Bourdieu and Thomas Kuhn: Hysteresis, Paradigm Shifts, and the Persistence of Old Categories

What happens when reality changes but our established ways of understanding it do not? Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of hysteresis and Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions approach this problem from very different intellectual traditions.

Bourdieu is explaining social practice. Kuhn is explaining the historical development of science. Habitus is not a paradigm, and a social field is not a scientific theory. Yet placing the two thinkers side by side reveals a shared problem: practices and systems of thought acquire stability precisely because people become skilled at operating within them. That stability becomes visible when it begins to fail.

Bourdieu: when habitus belongs to yesterday

Bourdieu’s theory of habitus explains how social conditions become durable dispositions. People learn ways of judging situations, anticipating possibilities, and acting effectively inside particular social fields.

Normally, this relationship creates fluency. Habitus fits the field; expectation roughly fits reality.

Hysteresis names the moment when that correspondence weakens. The social field changes faster than the dispositions formed within it. Practices that previously appeared sensible become maladapted because their original conditions no longer exist.

Bourdieu sometimes associated this with a “Don Quixote effect”: like Cervantes’s character imagining himself as a knight in a world where the social reality of knighthood has passed, actors can inhabit categories inherited from a disappearing social order.

Hysteresis therefore reveals something normally hidden. Our practical categories have histories.

Kuhn: normal science, anomalies, and crisis

Thomas Kuhn makes a different argument in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Scientific development, he argues, is not simply a continuous accumulation of facts.

During periods of normal science, researchers work within a shared disciplinary framework. Paradigms, exemplars, methodological commitments, instruments, and theoretical assumptions establish legitimate problems and recognizable ways of solving them.

This stability is productive. Scientists do not have to reconsider the foundations of their discipline every morning. They can solve puzzles because many basic assumptions remain fixed.

Trouble begins with anomalies: problems that resist satisfactory solution within the established framework. A single anomaly does not automatically destroy a paradigm. Scientists may initially set it aside, reinterpret it, or assume that further research will solve it. Only particularly serious or accumulating anomalies may produce a crisis, potentially followed by scientific revolution and a reorganization of the disciplinary matrix.

Is a paradigm like a habitus?

Only up to a point.

Both concepts explain how established structures make competent action possible. The Bourdieusian actor has practical mastery of a social game; the Kuhnian scientist learns how legitimate puzzles are recognized and solved. In both cases, mastery can initially make anomalies look like exceptions rather than evidence that the rules themselves are changing.

But the analogy has limits.

Habitus is embodied and socially distributed. It concerns dispositions shaped by trajectories of class, education, institutions, and fields. Kuhn’s paradigm concerns organized scientific practice and shared disciplinary commitments. Kuhn is not primarily explaining why an individual psychologically refuses to change beliefs.

Nor does hysteresis equal scientific crisis. A field can change while an actor’s habitus lags behind it. In Kuhn, crisis occurs within the scientific community when confidence in its existing problem-solving framework is significantly disturbed.

The comparison becomes useful precisely when these differences are preserved.

Both Bourdieu and Kuhn show that knowledge and action require a certain conservatism. We cannot reconsider every assumption before every move. Usually this makes expertise possible.

During periods of rapid transformation, however, yesterday’s expertise can become today’s blindness. The categories that once helped us recognize reality may become the very things preventing us from seeing what has changed.

Summary: Chapter 8 in What Is This Thing Called Science? / Alan Chalmers

What Is This Thing Called Science? / Alan Chalmers

Chapter 8: Theories as structures: Kuhn’s paradigms

-          In his "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" Kuhn describes the progress of science

o   Pre-science à normal science à crisis à revolution à new normal science à new crisis

-          Existence of a paradigm capable of supporting a normal science tradition is the characteristic that distinguishes science from non-science

-          Mature science is governed by a single paradigm

-          Normal science as puzzle-solving activity governed y the rules of a paradigm

-          Lack of agreement over fundamental distinguishes mature science from disorganized immature pre-science

-          Mere existence of unresolved puzzles does not constitute a crisis

-          When anomalies come to be seen as posing serious problems for a paradigm à crisis which is deepened with the appearance of an incompatible rival paradigm. Rival paradigms are incommensurable

-          Scientific revolution: abandonment of one paradigm and the adoption by a new one by the relevant scientific community as a whole

-          Importance attached to the role played by the sociological characteristics of scientific communities

-          Function of revolutions: a means of breaking out of one paradigm into a better one

-          Progress through revolutions: alternative to cumulative progress

-          A discipline in which fundamentals are constantly brought into question (critical rationalism) is unlikely to make significant progress simply because principles do not remain unchallenged long enough for esoteric work to be done

Kuhn’s ambivalence on progress through revolutions

-          Relativist position: the question of whether a paradigm is better or not than the one it challenges does not have a definitive neutral answer, but depends on the values of those who make the judgment

-          Kuhn rejects the relativist position: later theories are better than earlier ones for solving puzzles in the different environments to which they are applied à convinced believer in scientific progress

-          Two incompatible strands: the relativist position and the alternative (how can a paradigm be said to constitute progress over the one it replaces?)

Objective knowledge

-          How can a paradigm change take place all at once, but not necessarily in an instant?

-          Distinction objective and subjective knowledge

-          Knowledge is a state of mind

-          Knowledge in the subjective sense: individual knowledge/experiences

-          Knowledge in the objective sense: distinct from the kinds of things that reside in individual minds, observation statements are publicly testable and debatable

-          Objective relationships exist between parts of the structure independently of whether individuals are aware of that relationship

-          Similar to Karl Popper’s world 3

-          A particular paradigm can be an improvement on its rival? à question about the objective relation between paradigms

-          On subjective knowledge: gestalt switches à should be removed from Kuhn’s account for it leads to the confusion and understanding of Kuhn as a relativist

Back to:  What Is This Thing Called Science? / Alan Chalmers

additional summaries in  philosophy of science

Some books about philosophy of science to consider:

•   

Summary: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 10

·       After a scientific revolution, “scientists are responding to a different world.” (p. 111)

·       “[T]hough the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the scientist afterward works in a different world.” (p. 121)

·       What scientists “see” during their research depends on the normal science tradition in which they operate. Therefore, the world that scientists “see” after a scientific revolution seems incommensurable with the world they “saw” before the revolution. (p. 112)

·       “[S]omething like a paradigm is prerequisite to perception itself.” (p. 113)

·       Paradigm shifts are unlike gestalt switches in the following respect: For gestalt switches there is an external standard with respect to which the switch can be demonstrated. However, for paradigm shifts “[t]he scientist can have no recourse above or beyond what he sees with his eyes and instruments.” (p. 114)

·       Scientists themselves do not report the changes that occur as a result of scientific revolutions as changes of “scientific vision” or “mental transformation with the same effect.” The “evidence that the scientist with a new paradigm sees differently from the way he had seen before” is “indirect and behavioral.” (p. 115)

·       The history of astronomy provides some of this “indirect and behavioral evidence” that scientists “see differently” after a paradigm shift from how they “saw” before. (pp. 116-117)

·       Other examples of this “indirect and behavioral evidence” comes from the histories of the discoveries of electrical repulsion (pp. 117-118), oxygen (p. 118), and the pendulum (pp. 119-120).

·       According to an alternative view, scientists do not “see” the world differently as a result of a scientific revolution but rather simply interpret their observations differently. This view is part of a philosophical paradigm. (pp. 120-121)

·       The history of science is one of the things that suggests that the “interpretation paradigm” is “askew.” (p. 121)

·       Scientific revolutions cannot be reduced to mere reinterpretations of “individual and stable data” for the following reasons:

1.    Scientific data is not stable. (p. 121)

2.    The process of transition from data related to an old paradigm to data related to a new paradigm does not resemble interpretation. (p. 122)

3.    Interpretation usually (always?) presupposes a paradigm.

4.    Interpreting data can articulate a paradigm but not “correct” it. (p. 122)

5.    The “flashes of intuition” that often lead to a new paradigm “are not logically or piecemeal linked to particular items” of experience based on the old paradigm. (pp. 122-123)

·       Scientific data is not stable insofar as sensory experience is not “fixed and neutral.” (p. 126)

1.    There appears to be no way to construct a “neutral language of observation.” (pp. 126-129)

2.    The operations and measurements that scientists typically perform are paradigm-determined. (p. 126)

·       The measurements and “manipulations” that survive scientific revolutions change either (1) in relation to the paradigm or (2) in concrete results. (pp. 129-130)

·       An example of how the measurements and “manipulations” that survive scientific revolutions change in relation to the paradigm is how the work that chemists did in investigating the law of fixed proportions changed as a result of the acceptance of Dalton’s chemical atomic theory. (pp. 130-134)

·       An example of how the measurements and “manipulations” that survive scientific revolutions change with respect to concrete results is how the measured weight ratios of certain chemical elements in compounds changed as a result of the acceptance of Dalton’s chemical atomic theory. (pp. 134-135)

 See also:

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn

Summary: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 1
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 9
Philosophy of Science - Summaries  

Summary: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 9

Scientific Revolutions—“non-cumulative developmental episodes in which an

older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible

new one” (p. 92)

·       Scientific revolutions are “inaugurated by a growing sense, . . . often restricted to a narrow subdivision of the scientific community, that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way.” (p. 92)

·       Choices among competing paradigms cannot be made on the basis of the “evaluative procedures” of normal science because those procedures are parts of the competing paradigms and are therefore at issue. (p. 94)

·       Therefore, in the debates about choice of paradigms the arguments that are based on those paradigms are necessarily circular and therefore are not logically or probabilistically compelling. However, this does not mean that such arguments cannot be persuasive or persuasive.

·       “. . . [T]here is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant [scientific] community.” (p. 94)

·       In principle, the discovery of new phenomena does not necessitate abandoning the current paradigm. (p. 95)

·       However, historically, except for pre-paradigm periods, assimilation of new theories and phenomena almost always involves destruction of the previous and competition among “schools of scientific thought.” (p. 96)

·       New discoveries can occur only if scientists’ expectations about nature and/or their instruments (laboratory, measuring, etc.) turn out to be wrong. (p. 97)

·       Assimilating anomalies as instances of scientific laws almost always requires that a new paradigm be adopted and that the old paradigm be destroyed. (p. 97)

·       New theories are invented to resolve anomalies with respect to the current theory. Since a new theory can resolve such anomalies only if it is logically incompatible with the current theory, it must supplant the current theory. Consequently, a new paradigm, of which the new theory is a part, must replace the current paradigm.

·       According to a view associated with logical positivism,

o   The range of application of a scientific theory does not extend beyond the phenomena and observational precision already dealt with by the existing experimental evidence.

o   Therefore, one theory does not conflict with another theory if the two theories do not make conflicting predictions.

o   In particular, a more extensive theory (e.g., Einstein’s theory of relativity) does not conflict with a less extensive “special case” theory (e.g., Newtonian dynamics) as long as the predictions of the latter are among those of the former. (p. 98)

·       The logical positivist view has the following implications:

1.    Every significant scientific theory is immune to attack, since it predicts nothing about “new phenomena.” (pp. 99-100)

2.    Scientific theories cannot guide research, since they are not to be “tested” by checking to see if their predictions of “new phenomena” are correct. (p. 100)

3.    There can be no “surprises, anomalies, or crises” with respect to an existing theory. (pp. 100-101)

4.    Therefore, there can be no extraordinary science, which leads to the advances associated with scientific revolutions. (pp. 100-101)

·       The positivist argument that Newtonian dynamics is a “special case” of relativistic dynamics, which is based on deriving Newtonian equations as limiting cases of relativistic equations where v/c<<1, is flawed because it assumes that the meanings of important terms in both theories (e.g., “mass”) are the same. However, the meanings are not the same. (pp. 101-102)

·       Successive paradigms in an area of science (e.g., Newtonian and relativistic dynamics) differ in the following respects:

1.    They have different implications about what entities the universe contains and how those entities behave. (p. 103)

2.    They differ with respect to what methods, problems, and standards of solution are accepted by the scientific community. (p. 103)

3.    They differ with respect to what qualifies as “scientific” and what is rejected as “unscientific.” (p. 103)

·       When a scientific revolution occurs, the normal science tradition that emerges is incommensurable with the old normal science tradition. (p. 103)

·       Examples of differences among competing paradigms with respect to accepted entities, significant problems, and legitimate solutions include the following:

1.    the legitimacy of referring to “occult qualities” (pp. 104-105)

2.    whether “explaining gravity” is a significant scientific problem (p. 105)

3.    whether there are such things as “innate forces”—gravitational, electromagnetic, chemical affinities, etc. (pp. 105-107)

·       The standards determining what problems are significant and what solutions are legitimate are internal to paradigms. There is no standpoint external to competing paradigms from which to judge those standards. Therefore, those standards may change but they do not become “higher” or “lower.” (p. 108)

·       Disagreements among the supporters of competing paradigms about which unsolved problems are more important than others raise value issues that cannot be resolved within normal science. (p. 110) 

See also:

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn

Summary: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 1
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 10
Philosophy of Science - Summaries  

Summary: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 1

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions / Thomas Kuhn: Chapter 1: Introduction: A Role for History.

Thomas Kuhn opens "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by setting forth the main ideas and propositions of his theory that will be developed in the course of his book. Kuhn holds that a scientific community always has a set of "received beliefs" that function as the basis for all scientific practice. Having access to these beliefs and being able to function in accordance with them is what, according to Kuhn, makes someone a member of a scientific community. Kuhn also adds that rigorous education is aimed at establishing a "deep hold" of conventions on the student's mind.

Kuhn also argues that what he calls "Normal Science" can only function on a basis of an agreed upon view of the world. Science, therefore, is not only about furthering knowledge but also about maintaining it. This is why "normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments" (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p.5). Science for Kuhn is not so much about discovering nature as it is trying to impose our perceptions on it.

A very important argument for which "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and Kuhn are famous for is that changes and developments in science can occur only when a crisis arises which undermines the self evident truths which guide the practice of scientists. These anomalies "subvert[s] the existing tradition of scientific practice" (p.6). Such events bring "normal science" to an end and this prompts to rise of a "scientific revolution". A scientific revolutions according to Kuhn is a painful process which is in a way similar to a religious conversion. Long held beliefs need to be broken and reintegrated into a new set of views (Kuhn calls this a paradigm). Traditional forces of an established scientific community strongly oppose any game-changing shifts in theory and the whole process is a dark and arduous one until the scientific revolution is complete and a newly formed normal science can start to work until the next crisis and subsequent revolution.       

see also:
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 9

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 10

Philosophy of Science - Summaries  

Short summary: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions / Thomas Kuhn

In "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" Thomas Kuhn presents a revolutionary approach to how science functions and progresses. Against the normal perception of science as a linear accumulation of knowledge, Kuhn attempts to view science as progressing in leaps from one "paradigm" to the next.

Kuhn is revolutionary in the philosophy of science since he views scientific practice a something conducted by a community rather than a set of individuals. As a community the science world is sociological matter, especially in terms of having norms and common held beliefs which function within it and regulate it. Kuhn argues for example that scientific education is in fact the socialization or indoctrination of the young researcher into the conventional manner in which science is practiced. This is what Kuhn famously calls "paradigm", the unspoken basic assumption which make the world view of a scientific community and allows it to function.

In "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" Kuhn describes the history of science as a progression from one paradigm to the next. When a certain paradigm is enough to account for the world as it is perceived, "normal science" can function, elaborating knowledge within the paradigm. But when a paradigm enters a crisis, like in meeting phenomenon it cannot account for of arriving at internal contradictions, the search for a new paradigm is on.

What happens eventually according to Kuhn is that the paradigmatic crisis leads to a scientific revolutions which marks a shift, even rupture, from the preexisting paradigm. This means that all prior knowledge has to be reintegrated into the concepts and structures of the new paradigm. When this is complete science can once again function as "normal science" until the next paradigm crisis and scientific revolution. Changing paradigms is similar to a religious conversion, which also draws heavy contention from conservative powers.

Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is considered to mark the postmodern turn in the philosophy of science, making human knowledge a relative field of belief as much as it is of objective knowledge.   

   
See also:
Summary: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 1
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 9
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/ Kuhn - chapter 10
Philosophy of Science - Summaries