Hurley -- Kuhn's account of revolutions, scientific and political

 

Kuhn’s account of political and scientific revolutions

 

Widespread sense that existing institutions are inadequate (92)

Moves are initiated to change existing institutions in ways these institutions prohibit (93)

This results in polarization (93)

The polarized camps differ about the institutional matrix for evaluating change (93)

They acknowledge no supra-institutional framework for adjudicating the dispute (93)

Therefore, political (scientific) recourse fails.

Therefore, camps must resort to tools such as mass persuasion and force, and the revolutions that result are “extrapolitical” (extrascientific) events (93-4)

Corollary: The victorious camp declares itself to be right/justified/true, and the other to mistaken/unjustified/false (at least in central respects).  It then writes the received history of the process, establish this understanding as the received understanding.

 

Main Argument Kuhn Considers (and rejects) in Response

 

The old theory is still used with success in a limited scope.

The propriety of such use can be demonstrated by the very theory that replaces it.

Indeed, the old theory is derivable from the new as a special case.

No theory can conflict with one of its own special cases.

Therefore, the new developments suggest a fundamentally cumulative process, not a revolutionary one.

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