The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
with Zgjim Dida
Summary
In the first episode of Prishtina Book Talks, Zgjim Dida presents “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn — the 1960s book that overturned our understanding of how scientific knowledge develops, and that put words such as “paradigm”, “paradigm shift” and “normal science” into circulation.
Following the book's central concepts — the paradigm, normal science, anomalies, crisis, scientific revolutions and the incommensurability of paradigms — Dida explains why “scientific truth” is not a straight line of progress but a cycle of great changes in which the whole way of seeing shifts.
The second half turns to application: Kosovo, Albanian society, education, NGOs, art and justice — all read through the lens of paradigms, and why they are so hard to change.
Some of the points covered: 📌 Why Aristotle was “wrong” — and why he was not ignorant 📌 The paradigm: the glasses through which we see the world 📌 Normal science, anomalies, and the crises that open the way 📌 Why scientific revolutions resemble political ones 📌 Incommensurability: why two paradigms cannot talk to each other 📌 Applications in Kosovo: education, NGOs, justice and art 📌 Low ambition as a national paradigm
📍 Prishtina Book Talks