Publisher's Synopsis
<div>In <i>Paradigms and Barriers</i> Howard Margolis offers an <br>innovative interpretation of Thomas S. Kuhn's landmark idea <br>of "paradigm shifts," applying insights from cognitive <br>psychology to the history and philosophy of science. <br>Building upon the arguments in his acclaimed <i>Patterns, </i><br><i>Thinking, and Cognition</i>, Margolis suggests that the <br>breaking down of particular habits of mind—of critical <br>"barriers"—is key to understanding the processes through <br>which one model or concept is supplanted by another. <br><br>Margolis focuses on those revolutionary paradigm shifts— <br>such as the switch from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican <br>worldview—where challenges to entrenched habits of mind <br>are marked by incomprehension or indifference to a new <br>paradigm. Margolis argues that the critical problem for a <br>revolutionary shift in thinking lies in the robustness of the <br>habits of mind that reject the new ideas, relative to the <br>habits of mind that accept the new ideas. <br><br>Margolis applies his theory to famous cases in the history of <br>science, offering detailed explanations for the transition <br>from Ptolemaic to cosmological astronomy, the emergence of <br>probability, the overthrow of phlogiston, and the emergence <br>of the central role of experiment in the seventeenth century. <br>He in turn uses these historical examples to address larger <br>issues, especially the nature of belief formation and <br>contemporary debates about the nature of science and the <br>evolution of scientific ideas. <br><br>Howard Margolis is a professor in the Harris Graduate School <br>of Public Policy Studies and in the College at the University <br>of Chicago. He is the author of <i>Selfishness, Altruism, </i><br><i>and Rationality</i> and <i>Patterns, Thinking, and </i><br><i>Cognition</i>, both published by the University of Chicago <br>Press.</div>
