Kuhn’s paradigms vs Lakatos’ research programme in a particular scientific field
This essay is for a Philosophy of Science course.
In a lecture we compared situations in which a scientific field has a Kuhnian paradigm to situations where research programs(in the sense of Lakatos and Laudan) rather than paradigms are present. I said we might think about this in terms of locations on a line or scale, like this:
Dominating paradigm<——————->Competing RPs
First, give a brief summary of the differences between the situations at each end of the scale (about 500 words). Then pick some particular scientific field at some stage in its history (which might be the present) and say how it relates to this distinction. Tell us where it lies on the scale above. The references trusted by my professor for this essay are:
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
2. “Theory and Reality” by Peter Godfrey-Smith, which I’ll provide.
