Kuhn 11: Eat kosher salamis
Feb. 26th, 2009 12:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotWhat is a "rule"?
Discussion went forward between me and Mark on Kuhn 8, and I recommend you go look, but here's a summary of the main questions as they developed:
Kuhn began using the term "paradigm" to counter what he sees as an incorrect view of what scientists do, the incorrect view being that scientists get their results by following RULES. To paraphrase a sentence of his from The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed. p. 46): Paradigms are prior to, more binding, and more complete than any set of rules for research that can be unequivocally abstracted from them.
OK, but what they hell does that mean? While Kuhn devotes some effort to explaining what he means by "paradigm," he lets the word "rule" fend for itself. But "rule" is so flexible and varied and contested in everyday usage that its use by Kuhn is not at all self-explanatory.
"Rule" can mean something specific, such as "Always check to see that the cylinder is empty before cleaning a gun" and "Do not exceed 12 tablets in 24 hours." Or it can be something like "When in Rome, do like the Romans," and "To get ahead here you need to get on the foreman's good side," the latter two hardly being different in kind from paradigms, though a lot vaguer. (You might first need to observe an instance of someone's getting on the good side of the foreman, and you'll then model your behavior on that instance, which is how you'll go about following the rule.) So this is what we need to answer:
(a) What might these rules or types of rule be that Kuhn thinks other people think are in effect but he thinks are not? What do they do? (b) What are paradigms - these devices that Kuhn thinks accomplish what other people attribute to rules? What do paradigms do? (c) What's the difference between following a rule on the one hand and modeling your solution on a paradigm on the other? (d) Why is it that Kuhn thinks that scientists proceed by way of paradigms rather than rules? (e) Why does Kuhn think it's so important to distinguish between following a rule and being guided by a paradigm?
Even though (e) might be the hardest question to answer off the bat, given the lack of info I've exposed you to so far, it's worth taking a shot at because it leads back to question (a). That is, Kuhn thinks that following a "rule" would limit us and fail in some way that being guided by a "paradigm" would not.
Kuhn says he's using "paradigm" (in its narrow sense as "exemplar") to mean a concrete puzzle solution that is used as a model for the solution to further puzzles, though I also see him using the term, even in its narrow sense, to mean a thing or event or circumstance that typifies other things or events or circumstances, which are recognized as similar to the first. (You can find good examples in Kuhn 9 of what it means to model one puzzle solution on another.)
So, say a student is trying to learn how to apply Newton's "force equals mass times acceleration" (f = ma). She has been taught either (i) rules for how to apply "force equals mass times acceleration" in various different circumstances or (ii) to see how to apply "force equals mass times acceleration" in various different circumstances. Now, imagining you're Kuhn, you're saying that ii is right and i is wrong, so I'm asking you to explain to your students or readers just what the distinction is between i and ii and why you think it's an important distinction. So, (a) i is _______, (b) ii is _______, (c) the difference between i and ii is _______, (d) ii is in effect more than i because _______, and (e) it's important that we recognize the distinction between i and ii because _______.
To elaborate on our question (c): Kuhn would say that the difference between following rules that tell you how to apply f = ma, on the one hand, and seeing how to apply f = ma, on the other, is _______. Another way to formulate your answer would be: Kuhn would say that the difference between seeing a resemblance and following a rule is _______.
Discussion went forward between me and Mark on Kuhn 8, and I recommend you go look, but here's a summary of the main questions as they developed:
Kuhn began using the term "paradigm" to counter what he sees as an incorrect view of what scientists do, the incorrect view being that scientists get their results by following RULES. To paraphrase a sentence of his from The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed. p. 46): Paradigms are prior to, more binding, and more complete than any set of rules for research that can be unequivocally abstracted from them.
OK, but what they hell does that mean? While Kuhn devotes some effort to explaining what he means by "paradigm," he lets the word "rule" fend for itself. But "rule" is so flexible and varied and contested in everyday usage that its use by Kuhn is not at all self-explanatory.
"Rule" can mean something specific, such as "Always check to see that the cylinder is empty before cleaning a gun" and "Do not exceed 12 tablets in 24 hours." Or it can be something like "When in Rome, do like the Romans," and "To get ahead here you need to get on the foreman's good side," the latter two hardly being different in kind from paradigms, though a lot vaguer. (You might first need to observe an instance of someone's getting on the good side of the foreman, and you'll then model your behavior on that instance, which is how you'll go about following the rule.) So this is what we need to answer:
(a) What might these rules or types of rule be that Kuhn thinks other people think are in effect but he thinks are not? What do they do? (b) What are paradigms - these devices that Kuhn thinks accomplish what other people attribute to rules? What do paradigms do? (c) What's the difference between following a rule on the one hand and modeling your solution on a paradigm on the other? (d) Why is it that Kuhn thinks that scientists proceed by way of paradigms rather than rules? (e) Why does Kuhn think it's so important to distinguish between following a rule and being guided by a paradigm?
Even though (e) might be the hardest question to answer off the bat, given the lack of info I've exposed you to so far, it's worth taking a shot at because it leads back to question (a). That is, Kuhn thinks that following a "rule" would limit us and fail in some way that being guided by a "paradigm" would not.
Kuhn says he's using "paradigm" (in its narrow sense as "exemplar") to mean a concrete puzzle solution that is used as a model for the solution to further puzzles, though I also see him using the term, even in its narrow sense, to mean a thing or event or circumstance that typifies other things or events or circumstances, which are recognized as similar to the first. (You can find good examples in Kuhn 9 of what it means to model one puzzle solution on another.)
So, say a student is trying to learn how to apply Newton's "force equals mass times acceleration" (f = ma). She has been taught either (i) rules for how to apply "force equals mass times acceleration" in various different circumstances or (ii) to see how to apply "force equals mass times acceleration" in various different circumstances. Now, imagining you're Kuhn, you're saying that ii is right and i is wrong, so I'm asking you to explain to your students or readers just what the distinction is between i and ii and why you think it's an important distinction. So, (a) i is _______, (b) ii is _______, (c) the difference between i and ii is _______, (d) ii is in effect more than i because _______, and (e) it's important that we recognize the distinction between i and ii because _______.
To elaborate on our question (c): Kuhn would say that the difference between following rules that tell you how to apply f = ma, on the one hand, and seeing how to apply f = ma, on the other, is _______. Another way to formulate your answer would be: Kuhn would say that the difference between seeing a resemblance and following a rule is _______.
Legendary status of year 3000 affirmed
Date: 2009-02-26 03:38 pm (UTC)(I suppose that the way "Year 3000" gets to be a legend is that he first heard it when he was 9, and now he's 14!)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-07 10:07 pm (UTC)Once I ran a Philosophy department, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I ran a Philosophy department, now it's done.
Brother, can you spare a paradigm?
....Andrew K.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 02:49 am (UTC)My daughter Maggie, who is pushing five, said today "There are a lot of bad rules."
http://www.katzdeli.com/shopping/index.php?cat=salami
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhhoySpevw
AK
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 03:36 am (UTC)