Kuhn And Lakatos’ Comparison Of The Theory Of Scientific Development

Proposed by Kuhn and Lakatos, paradigm theory and the theory of scientificresearch program which reveals the doctrines of law of scientific development, is animportant theoretical part of the philosophy of science. Their critical inheritance isbased on the previously theoretical results based on.Their present thesis adopts the methodology of comparative analysis whichmainly focus on the content of the two theories, the interpretations of scientificdevelopment mode, as well as their epistemology. Kuhn did not give a clear conceptof the composition of the contents of the two theories, while Lakatos in this regardclearly defined the structure of the scientific research program. Paradigm theory doesnot give a detailed division of the internal structure, whereas the theory of scientificresearch program divides its internal structure into hard-core, protection, the positiveinspired part as well as the negative inspired part and it also further describes therelationship between each of them.Paradigm theory and the theory of scientific research program proposedrespectively their own scientific dynamic development models which are differentfrom Popper’s. On one hand, they believe that theories can not be simply falsified byexperience; on the other hand, divergences also exist between scientific progress andproblems on the theory of Kuhn and Lakatos. Lakatos clarified the evaluation criteriafor the Advancement of Science, which has progressive significance of this point withrespect to Kuhn.There also exist many differences in the epistemologies of the two theories.Kuhn and Lakatos can be the representative figures in the history of the developmentof the philosophy of science, and their paradigm theory and scientific researchprogram theory is also regarded as the outstanding representatives of the HistoricalSchool in the history of the development of philosophy of Science.On the basis of historical facts, the two theories have promoted the developmentof science and philosophy and provided enlightened guidance’s for scientific practice. It is clear that the contrastive analysis of the two theories should focus on the essenceof the theory and the methodological point of view. Besides, in order to enhance theunderstanding of the theory of philosophy of Science, it’s important to grasp theinherent law of it.