Chomskys Linguistics, Popperian Way of Doing Science, and Kuhns Ideas of the Paradigm Change - Essay Example

Noam Chomsky is one of the brightest linguists, who have breached the gaps between philosophy, biology, linguistics, and political science. He combined all of these sciences in his remarkable works through the power of linguistics. He broadened the understanding of linguistics in everyday life and raised some core concepts that are applicable to discourse and content analysis.

I would definitely agree with his statement that in any major science “especially social science any major question is open.” This quote brings a key understanding of how science works. Linguistics like any other science is built on the same shared principles. In this regard, I would like to address the work of Karl Popper who highlighted a similar approach to science. In his book Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Popper, 1974), Karl Popper precisely highlighted issues related to the process of scientific research.

According to Popper a researcher should always be aware of his limitations and accept criticism of his research accordingly. At the same time, I agree with Godfrey-Smith, saying that “the more tests a theory passes, the more confidence we can have in its truth. The idea that we can gradually increase our confidence that a theory is true is an idea that Popper rejected”(Godfrey-Smith,2003, p70). The Popperian way of doing science can be enriched by the ideas of Thomas Kuhn, who suggested a different approach towards the structure of science (Kuhn, 1970).

Kuhn’s scientific revolutions happen when scientists encounter a critical mass of anomalies that cannot be explained by the widely accepted paradigm. At the moment when the critical level is reached, the final formation of the paradigm occurs. Boundaries of paradigms widen, thus leading to a shift. The same process can be repeated as many times as it is necessary. So basically, quantitative changes (the normal science) in sciences are followed by qualitative changes (the scientific revolution).