These are context-bound they are shaped by society and, moreover, these assumptions remain implicit. The frame of reference of normal legal research is based on certain assumptions about law itself, its function and the problems it addresses. It permits, second, the description of ‘normal legal research’, which revolves around the conflict-resolving potential of modern law. It demands a brief analysis of the core ideas of The Structure, such as the meaning of paradigm, the distinction between ‘normal’ and ‘revolutionary’ science, the processes of professionalization and how students come to understand the scientific paradigm, and how revolutionary changes in thought are coming about through a reflexive attitude towards developments that fit ill in the existing paradigm – so called anomalies. The approach is, first, aimed at making more explicit how the thought processes underlining the Kuhnian structure could be useful for a better understanding of modern legal research.
In this article, I propose that an elementary understanding of the Kuhnian structure of scientific research is useful in understanding modern legal research. This reliance on ‘paradigm’ as a means to embed legal research emulates the scientific method as described by Thomas Kuhn (1996) in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2 x See, respectively, (bio-technology and personhood) (sports and doping). Another way the notion is used is to describe the evolution of the body of law on a particular novel theme, such as biotechnology and personhood, sports and doping, etc. 1 x An example is intimacy and how it is/ought to be regulated see Cohen 2002. This shift, the formulation of a new paradigm, is perceived as revolutionary because it demands letting go of well-established assumptions about the law and how it regulates the issue at hand. Usually, the prevailing legal paradigm on that issue is criticized and arguments are advanced in order to initiate a paradigm shift. The phrase ‘legal paradigm’ is used in the literature to describe a particular state of affairs in respect of a particular issue subject to legal regulation.
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