THOMAS KUHN’S INCOMMENSURABILITY PRINCIPLE: IMPLICATION FOR ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN NIGERIA

This study critically examines Thomas Kuhn’s incommensurability principle and its implications for ethnic diversity and national integration in Nigeria. Kuhn’s theory, developed in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), argues that scientific paradigms are often incommensurable, meaning that they operate within distinct conceptual frameworks that make mutual understanding and direct comparison difficult. This philosophical insight is applied here to Nigeria’s context, where over 250 ethnic groups coexist with divergent worldviews, languages, and cultural traditions. The central problem addressed is Nigeria’s enduring struggle with ethnic conflict and lack of cohesive national identity, despite decades of independence and numerous strategies for integration. The research employs a comparative, hermeneutical, and dialectical philosophical method. It is comparative in drawing analogies between scientific paradigms and ethnic worldviews; hermeneutical in interpreting Nigerian socio-political realities through the lens of Kuhn’s philosophy; and dialectical in examining tensions between competing ethnic perspectives and national unity efforts. The study evaluates Nigeria’s historical legacies of colonialism, civil war, and federal restructuring, showing how entrenched epistemic frameworks shape ethnic groups’ perceptions of justice, governance, and morality. Case studies (including Shari’a law in the north, resource control in the Niger Delta, and farmer–herder conflicts in the Middle Belt) illustrate how incommensurability plays out in Nigeria’s ethnic relations. Findings reveal that Nigeria’s integration crisis is not simply a matter of political mismanagement or economic disparity but is rooted in epistemological divides that echo Kuhn’s paradigm conflicts