Have you ever stopped to consider all the little pieces that make up the culture you live in? Of course, there are many traditions and institutions, such as public schools, but what about the beliefs you share with those around you, such as friends and family? What is a paradigm? It is, in simple terms, the set of concepts and beliefs that make up a worldview.
Defining the paradigm
The ideas, concepts, and beliefs that you and others share about religion, nationality, and other cultural subjects are probably an important part of your individual and collective identity, but how often do you reflect on where they came from or how they might change? In simple words, a paradigm is a collection of beliefs and concepts, which is a set of theories, assumptions and ideas that contribute to your worldview or create certain limits and limitations.
An example of a paradigm is the phrase "American way of life". This phrase refers to a set of beliefs and ideas about what it means to be an American. For people who find this paradigm very important, it can serve as the basis for how they see or interact with the world around them. This highlights one of the most important features of a paradigm, which is that it is made up of beliefs and ideas that form the basis for approaching and interacting with other things or people.
Where do paradigms come from?
In sociology, examples of paradigms arose in the work of some key European philosophers, such as Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim, in the mid to late 19th century. Although they may not have specifically labeled them as paradigms, these thinkers constructed a range of theories to explore how certain elements of society are connected or to address social problems caused by, among other things, the growing power of capitalism. Throughout the 20th century, sociologists have based their ideas on these earlier concepts and theories to form the basis of modern sociological approaches and traditions.
Theoretical paradigms in sociology
Within the sociological tradition, there are two main types of paradigms that researchers use as a basis for analyzing societies:
- Structural functionalism is a perspective that deals with how separate parts of a society or culture intersect and rely on each other to form a functioning whole. Example of a paradigm: Cities and towns have an official government that exists to provide services and services to residents, such as schools and freeways, and in turn, these residents pay taxes to the government to keep it running. A functional perspective would view them as an interdependent relationship in which each party cooperates with the other to provide the entire function of the city.
- A scientific paradigm is a framework containing all generally accepted views on a subject, conventions about which direction of research should be taken and how it should be carried out. Philosopher Thomas Kuhn has suggested that a paradigm includes "the practices that define a scientific discipline at a particular point in time". Paradigm exploration contains all the clear, established patterns, theories, general methods, and standards that allow us to recognize an experimental result as belonging in the field or not. Science proceeds by accumulating support for hypotheses, which eventually become models and theories. But they all exist within a larger theoretical framework. Vocabulary and concepts in Newton's three laws or central dogma in biology are examples of the scientific "open resource" paradigm that scientists have adopted.
Paradigms are historically and culturally linked (Thomas Kuhn)
A modern Chinese medical researcher with a background in Oriental medicine will operate within a different paradigm than a Western physician of the 1800s. Where does the paradigm come from? PhilosopherThomas Kuhn was interested in how the overarching theories we have of reality itself influence the models and theories we use within a paradigm that dictates:
- what is observed and measured;
- questions we ask about these observations;
- how these questions are phrased;
- how to interpret the results;
- how research is done;
- what equipment is suitable.
Many students who choose to study science do so in the belief that they are on the most rational path to the study of objective reality. But science, like any other discipline, is subject to ideological idiosyncrasies, biases, and hidden assumptions. In fact, Kuhn emphatically suggested that research into a deeply rooted paradigm invariably completes that paradigm, as anything that contradicts it is ignored or pursued by predetermined methods until it conforms to already established dogma.
The body of already existing evidence in the field and shapes the collection and interpretation of all subsequent evidence. The certainty that the current paradigm is reality itself is precisely what makes it so difficult to accept alternatives. Although Kuhn focused on the sciences, his observations about scientific paradigms apply to other disciplines.
New Theories: Paradigm Shift
Scientists very often discard existing models and collect new theories. But from time to time inenough anomalies accumulate in a certain area, and the scientific paradigm itself must change to accommodate them. Kuhn believed that science has periods of patient data collection within a paradigm, mixed with periodic revolution as it matures. The paradigm shift is not a threat to science, but the very manner in which it progresses.
Normal science is a step-by-step scientific process that respects previous research. Revolutionary science (often "cornerstone science") questions the paradigm. Kuhn believed that if a paradigm suddenly jumps from one foundation to another, a shift occurs. The following example can be given. Many physicists in the 19th century were convinced that the Newtonian paradigm, which had reigned for 200 years, was the pinnacle of discovery, and scientific progress was more or less a matter of refinement.
Paradigm concept
When Einstein published his theories of general relativity, it wasn't just another idea that could fit comfortably into the existing paradigm. Instead, Newtonian physics itself was relegated to being a special subclass of the larger paradigm put forth by general relativity. Newton's three laws are still taught in schools, but we now operate within a paradigm that puts these laws in a larger context.
The concept of a paradigm is closely related to the Platonic and Aristotelian views of knowledge. Aristotlebelieved that knowledge can only be based on what is already known, on the basis of the scientific method. Plato believed that knowledge should be judged by what could be the end result or ultimate goal. Plato's philosophy is more like intuitive leaps that bring about a scientific revolution.
Examples of paradigm theories
- Geocentric model of the Ptolemaic universe (with the earth at the center).
- Heliocentric astronomy of Copernicus (with the sun in the center).
- Physics of Aristotle.
- Galilean mechanics.
- Newton's theory of gravity.
- D alton's theory of the atom.
- Darwin's theory of evolution.
- Einstein's theory of relativity.
- Quantum mechanics.
- Theory of plate tectonics in geology.
- Theory of germs in medicine.
- Gene theory in biology.
What is a paradigm shift?
Shift occurs when one paradigm theory is replaced by another. Here are some examples:
- Ptolemaic astronomy gives way to Copernican astronomy.
- The physics of Aristotle (which stated that material objects had an essential nature that determined their behavior) is giving way to the physics of Galileo and Newton (who viewed the behavior of material objects as governed by the laws of nature).
- Newtonian physics (which held time and space the same everywhere, for all observers) gives way to Einsteinian physics (which holds time and space relative to the observer's reference frame).
Examples in various sciences
The characteristic of paradigms depends on the area in which it is considered. For example:
- Physics. The paradigm was that there had never been a connection between electric and magnetic fields until Michael Faraday learned how to turn magnetism into electricity in 1831.
- Chemistry. In 1869, Dmitry Mendeleev discovered the periodic system, before him there was no ordering of chemical elements.
- Biology. Cloning used to be on the verge of science fiction until the end of the last century.
- Ecology. Now more and more often they began to talk about ozone holes and their consequences, and before they had not even heard of such a problem.
- Natural science. In the past, one worldview was recognized - religious. Now, in general, people themselves can choose what they believe in, religion or science, or both.
Existing paradigms often make it impossible to see the world in a new way. In order to acquire inner clarity, it is sometimes necessary to go beyond the generally accepted, to change destructive paradigms to transformative ones. Everything is changing, and what seemed unshakable in the past now brings laughter and tears.
