Masterman e a análise do conceito kuhniano de paradigma

Abstract

This article intends to analyze and investigate Margaret Masterman's interpretations of the notion of paradigm in Thomas Kuhn during the 1960s, a period in which the concept emerged and gained some popularity among discussions in philosophy of science. The need for attention to the concept is due to the confusions that arose due to the multiple ways in which Kuhn uses the term in his descriptions of the nature of science during The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Masterman, in The Nature of a Paradigm (1965), indicates several situations in which the different uses of the term could be brought together into three perspectives: metaphysical paradigms, sociological paradigms and artifact paradigms. These identifications seek to relate the uses of the term “paradigm” during The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, seeking a better understanding of the notion that Kuhn develops, since his more than twenty distinct references generated problems for the author regarding what the term paradigm meant, what were the intentions of use in Kuhn's context and thought and how to understand it as necessary for the maturity of knowledge. The aim is to understand Masterman's interpretations and relate them to two later texts where Kuhn unfolded and tried to resolve the problems created by the use of his term in different circumstances. In these texts, the very divisions that Kuhn uses to clarify the concept of paradigm can be related in some aspects to the descriptions that Masterman used, such as epistemological, sociological and metaphysical aspects. The reference texts for Kuhn's clarifications are his Postcript (1969) and Second Thoughts on Paradigms (1974). The possibility is investigated that Masterman may have motivated some clarifications that Kuhn made in these works, given his understanding of normal science, the main role of the concept of paradigm, namely, the resolution of puzzles and the analogous use of the paradigm, or that is, the use of concrete realization as a basis for a way of seeing.

Keywords: Paradigm. Nature of science. Thomas Kuhn. Margaret Masterman.