خلاصة:
This article is an attempt to explain and evaluate Thomas Kuhn's viewpoint on theory selection in natural sciences. Based on the dichotomy of discovery context-justification context, philosophers of science believe that since the process of discovery is not rule-governed, the process of theory choice, which is the context of justification, must inevitably be rule-governed; otherwise, the objectivity and rationality of science is lost. But Kuhn argued that the selection process is not rule-governed either, because the common selection criteria such as accuracy, scope, consistency, simplicity, and fertility do not function as precise and consistent rules by which a single choice is necessitated as a proof. The function of selection criteria is like that of values. Although they have an impact on selection, they do not entirely determine it. Moreover, values prepare the grounds for the intervening factors associated with the scientist’s life and manners and facilitate the possibility of differences of opinion among scientists. Does Kuhn, therefore, destroy the last bastion of objectivity and rationality of science? Is he a relativist or an admirer of irrationality? Kuhn never accepted such accusations.
ملخص الجهاز:
If scientific reasoning in theory selection does not find the status of mandatory testing and proof in practice, then, in principle, evaluation must be possible with the help of experience (nature) and logic (including partially "rules of objective cognitive method" that are perfection-seeking), and no other things should be needed.
Kuhn's point was that scientific progress during a revolution, unlike the transformation in the stage of normal science, is neither linear nor cumulative, and is accompanied by rupture; the transition from one theory to another also lacks a methodological logic; because in the individual (cognitive) dimension, it is similar to the experience of religious conversion 3, and in the social dimension, it is similar to political revolutions.
4 By relying on the history of science, Kuhn showed that despite official philosophers of science, scientists during a relatively long period of conventional research are not seeking to test theories; Contrary to Popper's conception, they have a "deep commitment to tradition" and "it is precisely this abandonment of critical discourse that is a sign of the transition to [mature] science.
In response to their sharp reaction in the article (1977), Kuhn admits that because The Structure was mostly woven with these hidden "subjective" factors, he had fallen short in addressing the "objective" factors familiar to philosophers of science and emphasizing their "vital role" in theory selection.
(Bernstein 2, 1983: 59) From Kuhn's perspective, science has a "judgmental" rationality, and the pattern of scientific reasoning is "value judgment," not proof or decisive experiment.
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