Hunting for paradigms VISIONARY LEADERSHIP BRIEFING
Key words: paradigm> paradigm shift> paradigm effect> paradigm paralysis> paradigm shifter> conflicting paradigms> change> vision> ethics> values> perception of reality> strategy> paradigms
in science> paradigms in business> Niccolo Macchiavelli> Paul Feyerabend > Thomas S. Kuhn> innovation> inventions> creative thinking> risk taking> sustainable innovation
2  GOLD MERCURY INTERNATIONAL  white paper: hunting for paradigms
Paradigm Theory Framing and its applications for vision, innovation and progressive thinking in our century of uncertainty. By Nicolas De Santis, President and Secretary General of Gold Mercury International. Paradigms are driving dramatic change in our society and in business but do we know the true origin and meaning of paradigms? Are we confusing paradigms with innovation? Are people dressing innovation upgrades or existing ideas to look like a paradigm?
3 GOLD MERCURY INTERNATIONAL white paper: hunting for paradigms
Firstly, what is a paradigm?
Thomas S. Kuhn 1922-1996
1. Incommensurable: no standard of comparison; impossible to measure or compare. 2. Metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that attempts to understand the fundamental nature of all reality, whether visible or invisible. 3. Epistemology: the branch of philosophy that is directed toward theories of the sources, nature, and limits of knowledge. 4. Ethics: the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can be judged right or wrong. 5. Professionalization: to establish a profession or give a professional character to.
The word paradigm originates from the Greek word paradigma, meaning ‘example.’ Its contemporary usage since the 1960s has been used in science to refer to a theoretical framework. Researchers in many different fields thereafter have understood themselves to be working within or trying to break out of a paradigm. Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) put forward the notion of paradigms as incommensurable1 fusions of scientific practice and scientific conceptual schemes. In a 1969 postscript, Kuhn added that a paradigm is, ‘an entire constellation of beliefs, values and techniques, and so on, shared by the members of a given community’ (Kuhn 1996, p176). Adam Smith’s Powers of the Mind (1976) defined a paradigm as how we perceive the world. Willis Harmon’s An Incomplete Guide to the Future (1979) contends that a paradigm is the basic way of perceiving, thinking, valuing and doing. In 1986, Thomas Handa, M.L. introduced the idea of ‘social paradigm’ in the context of social sciences. Social scientists have since adopted the Kuhnian phrase ‘paradigm shift’ to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality. A ‘dominant paradigm’ refers to the values and thought-systems in a society that are most widely held at a given time. A paradigm establishes boundaries. New paradigms are not just extensions of old theories, but are radically new world views. Kuhn maintains that theory itself might sometimes be a paradigm if it explains phenomena better than its opponents (Kuhn 1996). Paradigm structures are rooted in the three traditional branches of philosophy: metaphysics2, namely the fundamental assumptions that provide a basis for epistemological premises, epistemology3, as the abstraction of the fundamental metaphysical assumptions into theories of knowledge acquisition, and ethics4, as the practical application of epistemological theory into behavioral codes of conduct (Lehmann 2004).
In broad terms, a paradigm can be thought of as four different but related things: 1 A philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind – A model or a pattern. 2 A shared set of assumptions, beliefs, experiences, values and techniques shared by the members of a given community. 3 A perception of reality and subsequent responses to this perception. 4 A profession in the making e.g. professionalization5 of medicine in Britain in the mid-19th century.
4 GOLD MERCURY INTERNATIONAL white paper: hunting for paradigms
I
Pre-paradigm stage
II
Paradigm development: Normal science
III
Paradigm revolution
Paradigm Theory Framework: Part I Pre Paradigm Stage 6. Reconceptualization: to reform and reinterpret a concept.
Niccolo Macchiavelli’s The Prince advised of the following: ‘There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.’ Kuhn understands each natural science to begin with a pre-consensus stage in which research doesn’t quite constitute science yet the actors in the pre-paradigm community have identified several issues, ideas and facts that create a framework for investigation. This pre-paradigm period is marked by the existence of competing schools, each of which may make significant contributions to the body of knowledge working toward reconceptualization6. If consensus in the pre-paradigm community eventually gravitates to one of these conceptual frameworks then the second phase, normal science, begins in search of further insight.
Example Consider the study of motion before Aristotle. The net result of scientific activity during the pre-consensus period constitutes what Kuhn refers to as ‘something less than science.’ Yet, ‘their achievement was sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity. Simultaneously, it was sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve.’ (Kuhn 1996)