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koganbotThere are some interested people here in Denver who are new to the essay "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" so I'm creating a couple of background primers - this being the first - on a few of Kuhn's ideas; I should have done this for the lj people in the first place, so maybe this will be of help to them, as well.
First off I'll say that I'm not a scientist and won't claim to understand much about modern science; second, I've not read a whole lot of philosophy. I might be willing on occasion to call some of what I do "philosophy," but not necessarily as a compliment. Nonetheless, I think I "get" Kuhn way better than most people do. (And why am I interested in Kuhn? That's a subject for a different post, but a partial answer is that he's someone who successfully came to understand modes of thought other than his own.)
In the late 1950s - well after he came up with the idea of scientific revolutions - Kuhn developed his concept of "paradigm": a paradigm is a concrete achievement (often the solution of a puzzle) that, used as a model or example, is the basis for further achievements.
But then, without quite being aware he was doing so, he expanded his usage of "paradigm," so by 1962, when he wrote The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions, it also had come to mean all of the commitments shared by members of a scientific discipline. So in this broader usage, a paradigm is a whole "constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community." "Paradigms" in his original sense (concrete achievements used as models or examples) are one type of element in that constellation.
So, running through The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions there are two concurrent senses of the word "paradigm." The two senses are not incompatible, any more than applying the word "basketball" to a ball is incompatible with applying it to the game that uses the ball. But when we use the term we need to be clear as to which sense we mean - especially since most people who recall anything about Kuhn remember the second sense but not the first, whereas Kuhn thinks that the first (a concrete achievement used as a model or example) is the more profound.
But to elaborate on the second usage, the constellation of beliefs etc. shared by a scientific discipline, I need to emphasize that vocabulary and how it is used is a crucial part of the constellation; that by "community" here Kuhn means a scientific discipline or subdiscipline (so, not something like "American culture" or "Christianity" or "the black community" or "punks" or "rock critics" 1); and that by "shared" he means with virtual unanimity. So - these are my examples, not Kuhn's - a community can have a unanimous commitment to the idea that a satellite is a material body orbiting some other material body, just as a previous community unanimously believed that planets were immaterial and moved in the heavens above the earth, but a community's commitment to "freedom" isn't going to get near the threshold to being a unanimous commitment, since not only isn't everyone in the community committed to it, the members of the community also don't agree on what freedom is. Obviously, a scientist can value "freedom," but this valuing of freedom isn't what makes, say, solid-state physicists a scientific community, or him a member of it. 2
Seeing the confusion that he'd sown with his two different usages, Kuhn tried to drop the word "paradigm" in favor of two others, "exemplar" (for a concrete achievement used as a model or example) and "disciplinary matrix" (for a constellation of beliefs, techniques, etc.). But this didn't cause him to change his ideas.
As I said, I don't mind our using the term "paradigm" as long as we're clear as to which type of paradigm we're referring to in a given sentence.
Paradigm as exemplar: you use it.
Paradigm as disciplinary matrix: you're in it.
Paradigm shifts are shifts in a disciplinary matrix. Paradigm shifts usually will involve the jettisoning of some exemplars in favor of new ones (so in a paradigm shift, some paradigms shift), but still, "paradigm shift" applies to disciplinary matrices, not to exemplars.
So one example of a "paradigm" in the sense of exemplar would be: a problem and its solution as given in a physics textbook. Another example, one that Kuhn gives in a piece called "Second Thoughts On Paradigms," is of a father taking his young son for a walk in a zoological park and pointing out ducks, geese, and swans and encouraging his son to do the same, correcting him when necessary. See the first paragraph of Kuhn 9: Examples versus Definitions for some more exemplars.
A crucial feature of an exemplar is that its use involves seeing one situation as similar to another, and elements of the second situation as similar to elements of the first. But in reading "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" you'll see that "similarity" is a more extensive theme than just that, since a scientific revolution involves a shift in vocabulary. We might even say a scientific revolution is a shift in vocabulary: no vocab shift, no revo. Some crucial words are abandoned and others adopted; or, if the words don't change, their usage changes. And this entails a change in what the words designate - that is, a change in what is perceived as similar to something else and therefore gets the word applied to it.
So think of "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" as being, among other things, an exploration of the subject of similarity (and dissimilarity too, obviously).
When reading it (here, pp 13 to 32), 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.
A few examples.
"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)
"What had been paradigmatic examples of motion for Aristotle - acorn to oak or sickness to health - were not motion at all for Newton." (p. 30)
For the time being, I'd like to concentrate on the subject of paradigms in the sense of exemplars and hold off on the discussion of disciplinary matrices except as it relates to exemplars and similarity.
A final thought (and then a couple of footnotes): Unlike "paradigm shift" and "disciplinary matrix," "paradigm" in the sense of "exemplar" can easily be applied to nonscience, to almost anything. Whether or not I belong to a community that uses the same exemplars as I do, the operation of using an exemplar - modeling something on something else, seeing something as similar to something else - is the same type of operation. So, while the United States isn't a disciplinary matrix, I can use the United States government as an example of separation of powers, if I'm trying to explain to someone (or to myself) what separation of powers is. For this to be a paradigm doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good paradigm - I might not be right, and there may not be agreement as to what "separation of powers" means. My point is that similarity - this is like that - is basic to language; and not just to nouns either, where the phenomena a noun designates are supposed to resemble each other, but to any terms ("three," "help!" "come here," "damn"): my use of word X in situation B resembles my use of it in slightly different Situation A.
footnote 1: All of which we can consider communities, if we want, but they're not communities that are governed by a paradigm (in the sense of disciplinary matrix), so they're not the sort of community that Kuhn is concerned with here; therefore, whatever shifts they go through, those shifts won't be what Kuhn means by "paradigm shifts" (which doesn't mean that their shifts can't be just as consequential).
footnote 2: Do solid-state physicists constitute a scientific community? Does solid-state physics exist anymore? Did it ever? I don't even know what the term means. I lifted the phrase from something that Kuhn wrote in 1969 ("Though both solid-state and field-theoretic physicists share the Schrödinger equation, only its more elementary applications are common to both groups"), so the term or the community may be obsolete, assuming "solid-state physics" ever was a discipline. But another point to make is that for Kuhn "science" as a whole isn't a paradigm (in the broad sense of constellation), and for Kuhn in 1969 solid-state physics and field-theory physics were different disciplines i.e. were somewhat different from each other in their constellations of beliefs, techniques, etc. hence its members shared a different paradigm/constellation. And while I'm in a footnote, here's a quote - like the one upparagraph in parentheses - from the 1969 postscript to Structure: "The need for agreement depends on what it is the community does. Chemistry in the first half of the nineteenth century provides a case in point. Though several of the community's fundamental tools - constant proportion, multiple proportion, and combining weights - had become common property as a result of Dalton's atomic theory, it was quite possible for chemists, after the event, to base their work on these tools and to disagree, sometimes vehemently, about the existence of atoms." Whereas, presumably, for physicists in 1913 not to have a coherent idea of what an atom is demonstrates that the community is in the midst of a paradigm shift. So for a community to share a paradigm (constellation) it must agree on fundamentals, but what is fundamental will depend on what the community is doing. And obviously there have to be some disagreements or else scientists don't have anything to do, any puzzles to solve. I suppose if "fundamental" becomes too much of a weasel word then distinguishing between shared constellations and nonconstellations (and between normal and revolutionary science) is impossible, but I'll assume - or hope - that "fundamental" isn't too much of a weasel word and that someone familiar with a discipline can tell a fundamental disagreement from one that isn't fundamental. And maybe "unanimity" is too strong a word, but I don't mind that exaggeration if at the moment it yields clarity.
EDIT: Good ole Wiki: Solid-state physics, the largest branch of condensed matter physics, is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism and metallurgy. Solid-state physics considers how the large-scale properties of solid materials result from their atomic-scale properties. Solid-state physics thus forms the theoretical basis of materials science, as well as having direct applications, for example in the technology of transistors and semiconductors.
First off I'll say that I'm not a scientist and won't claim to understand much about modern science; second, I've not read a whole lot of philosophy. I might be willing on occasion to call some of what I do "philosophy," but not necessarily as a compliment. Nonetheless, I think I "get" Kuhn way better than most people do. (And why am I interested in Kuhn? That's a subject for a different post, but a partial answer is that he's someone who successfully came to understand modes of thought other than his own.)
In the late 1950s - well after he came up with the idea of scientific revolutions - Kuhn developed his concept of "paradigm": a paradigm is a concrete achievement (often the solution of a puzzle) that, used as a model or example, is the basis for further achievements.
But then, without quite being aware he was doing so, he expanded his usage of "paradigm," so by 1962, when he wrote The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions, it also had come to mean all of the commitments shared by members of a scientific discipline. So in this broader usage, a paradigm is a whole "constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community." "Paradigms" in his original sense (concrete achievements used as models or examples) are one type of element in that constellation.
So, running through The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions there are two concurrent senses of the word "paradigm." The two senses are not incompatible, any more than applying the word "basketball" to a ball is incompatible with applying it to the game that uses the ball. But when we use the term we need to be clear as to which sense we mean - especially since most people who recall anything about Kuhn remember the second sense but not the first, whereas Kuhn thinks that the first (a concrete achievement used as a model or example) is the more profound.
But to elaborate on the second usage, the constellation of beliefs etc. shared by a scientific discipline, I need to emphasize that vocabulary and how it is used is a crucial part of the constellation; that by "community" here Kuhn means a scientific discipline or subdiscipline (so, not something like "American culture" or "Christianity" or "the black community" or "punks" or "rock critics" 1); and that by "shared" he means with virtual unanimity. So - these are my examples, not Kuhn's - a community can have a unanimous commitment to the idea that a satellite is a material body orbiting some other material body, just as a previous community unanimously believed that planets were immaterial and moved in the heavens above the earth, but a community's commitment to "freedom" isn't going to get near the threshold to being a unanimous commitment, since not only isn't everyone in the community committed to it, the members of the community also don't agree on what freedom is. Obviously, a scientist can value "freedom," but this valuing of freedom isn't what makes, say, solid-state physicists a scientific community, or him a member of it. 2
Seeing the confusion that he'd sown with his two different usages, Kuhn tried to drop the word "paradigm" in favor of two others, "exemplar" (for a concrete achievement used as a model or example) and "disciplinary matrix" (for a constellation of beliefs, techniques, etc.). But this didn't cause him to change his ideas.
As I said, I don't mind our using the term "paradigm" as long as we're clear as to which type of paradigm we're referring to in a given sentence.
Paradigm as exemplar: you use it.
Paradigm as disciplinary matrix: you're in it.
Paradigm shifts are shifts in a disciplinary matrix. Paradigm shifts usually will involve the jettisoning of some exemplars in favor of new ones (so in a paradigm shift, some paradigms shift), but still, "paradigm shift" applies to disciplinary matrices, not to exemplars.
So one example of a "paradigm" in the sense of exemplar would be: a problem and its solution as given in a physics textbook. Another example, one that Kuhn gives in a piece called "Second Thoughts On Paradigms," is of a father taking his young son for a walk in a zoological park and pointing out ducks, geese, and swans and encouraging his son to do the same, correcting him when necessary. See the first paragraph of Kuhn 9: Examples versus Definitions for some more exemplars.
A crucial feature of an exemplar is that its use involves seeing one situation as similar to another, and elements of the second situation as similar to elements of the first. But in reading "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" you'll see that "similarity" is a more extensive theme than just that, since a scientific revolution involves a shift in vocabulary. We might even say a scientific revolution is a shift in vocabulary: no vocab shift, no revo. Some crucial words are abandoned and others adopted; or, if the words don't change, their usage changes. And this entails a change in what the words designate - that is, a change in what is perceived as similar to something else and therefore gets the word applied to it.
So think of "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" as being, among other things, an exploration of the subject of similarity (and dissimilarity too, obviously).
When reading it (here, pp 13 to 32), 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.
A few examples.
"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)
"What had been paradigmatic examples of motion for Aristotle - acorn to oak or sickness to health - were not motion at all for Newton." (p. 30)
For the time being, I'd like to concentrate on the subject of paradigms in the sense of exemplars and hold off on the discussion of disciplinary matrices except as it relates to exemplars and similarity.
A final thought (and then a couple of footnotes): Unlike "paradigm shift" and "disciplinary matrix," "paradigm" in the sense of "exemplar" can easily be applied to nonscience, to almost anything. Whether or not I belong to a community that uses the same exemplars as I do, the operation of using an exemplar - modeling something on something else, seeing something as similar to something else - is the same type of operation. So, while the United States isn't a disciplinary matrix, I can use the United States government as an example of separation of powers, if I'm trying to explain to someone (or to myself) what separation of powers is. For this to be a paradigm doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good paradigm - I might not be right, and there may not be agreement as to what "separation of powers" means. My point is that similarity - this is like that - is basic to language; and not just to nouns either, where the phenomena a noun designates are supposed to resemble each other, but to any terms ("three," "help!" "come here," "damn"): my use of word X in situation B resembles my use of it in slightly different Situation A.
footnote 1: All of which we can consider communities, if we want, but they're not communities that are governed by a paradigm (in the sense of disciplinary matrix), so they're not the sort of community that Kuhn is concerned with here; therefore, whatever shifts they go through, those shifts won't be what Kuhn means by "paradigm shifts" (which doesn't mean that their shifts can't be just as consequential).
footnote 2: Do solid-state physicists constitute a scientific community? Does solid-state physics exist anymore? Did it ever? I don't even know what the term means. I lifted the phrase from something that Kuhn wrote in 1969 ("Though both solid-state and field-theoretic physicists share the Schrödinger equation, only its more elementary applications are common to both groups"), so the term or the community may be obsolete, assuming "solid-state physics" ever was a discipline. But another point to make is that for Kuhn "science" as a whole isn't a paradigm (in the broad sense of constellation), and for Kuhn in 1969 solid-state physics and field-theory physics were different disciplines i.e. were somewhat different from each other in their constellations of beliefs, techniques, etc. hence its members shared a different paradigm/constellation. And while I'm in a footnote, here's a quote - like the one upparagraph in parentheses - from the 1969 postscript to Structure: "The need for agreement depends on what it is the community does. Chemistry in the first half of the nineteenth century provides a case in point. Though several of the community's fundamental tools - constant proportion, multiple proportion, and combining weights - had become common property as a result of Dalton's atomic theory, it was quite possible for chemists, after the event, to base their work on these tools and to disagree, sometimes vehemently, about the existence of atoms." Whereas, presumably, for physicists in 1913 not to have a coherent idea of what an atom is demonstrates that the community is in the midst of a paradigm shift. So for a community to share a paradigm (constellation) it must agree on fundamentals, but what is fundamental will depend on what the community is doing. And obviously there have to be some disagreements or else scientists don't have anything to do, any puzzles to solve. I suppose if "fundamental" becomes too much of a weasel word then distinguishing between shared constellations and nonconstellations (and between normal and revolutionary science) is impossible, but I'll assume - or hope - that "fundamental" isn't too much of a weasel word and that someone familiar with a discipline can tell a fundamental disagreement from one that isn't fundamental. And maybe "unanimity" is too strong a word, but I don't mind that exaggeration if at the moment it yields clarity.
EDIT: Good ole Wiki: Solid-state physics, the largest branch of condensed matter physics, is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism and metallurgy. Solid-state physics considers how the large-scale properties of solid materials result from their atomic-scale properties. Solid-state physics thus forms the theoretical basis of materials science, as well as having direct applications, for example in the technology of transistors and semiconductors.
