Epistemic Justification of Kuhn’s Structures of Scientific Development

Natural science has developed through phases that we shall refer here as the first revolution and the second one. The first revolution saw natural science develop from the philosophy of nature after the invention of scientific method through the collaboration between Galilei Galileo and Keipler. After this revolution, and as Zeigler observes, natural science held that its truth grew in a lineal and cumulative manner towards a fuller truth. Thomas Kuhn, a historian of science and a philosopher, through the study of the history of science developed a concern that scientific development does not progress in a lineal manner but through shifts of paradigms, a progress that starts with normal science, after the discovery of a foundational paradigm, and grows through crisis period to the shift of paradigm into a new one. This is the notion of a second revolution in science. Paradigms relate in an incommensurable way, an idea referred to as incommensurability, and also that as science gains knowledge within a period of paradigm shift, it also loses knowledge, an idea referred to as “Kuhn’s loss”. This study will investigate the notion of Incommensurability and the notion of “Kuhn’s loss” to justify the epistemic truth orientation of the nature of scientific structures put forth by Kuhn. It will defend the position that Kuhn’s loss is in fact a gain, and should be referred to as “Kuhn’s gain” for it is a criterion for eradication of possible error in scientific knowledge. With the possibility of error in knowledge, the idea of incommensurability is vital for it also avoids a possibility of reoccurrence of error in knowledge.