Page 95 - Introducing Cultural Studies

he Paradigm Shift

Kuhn sensed that the
traditional history of science
was too simple. His study of
Aristotle led him to the
illuminating insight that each
set of theories has its own
validity. Out of this came his
key idea of "paradigm" - the
unquestionable basis on which
"puzzle-solving normal
science" is done, until there is
a crisis resulting from the
inability to progress and an
accumulation of anomalies.

This very plausible account
left the questions of truth and
progress both wide open. By
one reading of Kuhn, science
was relative and indeed
arbitrary.

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