Kuhn–Popper debate

In 1965, at the University of London's International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper engaged in a debate that circled around three main areas of disagreement.

Working as a historian and philosopher of science at MIT, Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962, proposing a theory for classifying generational knowledge under frameworks known as paradigms.

[2] Paradigms being, "an accepted model or pattern",[3] when upturned, "what were ducks in the scientist's world before the revolution are rabbits afterwards.

[5] Here, he had begun to write The Poverty of Historicism (1957) and The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) the day the Nazis stormed Austria.

Karl Popper was a critical rationalist, who began his early studies in psychology under Adler, then later turned to physics and philosophy.

[13] Kuhn believed that Popper's perspective only focused on "the extraordinary or revolutionary episodes in scientific development", which "obscured [...] the existence of normal research.

Popper's model, however, was prescriptive rather than truly reflective of reality, often attacked for being too 'romantic', whereas Kuhn's was popularly accepted to have realistically portrayed scientific progression from a sociological perspective.

In opposition, Kuhn was far more pragmatic; he developed a new approach to understanding research which agreed with the history of science.

Popper's argument holds sway amongst naturalists, claiming that "we become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets" against the deterministic nature of Kuhn's model.

This is because Kuhn created useful models and terminology to better understand history as thought in a time where relativism and revisionism was becoming of increasing value in academic circles.

"[23]In The Logic of Scientific Discovery Popper refuted Hume's final sentiment that nothing can be known due to the illusory nature of the world, and instead proposed a deductive model of science.