> That's pretty much what Kuhn means by pre-paradigm science: when scientists don't know enough about an area to have come up with general principles to guide t

> That's pretty much what Kuhn means by pre-paradigm science: when scientists don't know enough about an area to have come up with general principles to guide their research. Isn't this extremely post-hoc reasoning? If you're on the bleeding edge, you'll formulate theories based on whatever context you have -- and experiment with that. I don't see how the idea of a "paradigm" helps here. It's what everybody does all the time. Maybe I'm just confused about the definition of "paradigm". ... which Kuhn does define, but it's a definition just fuzzy enough that it's pretty easy to argue either way on any given area of science. EDIT: Basically, I think more of a fan of the David Deutsch school of knowledge.