The Structure of Scientific Revolution and Varieties of Religious Experience - Essay Example

The Structure of Scientific Revolution (Kuhn) and Varieties of Religious Experience: (James An Analytical Review This paper is an analytical reviewon two of the most influential books of the 20th century: The Structure of Scientific Revolution by Thomas Kuhn (1962) and Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (1902). The first book discusses a detailed history of science, how various thinkers and scientists discovered and invented new phenomena and how these shaped the world as time moved on. Kuhn places special emphasis on what factors actually contributed to a discovery, in this book, rather than discussing the discoveries per se; he believed that no person could be credited with a discovery unless history had been sufficiently studied to conclude the same, because other simultaneous, if inconclusive, theories were taking place also which helped in the structure building and assumptions base of any discovery. Therefore, a knowledge and awareness of history is of equal consequence to science aficionados. In his book the Structure of Scientific Revolution, Kuhn broadly defines all scientific discoveries as those that have adhered with time to current facts and information and those that require further experimentation and study. Kuhn’s main contention was that while there were scientific discoveries being made simultaneously, many older theories were being discarded which were actually the basis for these newer, more accurate ones. He was opposed to the idea of sole attribution as he felt that original theory existence and proposition could not be discarded. He writes: “Out-of-date theories are not in principle unscientific because they have been discarded… research that displays the difficulties in isolating individual inventions and discoveries gives ground for profound doubts about the cumulative process through which these individual contributions to science were thought to have been compounded.” (9) The second book is actually a compilation of the lectures that James delivered during his time as a Gifford lecturer, speaking on Natural Religion at Edinburg. The book has been read by millions of people who are interested in religion, acting “as a means of restoring self-understanding to the psychology of religion through an examination of its “foundational practices” and an appreciation of the “provisionality and uncertainty” of its knowledge” (O’Toole 233). This book is a deep study of religion and human nature, drawing insights into the significance and need of religion for human beings. The work of William James has come to be a very important basic document and reference for religious understanding. This has particular interest from converts for being a complete guide on religious experiences and defining in multiple ways what religion actually is (Beit-Hallahmi 355). Expressing his conformity to the idea by Charles Taylor, author O’Toole writes that although Taylor’s opinion that James’s interpretation of religious experiences is highly “individualistic, sociologically deficient, unduly dismissive of theology, and unduly Protestant in attitude,” James’s underlying implication of “individual experience and feelings” is the fundamental building blocks towards a religious understanding and inclination. Based on this individual and personal element to religion, Taylor is quoted as saying that religion is “very much at home in modern culture” and can be applied and understood, rather than being a ‘collective ritual’ which would be far more esoteric and group specific. (O’Toole 234) The problem discussed by Kuhn is explained with a model put forth with regards to the accretion of science that relies heavily on historical progression and rejection of ideas. This is a very fundamental concept which has shaped the way science has been understood ever since this book came out. Sankey, remarking on Kuhn’s contribution, says that post-Kuhn, science is viewed to be a “developing process” which is undergone and practiced by society, adding, reworking and discarding ideas in light of “shifting historical and social circumstances” (821). Kuhn is of the opinion that science works on a very ‘dynamic model’ where “relatively long periods of stability, dominated by one theory, alternate with short periods of so-called scientific revolutions, dominated by free competition among theories” (Spariosu 305). Kuhn gives a very apt example to describe his philosophy: “Yet anyone examining a survey of physical optics before Newton may well conclude that, though the field’s practitioners were scientists, the net result of their activity was something less than science” (1962). His studies and research shed light on the fact that when these revolutionary theories and ideas were proposed, there existed no feasible or ‘rational’ method of evaluating the accuracy of any one or all theories (Moloney). This leads to the conclusion that knowing what actually happened prior to the discovery is almost as important as knowing what the discovery actually was. Kuhn makes extensive use of the term paradigm, which he describes as those achievements which have these two characteristics: “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.” A paradigm is any whole scientific model which is held to be true at one time. Taking into account Kuhn’s contention discussed earlier, with the advent of newer information and circumstances, the paradigm can switch or ‘shift’, becoming acclimatized to the newer facts. This is what he calls a ‘paradigm shift’, giving numerous examples throughout his book. He writes that a different or new circumstance or a crisis “loosens the stereotypes and provides the incremental data necessary for a fundamental paradigm shift. Sometimes the shape of the new paradigm is foreshadowed in the structure that extraordinary research has given to the anomaly”. Kuhn is of the opinion that younger, fresher minds in particular who are “little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science” are more likely to “see that those rules no longer define a playable game and to conceive another set that can replace them” (60). Therefore, they drive the paradigm shift. James is acknowledged and credited with one of the most basic and widely used definitions of religions: “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (51). It is important to note here that James does not say ‘whoever they may consider god’ but prefers to use the word divine, thereby, making this definition all encompassing to all believers. For his own understanding of God, he borrows from R. W. Trine and says, “The great central fact of the universe is that spirit of infinite life and power that is back of all, that manifests itself in and through all. This spirit of infinite life and power that is back of all is what I call God.” (146) As mentioned earlier, James was an avid philosopher on the process of conversion. In the beginning of his lecture called Conversion (IX; 270), James writes: To be Converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities. This at least is what conversion signifies in general terms, whether or not we believe that a direct divine operation is needed to bring such a moral change about. Coming back to Kuhn’s work, the success and applicability of science is rooted in the fact that “scientists deliberately restrict their vision and their imagination in order to see some particular thing better” (Moloney 54). Sufficiently deviant and unforeseen scientific results bring these limitations and assumptions to the forefront again for revisitation, and this, according to Kuhn, requires an element of ‘free-thinking’ and perhaps self-doubt as well. Conservative science has no room for such free thinking; the greatness in Kuhn’s work lies in the fact that he demonstrated that “many of the great scientists of paradigms past were "unscientific" by this standard” (Moloney 54). Kuhn’s book is one of the biggest contributors to blend in the significance of history with contemporary science. However, it was “without encouraging its readers to check the accuracy or applicability of Kuhn’s particular version” (Fuller) Contrary to Kuhnian Science, which develops with time based on current circumstances and past assumptions, Jamesian religion is absolute. This means that despite the role history plays, current religious facts and beliefs are not likely to change. However, if reason has to be shared and understood by many, then it has to rely not just on plain facts, figures and logic but on more qualitative facets like “rhetoric and poetry, charity and sensitivity, self-confidence and mutual respect” and most importantly, must involve “creating and sustaining a culture of inquiry, a high-level conversation that can include many voices without losing its direction” (Moloney 55). Moloney writes that this is what Kuhn believed ‘paradigm’ to be. (55) This concept is also applicable to the understanding of religion, as proclaimed by James because religion is anything but restricted to logic and facts. It requires more subjectivism through rhetoric and sensitivity. James did not believe that a reductionistic scientific psychology could explain religion with much credibility and nor did he think it was the task of humanistically, phenomenologically or sociologically inclined scholars (O’Toole 236) to give explanations of religious concepts and beliefs. This boils down to the ages old dispute of science and religion, of objectivity and subjectivity. But a belief in Kuhn’s paradigm shifts leaves room open that one day these two might reconcile. Works Cited Beit-Hallahmi, Benjami. “The Varieties as an Inspiration: Confessions of a Slow Learner”. Crosscurrents (2003): 353-67. 22 Sep 2009 Fuller, Steve. “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)” Books Reconsidered (2002): 824-827. 22 Sep 2009 James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. KayDreams, 1902 Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd Ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962. Moloney, Daniel P. “Thomas S. Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. First Things (2000): 53-55. 22 Sep 2009. O’Toole, Roger. “Review Article: William James and the Varieties of Contemporary Religion”. Journal of Contemporary Religion (2004) 19: 231–239. 22 Sep 2009. Sankey, Howard. “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” Books Reconsidered (2002): 821-824. 22 Sep 2009 Spariosu, Mihai. Dionysus Reborn: Play and the Aesthetic Dimension in Modern Philosophical and Scientific Discourse. New York: Cornell University Press, 1989. Read More