On Paradigms I

"All crises begin with the blurring of a paradigm and the consequent loosening of the rules for normal research […] Or finally, the case that will most concern us here, a crisis may end with the emergence of a new candidate for paradigm and with the ensuing battle over its acceptance." (Thomas S Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", 1962)

"Probably, the single most prevalent claim advanced by the proponents of a new paradigm is that they can solve the problems that led the old one to a crisis." (Thomas S Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", 1962)

"For our purposes, a simple way to understand paradigms is to see them as maps. We all know that ‘the map is not the territory’. A map is simply an explanation of certain aspects of the territory. That’s exactly what a paradigm is. It is a theory, an explanation, or model of something else." (Stephen R Covey, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", 1989)

"The word paradigm comes from the Greek. It was originally a scientific term, and is more commonly used today to mean a model, theory, perception, assumption, or frame of reference. In the more general sense, it's the way we 'see' the world - not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting." (Stephen Covey, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", 1989)

“Each of us carries within us a worldview, a set of assumptions about how the world works - what some call a paradigm - that forms the very questions we allow ourselves to ask, and determines our view of future possibilities.” (Frances M Lappé, “Rediscovering America's Values”, 1991)

"Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world." (Stephen Covey, "Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People", 1994)

"The shift of paradigms requires an expansion not only of our perceptions and ways of thinking, but also of our values. […] scientific facts emerge out of an entire constellation of human perceptions, values, and actions-in one word, out of a paradigm-from which they cannot be separated. […] Today the paradigm shift in science, at its deepest level, implies a shift from physics to the life sciences." (Fritjof Capra, "The Web of Life", 1996)

"Paradigms are the most general-rather like a philosophical or ideological framework. Theories are more specific, based on the paradigm and designed to describe what happens in one of the many realms of events encompassed by the paradigm. Models are even more specific providing the mechanisms by which events occur in a particular part of the theory's realm. Of all three, models are most affected by empirical data - models come and go, theories only give way when evidence is overwhelmingly against them and paradigms stay put until a radically better idea comes along." (Lee R Beach, "The Psychology of Decision Making: People in Organizations", 2005)

“The crucial concept that brings all of this together is one that is perhaps as rich and suggestive as that of a paradigm: the concept of a model." (Otávio Bueno, [in" Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science", Ed. by Lorenzo Magnani & Tommaso Bertolotti, 2017])