Developmental Psychology, Psychiatry & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2020 Jan;61(1):1-3. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13181.
How is practical progress possible in child psychology and psychiatry? How does science advance to promote therapeutic innovation? The importance of the exciting stuff - new insights and ideas, studied using cutting edge and innovative technologies - is self-evident. However, the philosophy of science has shown us that less obvious and more mundane elements are also essential. This is because scientific progress is only possible where attempts to break new ground are solidly anchored in a stable shared framework of assumptions - a metatheory - about the general nature of the phenomenon being studied. This framework defines what questions are considered 'scientific' - questions that it 'makes sense' to ask from a scientific point of view and those that are considered out of bounds (scientists with less subtle minds even considering such to be nonquestions rather than different sorts of questions). Kuhn called this framework a paradigm and the research activity that originates from it, normal science (Kuhn, 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). These frameworks also serve a vital regulatory function because they contain common concepts that embody shared points of reference that allow scientists to communicate with each other to share their ideas, hypotheses and findings (Habermas, 1979, Communication and the evolution of society; Boston: Beacon Press).
在儿童心理学和儿童精神病学领域，如何才能取得实际进展？科学如何进步以促进治疗创新？令人兴奋的东西——使用前沿和创新技术研究得出的新见解和新想法——其重要性不言而喻。然而，科学哲学告诉我们，不那么明显但更为重要的元素也是必不可少的。这是因为，只有在试图开拓新天地的尝试牢固地扎根于关于所研究现象的一般性质的稳定的、共同的假设框架（元理论）的情况下，科学进步才是可能的。这个框架界定了哪些问题被认为是“科学的”——从科学的角度来看，这些问题是有意义的，而那些被认为是超出范围的问题（思想不那么敏锐的科学家甚至认为这些问题不是问题，而是不同类型的问题）。库恩称这个框架为范式，由此产生的研究活动称为常规科学（库恩，1962，《科学革命的结构》；普林斯顿，新泽西州：普林斯顿大学出版社）。这些框架还具有至关重要的监管功能，因为它们包含共同的概念，这些概念体现了共同的参照点，使科学家能够相互交流，分享他们的想法、假设和发现（哈贝马斯，1979，《交往与社会进化》；波士顿：灯塔出版社）。
