A colleague of mine, David Halliburton (who served for many years on the Stanford University faculty), assisted me during many days of consulting with collegiate faculty in expanding on the concept of paradigm. We spoke with faculty members about paradigms (fundamental assumptions and frames of reference), (2) models (often borrowed from other disciplines — such as “interface,” ‘module” “people as machines”, etc.) and (3) practices (what we do repeatedly on a daily basis. Models spin off from paradigms. Practices spin off from models. There are many practices, fewer models and very few paradigms.
Paradigms: David and I have proposed that Paradigms in a particular field or discipline tend to be:
- Few in number,
- Quite simple in construction, and
- Very powerful.
As an example, we can point to the analytic tradition that is to be found in many of the physical, biological and behavioral sciences: we break things down into their fundamental parts in order to best understand them and then we reassemble them. David always pointed to the “smashed frog” critique in biology: when we dissect a frog in the biology class, we might find out how the frog’s leg works and how the frog’s brain is connected to other parts of its body via the spinal cord.
However, we can never bring the frog back to life. The parts can never be reassembled to create a living organism. This failure to create life remains a mystery and relates to what some philosophers and scientists refer to as “emergence” (the unexpected creation of new, higher order phenomena by integrating several lower order phenomena: the whole can’t be predicted from the parts)
Models: In the case of Models, David Halliburton and I proposed that they are:
- Based on paradigms (though the underlying paradigm might not be acknowledged—being part of the tacit knowledge base proposed by Michael Polanyi),
- Moderately large and diverse in number,
- Moderately powerful and influential, and
- Often borrowed from contemporary popular technologies.
As an example of model, Sigmund Freud based his drive theory in part on the recent invention (in the late 19th Century) of the pneumatic pump. One pushes down on a piston in one part of the room and then a piston in another part of the room moves upward with great power. The power is being transferred via air (or a liquid) from one domain to another domain (this is where our psychological concept of “energy flow” comes from – not the flow of electricity, rather the flow of air or a viscous liquid). Thus, we “push down” a disturbing thought or feeling, which travels to another location and reemerges with great power (as a physical symptom or self-destructive act).
