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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 20
Date: 2009-02-13 10:43 pm (UTC)i: "All these cases display interrelated features familiar to students of metaphor. In each case two objects or situations are juxtaposed and said to be the same or similar. (An even slightly more extended discussion would have also to consider examples of dissimilarity, for they, too, are often important in establishing a taxonomy.)"
OK, in the phrase "said to be the same or similar," let's say that when you're saying "the same" your similarity is what Kuhn calls "internal," and when you're saying "similar" your similarity is what Kuhn calls "external" - but both "internal" and "external" are under the heading "similarity," since "the same" doesn't mean "identical" (a man being restored to health isn't identical to a falling rock) but rather "similar enough to be in the same species, as it were."
We could say that "internal" similarity is about establishing a taxonomy and "external" similarity is about coming up with more or less useful models. But we can also note that each - taxonomic and analogic similarity - is similar enough to the other to merit the same term ("similarity"). So for the purposes of Kuhn's passage they themselves belong to the species "similarity" - and so, since for Kuhn similarity is a big hunk of the subject matter in these paragraphs, both "internal" and "external" similarity are internal to Kuhn's subject of similarity (rather than merely being similar to something that's only similar to similarity) in the way that the similarity of the various types of motion for Aristotle is all internal to the subject of motion.
P31:
i: "Whatever their origin -- a separate issue... -- the primary function of all these juxtapositions is to transmit and maintain a taxonomy."
Wait! Wait! Wait! Kuhn here has changed the subject midparagraph without telling us and maybe without quite being aware of it. For Volta and Ohm and Planck in the examples given,* the purpose of the juxtapositions is not to transmit a taxonomy but to figure out what is going on, their method being to create (not transmit) either taxonomies or analogies (I'd say [in my ignorance] that in Volta's case, he's maybe adding to or elaborating on a taxonomy or model or analogy that already exists, whereas Ohm and Planck are usefully comparing some things to others in order to figure out how to proceed further but not trying to create a taxonomy).
As the paragraph started, the subject matter was still "what changes in a scientific revolution?" the answer being "the thing that changes is which stuff gets juxtaposed with which." Now, suddenly, the subject matter has become "how are taxonomies, models, and analogies transmitted and maintained."
*For Ohm I'm going back to p. 24 and the analogy between electrical resistance and the frictional resistance of water in pipes.
ii: "The juxtaposed items are exhibited to a previously uninitiated audience by someone who can already recognise their similarity..."
Exhibited by whom? You see, all of a sudden the subject is instruction, not revolutionary change.