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Paradigm
A paradigm is a representation of the world, a way of seeing things, a coherent model of a vision of the world that relies on a defined basis (disciplinary matrix, theoretical model or school of thought).
It is like a rail on which thoughts run, but which can also be an obstacle to the introduction of new and better adapted solutions. A paradigm in the collective meaning is a system of widely held perceptions in a specific domain. That being said, paradigms tend to differ according to social group and change through time as knowledge evolves (particularly in the case of scientific paradigms).
For example, according to the site Devoir-de-Philosophie
Ptolemy (90-168), the author of an important treatise on astronomy, the Almagest (2nd century BC), proposed a geocentric model for the solar system that remained the accepted model from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Astronomers and mathematicians could work on the knowledge of celestial movements within this theoretical framework. Nevertheless, nonsensical observations were made – some planets did not appear to turn around the Earth – bringing this model into doubt. It was necessary to wait for Copernicus (1473-1523; On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies, 1543), and above all Galileo (1564-1642; Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems, 1632), to establish a new scientific paradigm. The Copernican revolution consisted in putting forward the hypothesis that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the centre of the universe. So the Sun no longer revolved around the Earth, it was the Earth that revolved around the Sun. This heliocentric model constituted a change of paradigm.