Normal Science and its Dangers

Abstract

Professor Kuhn's criticism of my views about science is the most interesting one I have so far come across. There are, admittedly, some points, more or less important, where he misunderstands me or misinterprets me. For example, Kuhn quotes with disapproval a passage from the beginning of the first chapter of my book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Now I should like to quote a passage overlooked by Kuhn, from the Preface to the First Edition. (In the first edition the passage stood immediately before the passage quoted by Kuhn; later I inserted the Preface to the English Edition between these two passages.) While the brief passage quoted by Kuhn may, out of context, sound as if I had been quite unaware of the fact, stressed by Kuhn, that scientists necessarily develop their ideas within a definite theoretical framework, its immediate predecessor of 1934 almost sounds like an anticipation of this central point of Kuhn's.