Philosophy 303 - Principles of Inquiry: Ways of Knowing
Assignment #5
Topic: Assessing Kuhn’s challenge and the views of his critics: Relativism, Realism, and Perspectivism
The Famous Duck-Rabbit
1. Steven Weinberg, “On Scientific Revolutions”
The New York Review of Books,
October 8, 1998, available
on line at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/weinberg.html
2. Fay, Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science, Chapter 4
3. How to Think AboutWeird Things, Chapter 4 and pp. 271-278
4. T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Postscript (pp. 174-210)
Our goal for this unit is to try to arrive at a balanced assessment of Kuhn’s ideas. Kuhn’s views have been enormously influential, but are they right? And has some of their influence been based on misinterpretation of Kuhn? In the process, we should be able to sharpen our understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry, of the attractions and dangers of relativism, and of the possibilities for objective knowledge.
Writing assignment:
Answer all of the following questions
1. According to physicist Steven Weinberg, Kuhn’s view of science is “wormwood to scientists such as myself” and, if it were true, science would lose its point. How so?
2. Weinberg also thinks that Kuhn’s view of science is (fortunately) false. What reasons does he give for thinking so? How persuasive are those reasons in your view? (Explain.)
3. Both Fay and Schick and Vaughn (the authors of How to Think About Weird Things) reject relativism. But Fay accepts a view he calls perspectivism, whereas Schick and Vaughn want to call their view scientific realism.
a. What is the difference between what Fay calls perspectivism and what he calls relativism?
b. Read Schick and Vaughan’s section on conceptual relativism carefully. Note that they are willing to say that “people with different conceptual schemes experience the world in different ways,” and that “a territory … can be mapped in many different ways, and each map, provided it is a good one, can be considered true.” (p. 105) Do you think that they would be willing to agree with what Fay calls ‘perspectivism’? Can a realist be a perspectivist?
4. In criticizing relativism, both Fay and Schick/Vaughn make use of an argument derived from the work of Donald Davidson. Fay calls it “the Argument from Translation.” (See Fay, pp.82-88 and Weird Things, p 105.) In your own words, how does this argument go? What do you think of it?
5. In the Postscript to his book Kuhn tries to clarify his position and answer some of his critics. Especially in sections 5 and 6 (pp. 198-207) he tries to answer charges that his position is relativist or that it makes science an irrational enterprise. Based on what he says there, do you think it is unfair for Schick/Vaughn and Fay to label him a relativist? (Explain.) Do you think Kuhn succeeds in giving a coherent account of how scientists come to accept a new paradigm? (Explain.)
6. Look again at the discussion of ‘criteria of adequacy’ in Chapter 7 of Weird Things. Notice the passage on p. 197 where the authors say, “there is no fixed formula for applying any of the criteria of adequacy. We can’t quantify how well a hypothesis does with respect to any of them, nor can we definitively rank the criteria in order of importance. … Choosing between theories is not the purely logical process it is often made out to be. Like judicial decision-making, it relies on factors of human judgment that resist formalization.” After all is said and done, is this any different than Kuhn’s view?
7. (Optional) Advanced, extra-credit question: In his book Problems of Knowledge, my favorite epistemologist, Michael Williams, argues that Davidson’s Argument from Translation doesn’t apply to the kind of differences that Kuhn is talking about. He says, “Kuhn’s scientists are not living in ‘different worlds’ in any sense of that phrase that conflicts with Davidson’s strictures on global conceptual relativism. Galileo and his Aristotelian rivals could agree on lots of mundane facts: they disagreed about what ‘world-system’ best accommodated them. Furthermore, their disagreement extended into fundamental methodological issues: the questions a physical theory ought to answer, the importance (and appropriateness in physical matters) of mathematically precise laws, and the sorts of observations that could be trusted. Even so, their dispute—however wide-ranging and fundamental—lies in the region of intelligible disagreement that Davidson’s argument leaves open.” Does this show that Fay and Schick/Vaughn are wrong to use the argument from translation to criticize Kuhn?