Thomas Kuhn and Martin Heidgger: Between Meditation

and Action

Brayden Benham

CSP3000

Paper 1
 Prof. G. McOuat

The views of Thomas Kuhn and Martin Heidegger overlap in

some fundamental areas, but even more fundamental than their

similarities are their differences. If we take Kuhn’s concept of

paradigm shifts in the sense of Heidegger’s “Enframing” we see

a similar vision of world-view, but which is separated an abyss.

The two also point to problems with scientific representation and

the effects it has have on man. Furthermore, both of them see

the study of history as a necessary way of making sense of the

practice of science, but they are looking at the issue from two

very different standpoints, and the conclusions they draw from

historiography end up articulating two incommensurable

positions. Ultimately Heidegger is tackling the problem of

science from the perspective of pure philosophy, whereas

Kuhn’s approach is much more practical and only tangentially

linked to the type of philosophy Heidegger embraces. They will

never agree, but through a look at the similarities and

differences that unite and set them apart we come to see that

they share an attitude of pointing toward a future in which

science can be better understood and more controlled by man.

There are many definitions of the word “paradigm” in The

Structure of Scientific Revolutions, so many that it makes it easy

to squeeze Heidegger ‘s concept of “Enframing” into its

parameters. Let’s take the following as our definition of

“paradigm: “universally recognized scientific achievements that

for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community

of practitioners” (Kuhn, x). A prime example of paradigm shift is

the transition from Newtonian to Einsteinian mechanics.

Whereas Newton’s Principia had been the doctrine by which all

scientists referred to in formulating, hypotheses, doing research,

and making conclusions, the development of the theory of

relativity by Einstein in the early twentieth century led to an

upheaval of the old methods of dealing with and representing

reality. For Kuhn this marked a drastic change in the way

scientists conduct themselves and view the world: “though the

world does not change with a change of paradigm the scientist

afterward works in a different world” (Kuhn, 120). That is to say

that the old conceptual network of methods, principles,

experiments and definitions has been altered into a distinct

system which now encompasses the world of the scientist and,

indirectly, the world of man. Upon this assertation Kuhn adds,

“we must learn to make sense of statements such as these

(Kuhn, 120). There are many statements such as these, and that

Kuhn takes the time to point this out shows us that he leaves it

to others to interpret such statements in their own ways.

 Kuhn’s claim that “the scientist afterward works in a

different world” is an interpretation of a similar claim, one he

may have gotten from the work of Alexandre Koyré (whom Kuhn

cites as an influence in the preface to his book). In 1957 Koyré

wrote on the various views of perception change in man:

“In my opinion they are concomitants and expressions of a

deeper and more fundamental process as the result of which

man…lost his place in the world, or, more correctly perhaps, lost

the very world in which he was living, and about which he was

thinking, and had to transform and replace not only his

fundamental concepts and attributes, but even the very

framework of his thought” (FCW, 2).

Here Koyré is referring to Heidegger. Before the above

statement, Koyré writes that some thinkers have attributed the

perception change of man to “the discovery, by man’s

consciousness, of its essential subjectivity…[and] others, in the

change of relationship between θεωρία and πρᾱξις, the old ideal

of the vita contemplativa yielding its place to that of the vita

activa” (FCW, 1). This is precisely where Heidegger finds man’s

perception shift, in his essay “Science and Reflection” he writes:

“In theoría transformed into contemplatio there comes to the

fore the impulse, already prepared in Greek thinking, of a

looking-at that sunders and compartmentalizes (SR, 166). This

“compartmentalization” is what eventually led, for Heidegger, to

man’s modern conception of the use of science as a means to

define, to control, and to extract from nature. Heidegger goes

through a long etymological explanation of the word “theoría”,

holding that it meant something completely different to the pre-

Socratics then it later would to Plato and Aristotle, to the

Romans, the medievals, and later still, to moderns. This view is

also held, more or less by Werner Heisenberg who, in 1958,

wrote that, distinct from the Greek views, over time “the human

attitude toward nature changed from a contemplative one to a

pragmatic one” (PP, 197). All of these thinkers share the view

that man’s perception of nature shifts over the course of history

in accordance with an innumerable amount of factors, namely

science, technology and culture.

For Heidegger man’s perception of the world is governed

by “Enframing”. “Enframing” may be taken to be the process by

which scientists represent the world in a way that it may be

suppressed, controlled, understood, and utilized. Taken in a

Kuhnian sense it could be said that the Newtonian paradigm was

one method of enframing and that the Einstinian paradigm was

a development of that paradigm into a new enframing. But it is

so much more than that for Heidegger, who defines enframing

as “the challenging claim which gathers man thither, to order

the self-revealing as standing reserve” (QCT, 19). For Heidegger

man is challenged by nature. He is the only being who is set

against nature, and this challenge, which comes from an

obscure source, invites man to set-upon nature. Man sets-upon

nature through science because it provides a narrow scope for

understanding, which man comes to see as a “standing-reserve”

(QCT, 17). Standing-reserves are those natural forces and

resources, which men have harnessed for their own use, such as

water for hydro, oil for gasoline, trees for wood, and, possibly,

men for work. This enframing is a developing process in the

consciousness of man, which changes along with scientific and

cultural advancement.

Enframing involves “entrapping representation” for

Heidegger. Entrapping-representation “orders it [nature] into

place to the end that at any given time the real will exhibit itself

as an interacting network of, i.e., in a surveyable series of

related causes (SR, 168). On the level of science entrapping-

representation involves, above all, theory and observation.

Theory, now far removed from its original Greek meaning, is the

method by which scientists objectify nature in a set of

understandable representations and formulas. Observation is

rendered by the modern scientific method to be a way of looking

upon something and then reducing it to a graspable

representation.

Entrapping representation is important because it is seen

by average man as something which helps him in his

understanding and mastery of nature. It is even more so

important for scientists because through it they are seen to

have superiority over other fields of knowledge. To this effect

Heidegger writes, “Because modern science is theory in the

sense described, therefore in all its observing the manner of its

striving after, i.e., the manner of its entrapping-securing

procedure, i.e., its method, has decisive superiority” (SR, 169).

This thought is reflected in Kuhn, who also sees science as

having a higher, more indisputable, claim to truth. On this he

writes the scientific “group’s members as individuals and by

virtue of their shared training and experience must be seen as

the sole possessors of the rules of the game, or of some

equivalent basis for unequivocal judgments” (Kuhn, 167). They

must and, most of the time, are seen as the authoritative

arbiters of truth, but neither Kuhn nor Heidegger sees this as a

good thing and both of them aim at a clearer understanding of

why this takes place and what its implications may be. Kuhn

says his aim in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions is “a

sketch of the quite different concept of science that can emerge

from the historical record of the research activity itself” (Kuhn,

1). Through such a shift in perception man may be able to see

that scientists as the “sole possessors of the rules of the game”

are not cumulatively progressing towards any sort of truth, that

their conclusions often derive from arbitrary sources, and that

their representation of reality cannot help but fall short of what

is really going on.

Scientific representation is far too narrow for both Kuhn

and Heidegger to be satisfied, and both think that there is

something other in science. But they also think that such a

condensed view of reality is necessary. Kuhn writes,

“observation and experience can and must drastically restrict

the range of admissible scientific belief, else there would be no

science” (Kuhn, 4). Neither Kuhn nor Heidegger abhors science,

but they each protect it for different reasons. Kuhn protects it in

order to improve the scientific method, while Heidegger does it

in defense of Being, and thus his defense of science leads us to

a whole other realm than Kuhn’s. Heidegger writes, “because

the essence of technology lies in Enframing, modern technology

must employ exact physical science” (QCT, 23). The essence of

technology can be accessed through enframing because, if

looked at obliquely, it shows itself as both the construct of man

and of mysterious forces. If man is able to look at this vast

construct and realize it as such he will have a closer relationship

with the essence of technology and Being, and will gain a sense

of freedom. The manifestation of Enframing is in representation,

Kuhn and, certainly, Heidegger would have to agree with Koyré

that “it is dangerous: the more a mind is accustomed to the

rigidity of geometrical thought, the less it will be able to grasp

the mobile changing, qualitatively determined variety of Being

(MM, 38). They would agree, but Kuhn would most likely take

out the Being part, as this is not his concern in the least, and

replace it with “scientific research”. Kuhn admittedly does not

deal with philosophical concepts such as these: “limitations of

space have drastically affected my treatment of the

philosophical implications of this essay’s historically oriented

view of science” (Kuhn, xii). Kuhn is dealing in the realm of

historiography, sociology and anthropology; his analysis of

science is only mildly philosophical. But Heidegger couldn’t be

more philosophical and it is in this perspective that his analysis

is embedded.

Though representation is necessary for us to bear witness

to “Enframing” and thus come closer to Being “scientific

representation…can never decide whether nature, through its

objectness does not rather withdraw itself then bring to

appearance the hidden fullness of its coming to presence.

Science cannot even ask the question; for, as theory, it has

already undertaken to deal with the area circumscribed by

otherness” (SR, 174). For Heidegger, science is not equipped to

ask questions about itself. Kuhn, alternately, is perfectly

satisfied with the “potential fruitfulness of a number of new sets

of research both historical and sociological” (Kuhn, xi). He

disagrees with Heidegger in that he does not think a deeply

philosophical approach is necessary to save science. Kuhn is

more embedded in the scientific tradition than Heidegger and

thus his means of explanation are not far removed from that

realm. In fact he almost completely extricates philosophy by,

intentionally or unintentionally, down-playing its importance. To

this effect he writes, “scientists have not generally needed or

wanted to be philosophers. Indeed normal science holds

creative philosophy at arms length, and probably for good

reasons…the full sets of rules sought by philosophical analysis

need not even exist” (Kuhn, 87-88). But Kuhn does not

completely rule out philosophical speculation, his goal is a

change in perspective toward science, and this leaves room for

any alternate analysis of science. Even though he calls what he

is doing part of a “historiographical revolution in the study of

science,” he admits that it “is still in its early stages” (Kuhn, 3).

Kuhn is making no attempt to be the authoritative forerunner in

the field of historiography; he rather supports the proliferation of

analyses of science and thus leaves room for Heidegger.

For Kuhn the salvation of science lies in history. This is

true also for Heidegger. But Kuhn is speaking of the history of

science whereas Heidegger is talking of the history of Being.

Thus Heidegger searches for the essence of technology in the

earliest Greek philosophy. This approach is justified by

Heisenberg who wrote that “to get an understanding of the

basis of atomic physics, we shall have to follow, step by step,

the ideal which, two and a half thousand years ago, had led

Greek natural philosophy to atomic theory…only such a

background will enable us to understand the sense of the

endeavors of our time” (FPPAP, 96-8). Although here Heisenberg

is referring to atomic theory it is evident in his writing that such

a view applies to many of the same areas of Greek philosophy to

which Heidegger refers and to science in general. Kuhn also

invests much importance in history, but it seems his view of

history is more near-sighted and narrow than Heisenberg’s and

Heidegger’s. Kuhn’s involves an encounter with the history of

science through texts and through the monitoring of the

research process, whereas Heidegger’s involves an engagement

with Being, Greek philosophy, and the history of language. He

echoes Heisenberg saying, “science…needs the Greek knowing

in order to become, over against it, another kind of knowing”

(SR, 157). Historiography falls short here because it does not

involve the elements of Being and pure language, and thus “we

must free ourselves from historiographical representation” (SR,

158). It seems that Heidegger counts as scientific representation

historiographic representation as well. This means that since

historiography can only explain itself in preconceived terms, and

must fit itself into a network of enframing in order to articulate

itself, it can never move beyond itself and into the realm of

truth: “Whether history reveals itself in its essence only through

and for historiography or whether it is not rather concealed

through historiographical objectification remains for the science

of history something it cannot itself decide. This however is

decided: In the theory of historiography, history holds sway as

that which must not be gotten around” (SR, 175). Because

history is something that “must not be gotten around” the

historian will not be able to transcend his own framework in

order to get to a clearer understanding of the history of which

he is studying. This is deeply true for Heidegger who believes

that philosophers such as himself must defend the old

philosophical traditions and the integrity of language so as to

preserve, bring forth, and come into touch with Being.

 Kuhn also defends the older intellectual traditions, but not

in such a deep way as Heidegger. He says that since there is no

equivalent of the “library of classics” in scientific education “the

result is a sometimes drastic distortion in the scientist’s

perception of the discipline’s past” (Kuhn, 166). Since there is

not much emphasis on historical exploration in scientific

education the scientist will come to see their discipline as a

cumulative and progressive process. It is only through history

that the scientist may get a clear view of his discipline. But all

that Kuhn can hope for is clarity since he believes that “…

nothing that has been or will be said makes it a process of

evolution toward anything” (Kuhn, 169). It is here that

Heidegger most fundamentally disagrees with Kuhn. Heidegger

offers a philosophy of hope in that to him, "[t]echnology...is the

realm of revealing, i.e., of truth” (QCT, 12). Kuhn, as opposed to

Heidegger, seems to do away with truth completely in favour of

clarity and correctness. And this is perfectly fine because Kuhn’s

position is related to action rather than contemplation. For

Heidegger reflection, not just on the superficial history of a

thing, but on the essence of a thing is necessary for truth to

come to pass, but, there is no room for such reflection within

scientific education. This is because “a scientific community is

an immensely efficient instrument for solving the problems of

puzzles that its paradigms define” (Kuhn, 165). Because it is

such an efficient system there can be no time for reflective

questions on the essence, nature or Being of things. Scientists

are engaged in this system and cannot operate outside of it as

scientists, they most contribute to whatever type of puzzle

solving presents itself in their paradigm and “unlike the

engineer, and many doctors, and most theologians, the scientist

need not choose problems because they urgently need

solution…” (Kuhn, 163). Heidegger is writing out of a sense of

necessity, out of a perceived need to protect a kind of thought

that he sees as crucial to man’s place in the world, but if we are

to take Kuhn at his word this urgency will never be articulated to

the scientific community because it will always be perceived as

futile and immaterial. Indeed the philosophy of Heidegger is

useless to Kuhn’s understanding of the world. This makes

perfect sense because Heidegger himself recognizes his own

philosophy as useless to some extant, saying “the poverty of

reflection is the promise of a wealth whose treasures glow in the

resplendence of that uselessness which can never be included in

reckoning” (SR, 181). That is to say that it is this very

uselessness, the nothingness of reflection, which sets man apart

from science and allows him to rise up in a free relationship with

it.
 Kuhn as a member of the scientific community does not

have time for this type of reflection and would rather spend his

time actively attempting to communicate his theory of the

history of science. Both of these thinkers ideas aim at getting to

a point where science is more understandable and controllable,

but their methods of doing so are separated by a massive gulf.

Heidegger looks at science from the meditative side, while Kuhn

looks at it from the practical side. Talk about

incommensurability. It is hard to see if, under any

circumstances, Kuhn would ever except Heidegger’s view and

that Heidegger would accept Kuhn’s. But through setting the

two against each other it can be seen that in dealing with

science there is common ground between meditation and

action.
 Bibliography

Heidegger, Martin. “Science and Reflection.” In The Question

Concerning Technology. Ed. William Lovitt. New Yor. Harper &
Row. 1977. pp. 155-182

Heidegger, Martin. “The Question Concerning Technology.” In

The Question Concerning Technology. Ed. William Lovitt. New
York. Harper & Row. 1977. pp. 3-35.

Heisenberg, Werner. Fundamental Problems of Present-day

Atomic Physics. In Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science.
London: Faber and Faber, 1952. Print.

Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago.

University of Chicago Press. 1966.

Koyré, Alexandre. From the Closed World to the Infinite

Universe. Baltimore, Maryland. The Johns Hopkins Press. 1987.

Koyré, Alexandre. Metaphysics and Measurment. Cambridge.

Harverd University Press. 1968.