Kuhnianadj.n.
/ˈkuːnɪən/, U.S. /ˈk(j)uniən/ A. adj.
Of or relating to Kuhn or his thought, esp. with reference to his view of the development of scientific theories.In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) Kuhn argued that scientific thought takes place in the context of a world-view or ‘paradigm’, and that scientists tend to work so as to confirm and extend the paradigm. Eventually an accumulation of contradictory observations may result in a change in the paradigm, such as the replacement of Ptolemaic cosmology by Copernican heliocentrism.
ΚΠ
1968 Internat. Stud. Q. 12 395 Gabriel Almond's recent claim to have perceived through Kuhnian lenses the rise of a ‘more surely scientific’ study of politics will suffice as an example.
1971 Science 3 Sept. 870/2 My approach here is intentionally Kuhnian. The acid test of the paradigm concept is not logic but effect.
1976 Language 52 288 The recent emergence of transformational generative grammar has conformed to the pattern of a Kuhnian revolution.
1989 Nature 20 Apr. 688/1 The enthusiastic adoption of the kuhnian language of paradigms and revolutions by many Earth scientists in the later 1960s was no coincidence.
2000 Isis 91 781/1 He prefers Vordisziplinär to Vorparadigmatisch because of the Kuhnian import of the latter expression.
B. n.
An advocate of the Kuhnian view of science.
ΚΠ
1972 Science 10 Mar. 1100/2 Changes in sexual attitudes stray far from the neat models of scientific ideas with which Kuhnians are familiar.
1981 C. Gardner & R. M. Young in T. Bennett et al. Pop. Television & Film ii. vii. 181 A..naive enthusiasm for having access to the ‘top man in the field’, a source any Kuhnian would suggest should at least be complemented by reference to the dissenters from the reigning paradigm.
1995 Jrnl. Philos. 92 419 Kuhn and Kuhnians notwithstanding, science progresses largely through growth or accretion.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1968