Thomas Kuhn
American philosopher of science (1922–1996) who argued in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that science does not progress smoothly but through periodic paradigm shifts, sudden, total reversals of the conceptual framework.
Kuhn's 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions changed how we understand knowledge itself. His central argument: science does not simply accumulate facts. Instead, it operates within paradigms, shared frameworks of assumptions, methods, and problems that define what counts as legitimate science within a given era.
Most scientific work is normal science: solving puzzles within the accepted paradigm. But anomalies accumulate over time, observations that don't fit. When anomalies become too numerous to ignore, the community enters a crisis, followed by a paradigm shift, a revolutionary replacement of the entire framework. Copernicus replacing Ptolemy, Einstein replacing Newton, are paradigm shifts.
The implications for Predictive History are profound: every civilization operates within its own paradigm, a shared set of assumptions about reality, justice, and the sacred. When those assumptions can no longer explain events, civilizations enter crises and are eventually replaced by new paradigms. The Protestant Reformation was a paradigm shift; the Enlightenment was a paradigm shift; the current crisis of liberal democracy may be another.
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What is a paradigm shift according to Kuhn? ＋
A revolutionary replacement of one scientific framework with another, not gradual accumulation but a sudden gestalt switch when anomalies overwhelm the old paradigm's explanatory power. Examples: Copernicus replacing Ptolemy, Einstein replacing Newton.
What is normal science for Kuhn? ＋
The routine problem-solving that scientists do within an accepted paradigm, refining, testing, and extending the framework rather than questioning its foundations.