kuhn’s theory.
4.1.1. Kuhn’s ‘paradigms’
As mentioned previously, the term paradigm was already used in English prior to Kuhn’s selecting it for his purposes. In Saussurean structuralism, the term was applied to
relationships between signs. In other disciplines, the term had been used more generally, in referring to examples or patterns, especially “an outstanding clear or typical example
or archetype”
Mish 1983 . Of course Kuhn was well aware of these common and well-
established senses. Indeed, it was this second sense, regarding examples or archetypes, which he intended to evoke in developing the term. He quickly broadened his use of the
term, however, so that it referred not only to examples or ‘problem-solutions’, as he came to express it, but also to various other elements in the practice of science.
Unfortunately, Kuhn was not consistent in how he used the term, and that inconsistency
51
For convenience, parenthetical references to Kuhn in this study will refer to the 1996
edition. Readers will find that references and quotations are easily cross-referenced to the
1962 and
1970 texts. Where relevant or needed for
clarification, material from the Postscript section is identified accordingly.
96 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
led to much confusion among his readers. A brief review of the senses in which Kuhn used the term helps to untangle the theory.
Within that review, perhaps the most notable point of confusion stems from the fact that, in the
1962 text, Kuhn did not adequately distinguish the terms ‘paradigm’ and
‘theory’. Undoubtedly, many readers continue to struggle with this ambiguity. In some places, Kuhn used the terms interchangeably, while in others he seemed to suggest a
hierarchical or evolutionary relationship between the two. For example, he writes, “once it has achieved the status of paradigm, a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an
alternative candidate is available to take its place”
1996 :77. In other places he sug-
gested that paradigm and theory were somehow independent: “The paradigm applications of the caloric theory …” 1996:29. And still other places he uses them in such a way as
to make them nearly inseparable: “The existence of the paradigm sets the problem to be solved; often the paradigm theory is implicated directly in the design of apparatus able to
solve the problem”
1996 :27; italics added.
Kuhn would later distinguish the terms paradigm and theory, as will be discussed, but he did not adequately address more abstract uses of the term paradigm, such as its
occasional synonymy with ‘metatheory’ and what might be called disciplinary world- view. This is in spite of the fact that he devotes an entire chapter of Structure to
discussing “Revolutions as Changes in World View”
1996 : chapter 10. In part, the
concepts of theory and metatheory were simply subsumed under the idea of group commitment
and disciplinary matrix, terms coined in the 1970 Postscript to help alleviate earlier confusion surrounding the term paradigm.
In the Postscript, Kuhn elected to keep the term paradigm, but he delimited the definition somewhat, so that it included two main senses. The primary sense was that of
shared examples which he sometimes calls puzzle-solutions, a sense which built upon
the original sense of the term as borrowed from common usage. The secondary sense referred to the body or constellation of group commitments held by a community of
scientists. These commitments were in regard to the presuppositions, philosophy, and manner of “doing” the particular science. In the Postscript, he writes:
In much of the book [the 1962
text] the term ‘paradigm’ is used in two different senses. On the one hand, it stands for the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on
shared by the members of a given community. On the other, it denotes one sort of element in that constellation, the concrete puzzle-solutions which, employed as models or examples, can
replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science. … Philosophically, at least, this second sense of ‘paradigm’ is the deeper of the two, and the
claims I have made in its name are the main sources for the controversies and misunder- standings that the book has evoked, particularly for the charge that I make of science a
subjective and irrational enterprise.
Kuhn 1996 :175
Also in the Postscript, he writes, “The paradigm as shared example is the central element of what I now take to be the most novel and least understood aspect of this book”
Kuhn 1996 :187.
4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 97
The notion of group commitment gave rise to the term disciplinary matrix. As Kuhn sees it, groups are committed to something. While he had previously used the term
paradigm in referring to both commitments and the objects of those commitments, in the 1970 Postscript he elected to isolate the objects, grouping them under the neologism
disciplinary matrix.
He writes: “All or most of the objects of group commitment that my original text makes paradigms, parts of paradigms, or paradigmatic are constituents of the
disciplinary matrix ….” Kuhn 1996
:182. As with his other terminology, Kuhn was to be inconsistent with this term as well. Hoyningen-Huene points out that he later abandoned
even his use of the term disciplinary matrix, reverting to use of the commonly understood term theory
Hoyningen-Huene 1993 :142–143. He had alluded to the common use of
the term theory in 1970, but at that time expressed dissatisfaction for how the term is often employed
1996 :182. Following 1970, the term disciplinary matrix no longer
appears in his writings. The literature addressing Kuhn suggests that many critics overlook Kuhn’s later
1970 clarification and delimitation regarding the senses of paradigm, presumably
because that clarification was relegated to the Postscript. Even for readers who have incorporated the Postscript material into their understanding of Kuhn’s theory, the fact
that he used the term paradigm in reference to a constellation of commitments as well as in reference to shared examples or problem-solutions proves problematic. The problem
lies in the fact that the single term paradigm is being used to refer to two different levels in the abstract structure of a science.
As mentioned, when originally creating a niche for the term paradigm within the philosophy of science, Kuhn was attempting to highlight the significance of shared exam-
ples and problem-solutions, as he came to call them 1996
:187. It became his infamous habit to extend that term to increasingly complex levels of abstraction, so that at one
point he used the term in reference to five different levels. The term paradigm initially referred to shared examples and problem-solutions, both of which are concrete elements
in the scientist’s repertoire; but from there Kuhn extended the term, first to theory, then metatheory,
then disciplinary matrix, and finally to the constellation of group commit- ments
embraced by a discipline. Described in this manner, it becomes evident that the resulting polysemy extends from Kuhn’s overuse of metonymy.
52
Semantic pathology was the end result. Again, semantic pathology arises “whenever two or more incom-
patible senses capable of figuring meaningfully in the same context develop around the same name”
Ullman 1957 :122, in
Reddy 1979 :299. That pathology is never entirely
resolved in the 1970 text nor its 1996 reprint, for while Kuhn abandons some terms and coins a few replacements in the Postscript section, he continues to refer to both shared
examples and group commitments with the single term paradigm, even though these terms represent opposing extremes of his metonymic continuum. Hoyningen-Huene
writes:
52
Kuhn employed metonymy in extending the term paradigm, which originally referred to the concrete shared examples and problem solutions of a discipline, to more abstract notions, such as theory, metatheory, and so forth.
98 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
Kuhn’s writings didn’t stick to the original meaning of the paradigm concept. Paradigms in their original sense are, according to their first appearance on the scene, “concrete problem
solutions that the profession has come to accept.” But Kuhn soon used the paradigm concept for other senses, in works composed around the same time as SSR [The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions] and even in SSR, without being fully aware that he was doing so.
Hoyningen- Huene 1993
:140
In later writings, Kuhn did finally abandoned his use of the term paradigm in reference to group commitments. He chose to limit its use to the original sense, referring
to the shared examples or problem-solutions. From there he began to refer to group commitments as just that, group commitments. See figure
4.1 .
Figure 4.1. Metonymic continua Kuhn created through his various uses of the term paradigm
4.1.2. Selecting operational definitions
