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koganbot[This is my previous Kuhn 6 thread RESTARTED, since that 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. This doesn't mean that there's nothing to be gained by looking at or joining the previous discussion, but I want to start the conversation anew on this thread, on a different footing: sticking to the topic, going slow.]
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'llsuggest plea, urge, demand that for a while we take baby steps and 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? But I'm limiting us even further, to only part of the question. Kuhn originally used the word "paradigm" to mean "model," but then his usage drifted to broader meanings without his initially being quite aware this was happening, and in effect he ended up using the term in two different ways (think of how "basketball" is both the name of a ball and the name of the game that uses the ball). Once he was aware of the confusion his two uses were causing, he sharply differentiated between the narrow (and he thought more potent) use of the term, which he now called "exemplar," and the broader use of the term, which he now called "disciplinary matrix." Here on this thread we'll concentrate on the narrow, on "exemplar," i.e. "model." I personally prefer the term "model." [EDIT: But see my post entitled "Oh great" in the comments in regard to where Kuhn at one point - inconsistently - differentiates between "model" and "exemplar."]
Since the term "paradigm shift" basically refers to a shift in an overall disciplinary matrix, "paradigm shift" won't be the focus of this thread. I don't say that "paradigm shift" should therefore be off-limits on this thread (unless I change my mind and make it so), since a paradigm shift very much involves, among other things, a change in the models that are used in a disciplinary matrix (so in a paradigm shift, paradigms - i.e., models - shift). But I want you to think about "paradigm" as model, first, and here's how I want you to do it:
I want you to go through Thomas S. Kuhn's "What Is A Scientific Revolution?" (here, pp 13 to 32) and look for wherever something 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 or to be similar to something else, or various things are assimilated or juxtaposed, or something is an example or a metaphor or a simile, or something is used in an analogy, or something illustrates a point. Look not just for where Kuhn describes scientists using models, examples, etc. but for 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 - by Kuhn's account - paradigms (i.e. models) could be. What you come up with may not altogether match the definitions that Kuhn gives in some of his other pieces, since his definitions always seem half-assed to me. What you come up with may be better.
But stick real real real close to the text. Quote it, and when a phrase or statement seems confusing, look at the sentences right before and after it, or other parts of the essay that seem to be talking about the same subject.
(One reason I decided to start us with "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" is that it doesn't use the term "paradigm," so, without taking the term as a given, we can work out what the term can mean, perhaps with deeper understanding than we'd achieve otherwise.)
And of course you should 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
So, for this thread I want to stay with a single question: what's a paradigm? But I'm limiting us even further, to only part of the question. Kuhn originally used the word "paradigm" to mean "model," but then his usage drifted to broader meanings without his initially being quite aware this was happening, and in effect he ended up using the term in two different ways (think of how "basketball" is both the name of a ball and the name of the game that uses the ball). Once he was aware of the confusion his two uses were causing, he sharply differentiated between the narrow (and he thought more potent) use of the term, which he now called "exemplar," and the broader use of the term, which he now called "disciplinary matrix." Here on this thread we'll concentrate on the narrow, on "exemplar," i.e. "model." I personally prefer the term "model." [EDIT: But see my post entitled "Oh great" in the comments in regard to where Kuhn at one point - inconsistently - differentiates between "model" and "exemplar."]
Since the term "paradigm shift" basically refers to a shift in an overall disciplinary matrix, "paradigm shift" won't be the focus of this thread. I don't say that "paradigm shift" should therefore be off-limits on this thread (unless I change my mind and make it so), since a paradigm shift very much involves, among other things, a change in the models that are used in a disciplinary matrix (so in a paradigm shift, paradigms - i.e., models - shift). But I want you to think about "paradigm" as model, first, and here's how I want you to do it:
I want you to go through Thomas S. Kuhn's "What Is A Scientific Revolution?" (here, pp 13 to 32) and look for wherever something 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 or to be similar to something else, or various things are assimilated or juxtaposed, or something is an example or a metaphor or a simile, or something is used in an analogy, or something illustrates a point. Look not just for where Kuhn describes scientists using models, examples, etc. but for 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 - by Kuhn's account - paradigms (i.e. models) could be. What you come up with may not altogether match the definitions that Kuhn gives in some of his other pieces, since his definitions always seem half-assed to me. What you come up with may be better.
But stick real real real close to the text. Quote it, and when a phrase or statement seems confusing, look at the sentences right before and after it, or other parts of the essay that seem to be talking about the same subject.
(One reason I decided to start us with "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" is that it doesn't use the term "paradigm," so, without taking the term as a given, we can work out what the term can mean, perhaps with deeper understanding than we'd achieve otherwise.)
And of course you should post those ideas on this thread - or on your own livejournal, or somewhere - rather than, you know, not posting them anywhere.
Taking Mark's inventory 9
Date: 2009-02-08 06:33 am (UTC)(I doubt that it matters for our purposes, but the word "voluntarily" jumps out at me. Presumably it accurately communicates a concept within Aristotelian ideas, a concept that I don't immediately understand.)
I noted: "The same asymmetry should be characteristic of local motion, and it is. The quality that a stone or other heavy body strives to realize is position at the center of the universe; the natural position of fire is at the periphery."
vi: "They are realising their natural properties just as the acorn does through its growth."
vii: "Another... part of the A doctrine begins to fall into place."
viii: "locking individual bits of A physics into place in the whole"
ix: "lend each other mutual authority and support"
I think the phrase "lend each other mutual authority and support" is more crucial than is "locking individual bits into place," the former better communicating that the concepts of Aristotle's physics can't flourish individually, on their own, in isolation. (Which is why a change in one concept can have an effect on a whole, can potentially cause a revolution.)
x: "the status of, say, a square circle"
A question that jumps out at me, from this analogy, is how do you - how did they, successfully - challenge an idea that's axiomatic, or that is true by definition?
xi: "The argument has force..."
xii: "If there could be a void, then the Aristotelian universe or cosmos could not be finite."
Even though Kuhn doesn't use the metaphor of "family" here, I can think of it as having a second application. The first application is that acorn to oak, sickness to health, heavy object to its place in the center, etc. form a family, the Motion family, based on their perceived similarity. A second application is that motion being change, change occurring by changing qualities not matter, change being asymmetric, qualities and matter being inseparable, a vacuum being impossible, the cosmos being finite, there being a center and there being natural places, etc., are all related, all interdependent, hence in that sense they're all a family, too, not by resembling each other but by being crucially indebted to each other.