Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of ... - Boekje Pienter

for failure and an encouragement for innovation and experimentation and a comfort withconflicting views and dissent, as long as the entities would be bound by a commonoverarching goal, a shared view or belief.Paradigms and revolutionsThomas Kuhn developed another alternative view of scientific progress, the occurrence ofrevolutions in science, one that includes Polanyi’s sensitivity for the social aspect of theactivities of scientists as well as the essential unfinished nature of science. Kuhn noted thatfalsification was to some extend a flawed concept 50 . If everyone was constantly questioningthe fundamentals of a discipline, as characterized in Popper’s method of “conjectures andrefutations”, it is unlikely to make significant progress simply because principles do notremain unchallenged long enough for esoteric work to be done. Moreover, an embarrassinghistorical fact for falsificationists is that if their methodology had been strictly adhered to bescientists then those theories generally regarded as being among the best examples ofscientific theories, such as Niels Bohr’s theory of the atom or the Copernican revolution,would have been rejected in their infancy 51 .He advanced the idea that a better way to explain the work of scientists and describehow science advances was through shifts in paradigms. He defined a paradigm as ‘aconstellation of achievements - concepts, values, techniques, etc. - shared by a scientificcommunity and used by that community to define legitimate problems and solutions 52 . Italso refers to a set of fundamental assumptions on the basis of which theories and modelsare developed 53 . It embodies a particular conceptual framework through which the world isviewed and in which it is described, and a particular set of experimental and theoreticaltechniques for matching the paradigm with nature. However, there is no a priori reason toexpect any one paradigm is perfect or even the best available. There are no inductiveprocedures for arriving at perfectly adequate paradigms 54 .A paradigm defines what is construed as “normal science” by a scientificcommunity. Scientists are educated and trained to conduct scientific research using tools,50 And Imre Lakatos as well. Lakatos will not be discussed here as available sources do not indicatespecifically he read any of his material. Moreover, Lakatos attempts to rescue Popper while allowingfor the existence of a kind of paradigm, which he terms 'research program', but avoiding the relativistimplications of Kuhn's theory. See for instance Chalmers, p.130-36. For a general overview of recenthistory of the philosophy of science see for instance Peter Machamer, ‘A Brief Historical Introductionto the Philosophy of Science’; John Worrall, ‘Philosophy of Science: Classical Debates, StandardProblems, Future Prospects’; and Jim Woodward, ‘Explanation’, all in Peter Machamer and MichaelSilberstein, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2002). For moretechnical and more polemic studies see for instance Adam Morton, ‘The Theory of Knowledge:Saving Epistemology from the Epistemologists’ and Noretta Koertge, ‘New Age Philosophies ofScience: Constructivism, Feminism and Postmodernism’, all in Peter Clark and Katherina Hawley,Philosophy of Science Today (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2000). For a reconstruction and assessment ofKuhn's growing influence, and of the misinterpretations of his work, see for instance Steve Fuller,‘Being There with Thomas Kuhn: A Parable for Postmodern Times’, History and Theory, October 1992,Vol.31, Issue 3, pp.241-275. In this article the influence of Polanyi is also addressed. For a concisecritique of Kuhn see Deutsch (1998), in particular chapter 13.51 Chalmers, p.91.52 Capra, The Web of Life, A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (Anchor Books, New York ,1997), p.5.53 John Steinbrunner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton University Press, 1974), p.10.54 Chalmers, p.118.90