Kuhn and Normal Science

Muhammad Hasan
Philosophy 8
May 28, 2014

An important part of the philosophy of science is Thomas Kuhns views about the process
of normal science and paradigmatic theories. According to Kuhns views, most scientists spend
their careers engaging in normal science, usually through three activities. The first activity that
scientists engage in during normal science is determination of significant fact, which means that
all scientists working in normal science agree with the fundamentals of their theory. The second
activity scientists engage in is matching facts with theory, which means that they try to explain
their real-world observations in the context of their theories. The third activity scientists
engaging in normal science do is articulating theory, which means that they explain and defend
their theories.
Kuhn believes that paradigms are essential for normal science. A paradigm can be defined
as the scientific achievements that a scientific community takes to supply the foundation of its
practice. Kuhn also argues that normal science can be thought of as a puzzle-solving activity. If
normal science is indeed thought of as a puzzle-solving activity, then two features must be
essential for it. The features are: 1) There exists the promise of a possible solution, and 2) There
exists rules governing the methods by which the puzzle can be solved. Paradigms provide these
two features because they present the promise of a solution and the rules governing acceptable
solutions.

Scientific works from ancient times tend to be long, self-contained works accessible to
the general educated public, while contemporary scientific works are in the form of short articles
accessibly only to specialists. This phenomenon can easily be explained in terms of paradigms.
Ancient scientific works were written in a period of pre-science, which means that they are
characterized as a defense of first principles. During pre-science, there is no general agreement
on which theory to accept, so therefore all scientific works composed during pre-science times
must explain the fundamentals of the scientists theory. Contemporary scientific literature is
written in a time of paradigmatic science. In paradigmatic science, all scientists already agree on
the fundamentals of the paradigms theories. This means that there is no need to rewrite this
theory over and over again. Scientists who read contemporary scientific articles already know the
fundamentals of the theories the article is based on.