Kuhn 6: Dick And Jane Examine Paradigms
Jan. 31st, 2009 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbot[EDIT Feb. 1 12:19 PM Mountain Standard Time: I've posted a new Kuhn 6 thread that is essentially this one RESTARTED, since this one quickly evolved into an off-topic mess, and on the off chance that some of the lurkers decide to start posting, I want them to have a clearer conversation to join. You can still post here in response to specific things said on this thread, but I want the new one to be where you examine the specific passages in "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" where something's being modeled on something else or something resembles something else, etc.]
I thought that, in my discussion with Mark the other day of my six questions, we were trying to dance in the air before we'd learned how to walk. So I'll suggest that for a while we bring ourselves down to the level of "see Spot run" and "1 + 1 = 2." ("See Spot run" was a line in a Scott Foresman primary reader I was taught to read from at age 6. Spot was a puppy dog.)
So for this thread I want to stay with a single question: what's a paradigm? And I'll limit us to only part of the question. Kuhn originally used the word to mean "model," but then his usage drifted to broader meanings without his initially being quite aware this was happening. Here for now we'll concentrate on the narrow, on "model."
I suggest that you go through the article "What Is A Scientific Revolution?" (here, pp 13 to 32) and look for wherever something is said to be or seems to be a model for something else, or someone's action is modeled on someone else's, or something is said to be like something else or to resemble something else to be similar to something else, or various things are assimilated or juxtaposed, or something is an example or a metaphor or is used in an analogy, or something illustrates a point. Look not just for where Kuhn describes scientists using models, examples, etc. but where Kuhn himself uses models, examples, etc. when he's addressing us.
Here are several instances:
"But it is precisely seeing motion as change-of-quality that permits its assimilation to all other sorts of change." (p. 18)
"Roughly speaking, he used probability theory to find the proportion of resonators that fell in each of the various cells, just as Boltzmann had found the proportions of molecules." (p. 26)
"In particular, the [energy element] has gone from a mental division of the total energy to a separable physical energy atom, of which each resonator may have 0, 1, 2, 3, or some other number. Figure 6 tries to capture that change in a way that suggests its resemblance to the inside-out battery of my last example." (pp 27-28)
Also, if you look at the very top of p. 30 you will find the word "paradigmatic."
Once having done this, use what you've read in those pages to come up with your ideas of the various things (note plural) that a paradigm could be. What you come up with may not altogether match the definitions that Kuhn gives in some of his other pieces. What you come up with may be better.
And of course you can post those ideas on this thread - or on your own livejournal, or somewhere - rather than, you know, not posting them anywhere.
I thought that, in my discussion with Mark the other day of my six questions, we were trying to dance in the air before we'd learned how to walk. So I'll suggest that for a while we bring ourselves down to the level of "see Spot run" and "1 + 1 = 2." ("See Spot run" was a line in a Scott Foresman primary reader I was taught to read from at age 6. Spot was a puppy dog.)
So for this thread I want to stay with a single question: what's a paradigm? And I'll limit us to only part of the question. Kuhn originally used the word to mean "model," but then his usage drifted to broader meanings without his initially being quite aware this was happening. Here for now we'll concentrate on the narrow, on "model."
I suggest that you go through the article "What Is A Scientific Revolution?" (here, pp 13 to 32) and look for wherever something is said to be or seems to be a model for something else, or someone's action is modeled on someone else's, or something is said to be like something else or to resemble something else to be similar to something else, or various things are assimilated or juxtaposed, or something is an example or a metaphor or is used in an analogy, or something illustrates a point. Look not just for where Kuhn describes scientists using models, examples, etc. but where Kuhn himself uses models, examples, etc. when he's addressing us.
Here are several instances:
"But it is precisely seeing motion as change-of-quality that permits its assimilation to all other sorts of change." (p. 18)
"Roughly speaking, he used probability theory to find the proportion of resonators that fell in each of the various cells, just as Boltzmann had found the proportions of molecules." (p. 26)
"In particular, the [energy element] has gone from a mental division of the total energy to a separable physical energy atom, of which each resonator may have 0, 1, 2, 3, or some other number. Figure 6 tries to capture that change in a way that suggests its resemblance to the inside-out battery of my last example." (pp 27-28)
Also, if you look at the very top of p. 30 you will find the word "paradigmatic."
Once having done this, use what you've read in those pages to come up with your ideas of the various things (note plural) that a paradigm could be. What you come up with may not altogether match the definitions that Kuhn gives in some of his other pieces. What you come up with may be better.
And of course you can post those ideas on this thread - or on your own livejournal, or somewhere - rather than, you know, not posting them anywhere.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 07:00 am (UTC)Wait a cotton-pickin' minute here. Remember, I want us to stick close to the narrow meaning of "paradigm" here, which is "model." Does Kuhn anywhere in the piece talk of there being one thing - the world as it can be empirically proven - and another thing, a model, that comprehends this first thing with clarity? Again, I'll give you an answer: nowhere in the piece is there anything like the concept "the world as it can be empirically proven," and where he's talking about resemblance etc. - this being like that - he never talks about something resembling the world. He talks all over the place about stuff resembling other stuff, but not about stuff resembling the world.
This means that his paradigm, as he says, is something that cannot be reversed; that is, to accept it, you must throw out a substantial portion of other things linked to it, to get a clearer picture of the natural world.
Again, whoa boy! He doesn't use the word "paradigm" in this piece, except for that one use of "paradigmatic" that I quoted. What I'm asking us to do is try to come up with what his concept of "paradigm" is - in the narrow sense of "model" - by looking closely at where he seems to be describing something's being modeled on something else or something resembling something else, etc. I don't know what it would mean to say that something being modeled on something else can't be reversed, or something resembling something else can't be reversed. I can conceive of someone saying that a scientific revolution can't be reversed, but I sure don't remember Kuhn saying that in this article.
Also, I think you probably miswrote your sentence. After a scientific revolution, some things previously associated with or depicted by a word or concept are no longer associated with/depicted by it, and other things not previously associated with/depicted by it now are. Kuhn expresses no opinion as to whether the new concepts are clearer or more accurate than the old, or whether the new ones do better by the world, in some way, than the old does. And the way you've written this sentence is confusing since it seems to be saying that any paradigm (whatever the hell a "paradigm" is) does this clarity thing. And I'll point out that this piece doesn't even bring up the question of how people go about deciding that, say, Newton's concept of motion is right and Aristotle's is wrong.