104 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
associated with Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, or Einstein. A clearer delineation of community structure should, however, help to enforce the rather different impression I have tried to create.
A revolution for me is a special sort of change involving a certain sort of reconstruction of group commitments. But it need not be a large change, nor need it seem revolutionary to those
outside a single community, consisting perhaps of fewer than twenty-five people. It is just because this type of change, little recognized or discussed in the literature of the philosophy of
science, occurs so regularly on this smaller scale that revolutionary, as against cumulative, change so badly needs to be understood.
Kuhn 1996 :180–181; italics added
Kuhn’s comments regarding “revolutionary, as against cumulative change” are especially important to note here, for his distinction between the two types of change
contributes significantly to his position on incommensurability as will be discussed in section
4.1.8 . Kuhn is not suggesting that all change within science is of a revolutionary
nature. He states: “Normal research, which is cumulative, owes its success to the ability of scientists regularly to select problems that can be solved with conceptual and instru-
mental techniques close to those already in existence” 1996
:96; italics in original. Such cumulative change may retain commensurability. In contrast, revolutionary change
contributes to incommensurability Kenneth A. McElhanon 1998, personal communication.
4.1.7. Disciplinary maturation
Many of those employing and criticizing Kuhn commonly assume that his term ‘paradigm’ refers exclusively to the first “Grand Theory” embraced by a discipline, or to
a ‘First Paradigm’ as Keith Percival interprets it 1976
:187. This assumption is reason- able if based only upon the
1962 edition, but inaccurate if Kuhn’s
1970 Postscript is
considered. In the
1962 text, Kuhn did suggest that disciplinary sciences develop from an
immature pre-paradigm phase into a mature paradigm-phase. In the 1970
Postscript, however, he responds to criticisms on this issue and modifies the earlier characterization.
He acknowledges that the pre-paradigm versus post-paradigm characterization he had offered earlier seemed to suggest that no paradigms existed in the earlier phase. He
explains that the emphasis should be on the nature of the paradigms that is to say the nature of group commitments, rather than upon the grand status or universality of any
particular paradigm.
Kuhn proposes the contrasting phases in order to highlight how scientists operate within the developing history of a discipline. While his terms for the phases—‘immature’
and ‘mature’—have drawn criticism, the distinctive situations Kuhn identifies remain noteworthy. In particular, he is emphasizing distinctions between two situations:
a. A situation in which theoreticians are competing for definition of the field a situation which typically occurs in the immature, early developmental stages of a
discipline.
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’
