The Historian Of Science May Be Tempted

It Is, I Think, Particularly In Periods Of Acknowledged Crisis That Scientists Have Turned To Philosophical Analysis As A Device For Unlocking The Riddles Of Their Field. Scientists Have Not Generally Needed Or Wanted To Be Philosophers.

Probably, The Single Most Prevalent Claim Advanced By The Proponents Of A New Paradigm Is That They Can Solve The Problems That Led The Old One To A Crisis.

As In Political Revolutions, So In Paradigm Choice--there Is No Standard Higher Than The Assent Of The Relevant Community. To Discover How Scientific Revolutions Are Effected, We Shall Therefore Have To Examine Not Only The Impact Of Nature And Of Logic, But Also The Techniques Of Persuasive Argumentation Effective Within The Quite Special Groups That Constitute The Community Of Scientists.

The Answers You Get Depend Upon The Questions You Ask.

Individuals Who Break Through By Inventing A New Paradigm Are Almost Always Either Very Young Men Or Very New To The Field Whose Paradigm They Change. These Are The Men Who, Being Little Committed By Prior Practice To The Traditional Rules Of Normal Science, Are Particularly Likely To See That Those Rules No Longer Define A Playable Game And Conceive Another Set That Can Replace Them.