Abstract

The essay deals with the remarks on scientific revolutions, as well as on paradigms by some revolutionaries in science. -In 1772 Lavoisier remarked in his laboratory note-book that he was going to make a revolution in chemistry and in physics by replacing the concept of phlogiston by oxygen. During the French revolution, Condorcet came to the conclusion that there are times of stagnation in science, whereafter a genius invents new methods. Both authors were among the three members of the Académie des Sciences who became victims of the Revolution. Lichtenberg was only a spectator of the Revolution. But the [revolutions on Earth] inspired him to contemplate scientific revolution. In the sketch of a textbook on science which he composed during the 1790's, and which he never completed, Lichtenberg returned to this topic. Here he introduced the concept of the paradigm as a tool in science. This term was defined according to its original meaning in classical Greek, i.e. as a model which is taken from a well established branch of science and is applied to a science as yet to be developed. In addition, Lichtenberg discussed several cases in which two scientific hypotheses were in contest. He believed that the future theory would contain a synthesis of the two opposing concepts rather than mark the victory of one over the other.Heisenberg expressed, since 1932, his views on the development of science in several lectures adressed to the general public. His conclusion was that in sciences, from time to time, revolutions occur in which a given theory will be transformed in the sense of a metamorphosis; the new theory will then be based on a different system of basic concepts. The reasons for a revolutionary transformation are experimental data which do not fit the old theory. During this process the well established older theory is neither falsified nor completely replaced by the new one which, however, ordains the limits of its validity. Heisenberg signifies such theories as closed theories which are always true. He generalized his own experience in this way: A scientific revolutionary never starts with abandoning the older theory, on the contrary, he wants to save as much of it as possible-and thus unwittingly he achieves a revolution