The big idea: Popper pictured science as a steady stream of theories being tested and dropped. Thomas Kuhn looked at the actual history and saw something quite different.
Kuhn's picture: Science spends most of its time calmly working inside one big framework — until that framework cracks, and everything is overturned at once.
Kuhn called that shared framework a paradigm. Inside it, scientists do normal science — not questioning the big picture, just filling in the details.
Free preview
This is the free notes preview
You're reading the free notes. Aimnova Pro unlocks the full study experience — and you can try it with your first topic free to keep:
- FlashcardsLock in vocabulary and key terms with spaced repetition.
- Practice questionsAnswer exam-style questions and get instant AI marking.
- Mock exams & past-paper vaultSit full mocks and see exactly how examiners award marks.
- Personalised study planA daily plan built around your exam date and weak areas.
Start Studying Free Full access to Aimnova Pro · cancel anytime
The interesting question for Kuhn is what happens when the puzzle-solving stops working.
How a revolution happens: Every so often results turn up that the paradigm just can't explain — anomalies.
From anomalies to a new paradigm
1
Shrug
At first scientists shrug the anomalies off.
2
Crisis
But they pile up, and a crisis sets in.
3
New paradigm
Eventually a new paradigm appears that makes sense of everything.
A paradigm shift: The whole community switches over — a paradigm shift. Think of the switch from an Earth-centred to a Sun-centred universe: not one more fact added, but a completely new way of seeing the same sky.
Checkpoint — Kuhn: In one line: science works inside a shared paradigm until anomalies force a revolution — a paradigm shift — where one whole framework replaces another.
See how examiners mark answers
Answer exam-style questions with model answers. Learn exactly what earns marks and what doesn't.
Try Exam Vault FreeYour first topic is free to keep • No credit card required
One thinker pushed Kuhn's history even harder — and reached a radical conclusion.
Feyerabend: 'anything goes': Paul Feyerabend studied the great scientific breakthroughs and found that the big ones broke the rules of their day — guessing, bluffing, ignoring awkward evidence. His conclusion was deliberately provocative: 'anything goes'. There is no single 'scientific method' that all good science follows; pinning science to one fixed set of rules would only have strangled the discoveries that changed everything.
Go further — higher-level insight: Notice the danger lurking in Kuhn and Feyerabend. If there's no neutral ground to call one paradigm 'truer', and no single method, does science become just opinion — as good as astrology?
Holding the line: Most philosophers resist that slide: paradigms can still be judged by fruitfulness, accuracy and scope, even without one master rule. Holding the line between 'no single method' and 'anything is as good as anything' is a top-band move.