Reading :
1. O’Hear, Chapter 3 to page 41.
2. T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. If you can, read the whole book. If you need to conserve time and energy, read at least Chapters II, III, VI, VIII, IX, X, and XIII. (More vaguely: read what you need to read to answer the questions below.) If you find yourself too baffled to struggle on without help, you can read the accounts of Kuhn’s ideas in O’Hear (pp. 64-75) and Fay (pp. 72-82) and/or check out some of the websites indexed below.
Our goal for this unit is simply to understand (without yet criticizing or applying) Kuhn’s enormously influential ideas. Recall that O’Hear began his book on the philosophy of science by suggesting that the prestige of science depends on our belief that science is both objective and progressive. That is, scientific knowledge manages to be independent of the biases, prejudices, ideological commitments, and desires of the people who produce it. And science makes progress towards a more and more accurate understanding of the world. Kuhn develops an understanding of science that undermines these beliefs.
Writing assignment:
Answer all of the following questions
1. According to Kuhn the history of science can show us that paradigms play a crucial role in science. Based on a reading of Chapters II and III, what is a paradigm, and why does scientific inquiry flounder without one? (In other words, how does ‘pre-paradigmatic science’ differ from ‘normal science’?)
2. What point does Kuhn make using the ‘anomalous card’ experiment he describes on pp. 62-64? (Describe the experiment briefly and explain the significance Kuhn thinks it has for understanding human perception and science.)
3. Based on your reading of Chapter VIII, explain how Kuhn thinks scientists normally respond to observations that contradict their theories. How does this create a problem for Popper’s notion of ‘falsification’ (as described by O’Hear)?
4. Based on your reading of Chapters IX and X, explain how Kuhn sees the nature of scientific revolutions. According to a more traditional understanding of science, scientific revolutions lead to new interpretations of “observations that themselves are fixed once and for all by the nature of the environment and of the perceptual apparatus.” (Kuhn, p.120) Kuhn rejects this view, insisting that, in some sense, “after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world.” (p.111) What reasons does Kuhn give for thinking that the traditional view must be rejected? What is his view?
5. Based on your reading of Chapter XIII, explain Kuhn’s understanding of the nature of progress in science. In what sense does science make progress according to Kuhn? What conception of scientific progress does Kuhn think we can no longer hang on to? (How does an analogy with biological evolution help to explain this point?)
Some links to help with Kuhn’s references to the history
of science:
Kuhn assumes that his readers are familiar with the history of science – that they will recognize the names of figures like Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Priestley, Boyle, and Lavoisier and have a pretty good understanding of what their accomplishments were. For readers without this kind of background knowledge, Kuhn can be pretty heavy going. Here are some links to various web sites that provide the sort of information Kuhn is relying on:
The Lawrence University Kuhn resource page:
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/freshman_studies/resource/fskuhn.html#_CASE_STUDIES_FOR
Steven Dutch U. of Wisconsin Green Bay – lecture notes on Copernicus, Ptolemy, etc.:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/WestTech/suncentr.htm
Robert Hatch – University of Florida – Lovely site with animations of different explanations of planetary motions and accounts of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, etc.:
And here is Professor Hatch’s “brief” outline of the history of science:
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Teaching/his-sci-outline/index.html
Michael Fowler – University of Virginia – lecture notes for history of science course
http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/lectures/lecturelist.html
Fowler’s physics applets are cool, if not always relevant to our study
http://www.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/more_stuff/Applets/home.html
There is a Rice University site about Galileo that includes descriptions of the work of other early modern scientists and of Ptolemy. The home page is:
http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/
A good place to start is:
http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Things/copernican_system.html
Sites about early chemists: Lavoisier, Priestly, etc.:
U of Idaho history of chemistry site (brief and clear):
http://www.chem.uidaho.edu/~honors/gaslaws.html
A brief overview of the history of chemistry as a whole by Paul Charlesworth of Michigan Tech (includes other aspects of science as well):
http://chemistry.mtu.edu/~pcharles/SCIHISTORY/HomePage.html
Websites about electricity, Leyden Jars, Franklin, etc.:
Our local museum of electricity, the Bakken (You could pay them a visit!):
http://www.thebakken.org/electricity/Leyden-jar.html
Michael Fowler, University of Virginia on the history of ideas about electricity and magnetism (more detailed):
http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/more_stuff/E&M_Hist.html
Some other links to helpful resources:
Resources for understanding Kuhn from Lawrence University
A synopsis by Professor Frank Pajares of Emory University
A detailed outline by Professor Pajares
Not-too-bad summary from the Harvard Science Review