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Kuhn 11: Eat kosher salamis
Feb. 26th, 2009 12:39 amWhat 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?
( Variations on our question )
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?
( Variations on our question )
