Kuhn talks about paradigms and paradigm shifts in “Resolutions of Revolutions” from The Structure of Revolutions. He uses scientists and their profession as examples and scientific theories as almost synonymous with paradigms for a lot of the reading; however, I’d like to look at what he has to say and attempt to show what he means with non-scientific examples for those of us who might not know much about these theories in order to aid in understanding. Much of what Kuhn says seems to allude to Quine’s ideas discussed in The Two Dogmas of Empiricism and Quine’s idea of Web of Belief, which is basically what I equate Kuhn’s paradigms to. For Quine, a web of belief is where we hold our beliefs and those we hold closer to us, or hold more tightly, we are less likely to change; however, with empirical evidence, he believes any and all beliefs could be changed.

Kuhn’s discussion of paradigm shifts is shown with his example of Copernicus and his discovery that the earth moves. When Copernicus first began saying this, people thought he was crazy to assert what they thought was nonsense; however, with time and enough empirical evidence, people came around to acknowledging that he wasn’t crazy. What was happening was Copernicus was changing definitions and causing a paradigm to begin to shift in his favor. In Kuhn’s words: “Consider the men who called Copernicus mad because he proclaimed that the earth moved. They were not either just wrong or quite wrong. Part of what they meant by ‘earth’ was fixed position. Their earth, at least, could not be moved… Copernicus’ innovation… changed the meaning of both ‘earth’ and ‘motion’.” (149-150) With this being said, it’s not an easy thing to just have everyone shift their paradigms, as you can imagine. You’re changing definitions and the ways in which people think and perceive. To change paradigms is something that occurs both over time and in an instant. Kuhn says the switching of paradigms “... must occur all at once,” (150) but this is best seen in the example shown in class of the Duck-Rabbit. This drawing is both of a duck and a rabbit, but you can only see one of the animals at a time. If you see the Duck and search for the Rabbit, you can only see the Rabbit when you stop seeing the Duck. This happens instantly. You go from observing lines appearing as a Duck to lines appearing as a Rabbit, and no matter how long it might have taken you to find the Rabbit within the lines, once you do, it’s instant that you’re looking now at a Rabbit. Kuhn describes this change in another quote: “Conversions will occur a few at a time until, after the last hold outs have died, the whole profession will again be practicing under a single, but now a different, paradigm.” (152) Kuhn is using scientists and their profession in this description, but this can be seen in many different ways, one of which could be the Duck-Rabbit (minus the death). Kuhn’s use of scientific theories as an example is different from mine in the way that you can go from seeing the Duck to the Rabbit and back again, the switching of paradigms can be done over and over, while Kuhn doesn’t seem to intend on this being the case. He doesn’t seem to be saying you can, or should, switch paradigms back and forth so easily. He seems to think of paradigm shifts in a way that makes science better or aid in the “better” of things, in the way that complex issues can be solved; however, this example provided me with a visual of what it means to be able to switch paradigms. Next let’s turn to a few examples that stuck out to me in reading.

The first place I see Kuhn’s paradigm shifts in the world around us is in American politics. It’s quite the grim belief that there’s only hope for our political landscape to change from the way it is currently to one that is more aligned with what is better for the people, by waiting for those creating laws and upholding hyper conservative ways of thinking to die out. It’s the thought that we have to wait out the old ways of thinking in order for more progressive ways to be ushered in. This is something Kuhn mentions in the quote mentioned before, that when the older ‘scientists’ die out there will be a different paradigm they’re aligned to, and it can easily be seen to be the issue at hand with a shift of political paradigm. Voting only makes a difference when you don’t live in a place already consumed with the conservative ways of thinking, otherwise your vote is lost in the midst of the old paradigm. Ergo, it feels as if, the only way to make the full paradigm shift is to wait for the “last hold outs have died.” (152) With politics we run into an issue of opinions. Who is right, who is wrong, who is to say either way? This can seem like the biggest issue at hand, that everyone has a differing opinion, but if you side with Kuhn’s dying out theory, it helps keep the existential dread at bay. As Kuhn says, “neither proof nor error is at issue. The transfer of allegiance from paradigm to paradigm is a conversion experience that cannot be forced.” (151) In contrast, Quine’s web of beliefs allows us the hope of possibly changing their ideas. Maybe we can provide enough empirical proof for our own belief that we cause them to change their own, if it’s not too rooted in the web -- or maybe we can’t.

Another example I have is a personal example. This was an argument I had with my mother about morality and slavery. She claims that what is considered moral (good) changes with time, or that the definition of what it means to be moral changes. With this, she claimed that slavery was considered moral back then, hinging on their definition of morality. However, people had no moral qualm about owning black people because they were viewed as less than. Their definition of ‘human being’ or ‘free people’ did not include black people; however, in time, the paradigm shifted and we’ve now changed those definitions to include black people. The definition of moral wasn’t what changed -- slavery has always been wrong -- but the definition of what constituted someone who deserved rights or freedom from slavery has changed, which allowed for the paradigm shift required for slaves to be freed and society to realize the moral issue at hand. This shift took time, and still needs more for a complete turn around, but the realization of being able to own and not own was instant. This is quite an odd attempt at exemplifying what Kuhn is discussing, but I find it to provide a visual aid in understanding the change in definition as well as the time it takes to switch paradigms.

In conclusion, Kuhn’s discussion of shifting paradigms is insightful when you put it into a context that can be easier to understand for those who aren’t scientists. Definitions of words are changing in time, which changes the ways we view the world, and opens us up to the possibility of shifting to a new paradigm; however, changing paradigms does not come easily or quickly, despite the fact the realization of the change of paradigm is instant, like observing the Duck-Rabbit.