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 04:54 pm (UTC)That's not a confusion. Revolutionary changes are paradigm shifts, assuming the revolution is successful. Where your confusion lies was in not recalling that I'd said that "paradigm" started with one meaning of paradigm - paradigm as model - but then the term drifted to a broader meaning so that in effect Kuhn was using the term in two different ways, and what I wanted was for you to restrict yourself to the question I was asking at the start of this particular thread, which is that you try to understand "paradigm" in the narrow sense of "model" by looking real closely at the passages where Kuhn talks about things resembling other things and where he seems to be describing one thing being modeled after another thing, etc., in order to come up with an idea of what this sort of modeling is (or what "these sorts of modelings are," maybe) and the various ways that such models work....
...the confusion being that the word "paradigm" in the term "paradigm shift" is not necessarily the narrow term "paradigm" meaning "model," i.e. the concept that I want us to examine in this thread. --I'm saying "is not necessarily" rather than saying flatly "is not," period, since models do shift, e.g., one model of motion can be replaced by another, hence you've shifted models, or how a model works can shift, e.g., a stone falling to earth can remain a model of motion but the other phenomena that it resembles - the other phenomena it is a model for - change, so the phenomenon "rock falling to earth" is different from what it once was seen to be, and therefore what it resembles is different. And models changing is quite obviously one thing that's going on in a paradigm shift. So I don't want to make "paradigm change" strictly off-limits on this thread (or the restarted thread, when I create it, but I want you to look at "paradigm as model" first.