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Kuhn's Risk-Spreading Argument and the Organization of Scientific Communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Fred D'Agostino
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One of Thomas Kuhn's profoundest arguments (alas, sadly neglected) is introduced in the 1970 “Postscript” to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn 1970). Kuhn is discussing the idea of a “disciplinary matrix” as a more adequate articulation of the “paradigm” notion he'd introduced in the first, 1962, edition of his famous work (Kuhn 1962). He notes that one “element” of disciplinary matrices is likely to be common to most or even all such matrices, unlike the other elements which serve to distinguish specific disciplines and sub-disciplines from one another. This is the element which he calls “values”, which, as he notes (1970, 184), being common to a number of otherwise distinct disciplinary matrices, “do much to provide a sense of community to natural scientists as a whole”. On the other hand, they also do much, and crucially in Kuhn's view, to promote and sustain a healthy diversity among the practitioners who share any specific disciplinary matrix. In particular, Kuhn claims (1970, 186) that “individual variability in the application of shared values may serve functions essential to science.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , February 2005 , pp. 201 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005

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