Abstract
The discourse of modernism posits that logical change is a fundamental process in its internal makeup. The rhetoric of modernism is replete with stories about the use of the scientific method in gathering data, developing theories that are testable, and proving or disproving them. Despite the fact that a close analysis reveals that the use of the scientific method is at best a rhetorical feat and at worst pure fiction (Beveridge, 1950, The Art of Scientific Investigation (Vintage), Geison, 1995, The Private Science of Louis Pasteur (University of Princeton Press)), these revelations have not discouraged the idea that progress is inevitable within its metanarrative (Nesbit, 1980, The History of the Idea of Progress (Basic Books)). Within the context of modernism is Kuhn's parallel idea of paradigm and paradigm change. This article shows how paradigms preclude considering certain forms of change which threaten their borders as a meta-discourse. Because of this continuous centring and re-centring, paradigm shifts as posited by Kuhn are not changes at all because they are inherently commensurate, a condition which Kuhn believed to be impossible between paradigms. We have therefore a mistaken notion of change that envisions mutations and gradualism for fundamental 'paradigm shifts'. 'New theories' are simply 'old theories' made over and renamed. The alternative is to consider conceptual diversity by abandoning the idea of a paradigm itself and with it the need for a singular field of theory and practice.