PARADIGMS OR PARADIGMATITIS? ABOUT THE INCONVENIENT USES OF THIS CONCEPT IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY

Abstract

Based on a brief review of the meanings that T.S. Kuhn gave to the term “paradigm”, along with various senses of its relationships with others of his ideas, it is concluded that these ideas are not pertinents to the development of Psychology. Then, it proposes the main thesis of this article, with the caveat that it is not Kuhn ideas that have not been an influence: in our discipline, rather what has become influential is a paradigmatitis, a problem that occurs when the notion of paradigm is adopted in order to set inviolable limits between currents of thought which actually relate dialectically by several contradictions, crossovers and substitutions.