CONCEPT
Research Traditions
Laudan introduced the concept of research traditions in Progress and Its Problems (1977) as a deliberate alternative to Kuhn's paradigms. Where paradigms were total frameworks whose shifts constituted quasi-religious conversions, research traditions were more flexible — general metaphysical and methodological commitments that shape how a community identifies problems and evaluates solutions, but that permit internal modification without collapse. Research traditions cut across disciplines. They persist across theoretical revisions. They compete through the comparative measure that matters: which tradition solves more of the problems it faces while generating fewer anomalies? The framework replaces the search for a correct tradition with the auditable question of which tradition is progressive and which is degenerative.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The concept emerged from Laudan's dissatisfaction with both the positivist picture of science — which assumed a fixed neutral standard for evaluating theories — and Kuhn's alternative, which seemed to make theory-choice arational. Research traditions preserve Kuhn's insight that frameworks shape perception while rejecting his implication that