Thomas Kuhn

[ChrisK]

What do people think about him?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn

Would you consider his idea of paradigm shifts to be relevent to Marxism? If so, how?

I'm not totally sure what I think at this point (as I've only read summaries of his works and not his actual works), but from what I can tell, this system seems compatible with Marx's ideas. Especially if we were to view the scientific revolutions as being a part of class struggle, ie, Newton, Gallileo, etc represent a paradigm shift in knowledge and they are examples of early capitalist science during a time when nobles and burghers were battling for control of society.

[~Spectre]

Preface: I was shown some excerpts of Thomas Kuhn a few weeks ago by a Marxist professor, this is the extent of my familiarity.

As I understand it, it's not relevant to Marxism at all, but it's not antagonistic. The overall idea is a good thing to teach people for general critical reasoning skills.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

It is relevant to Marxism. For example, if Kuhn were right then there is no such thing as 'convergent realism' (the idea that science is homing in on 'truth' -- absolute or ultimate) -- which many Marxists believe in.

The best book on Kuhn is the followintg:

Sharrock, W., and Read, R. (2002), Kuhn. Philosopher Of Scientific Revolution (Polity Press).

And If Kuhn were right, Marx would be wrong when he said that science seeks to find the 'essence' underlying 'appearances'.

[~Spectre]

It is relevant to Marxism. For example, if Kuhn were right then there is no such thing as 'convergent realism' (the idea that science is homing in on 'truth' -- absolute or ultimate) -- which many Marxists believe in.



Kuhn seems to be a firm believer in scientific progress though. From the wikis:
"The first edition of SSR ended with a chapter entitled "Progress through Revolutions", in which Kuhn spelled out his views on the nature of scientific progress. Since he considered problem solving to be a central element of science, Kuhn saw that for a new candidate for paradigm to be accepted by a scientific community, "First, the new candidate must seem to resolve some outstanding and generally recognized problem that can be met in no other way. Second, the new paradigm must promise to preserve a relatively large part of the concrete problem solving activity that has accrued to science through its predecessors."[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions#cite_note-0) And overall Kuhn maintained that the new paradigm must also solve more problems than its predecessor, which therefore entailed that the number of newly solved problems must be greater than those solved in the old paradigm.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions#cite_note-1) In the second edition of SSR, Kuhn added a postscript in which he elaborated his ideas on the nature of scientific progress. He described a thought experiment involving an observer who has the opportunity to inspect an assortment of theories, each corresponding to a single stage in a succession of theories. What if the observer is presented with these theories without any explicit indication of their chronological order? Kuhn anticipates that it will be possible to reconstruct their chronology on the basis of the theories' scope and content, because the more recent a theory is, the better it will be as an instrument for solving the kinds of puzzle that scientists aim to solve. Kuhn remarked: "That is not a relativist's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism) position, and it displays the sense in which I am a convinced believer in scientific progress."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

He certainly believed in scientific progress, but not toward 'truth'.

He used the analogy of the progress made in car design over the 100 years -- here we see progress, but not toward anything in particular.

[ChrisK]

It is relevant to Marxism. For example, if Kuhn were right then there is no such thing as 'convergent realism' (the idea that science is homing in on 'truth' -- absolute or ultimate) -- which many Marxists believe in.

The best book on Kuhn is the followintg:

Sharrock, W., and Read, R. (2002), Kuhn. Philosopher Of Scientific Revolution (Polity Press).

And If Kuhn were right, Marx would be wrong when he said that science seeks to find the 'essence' underlying 'appearances'.

Who would you say is correct? Kuhn or Marx?

Personally, I have a problem with using the term truth to denote ultimate knowledge. It would seem to me that truth is a term used to judge statements correctness and that there is nothing existential about it. And if it does not have an existential quality, I don't know how there could be something ultimate about it.

My other problem is that I don't like the idea of science never reaching the point of knowing everything. Perhaps this has to do with how I grew up, but I have this urge for myself to be wrong.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chris:


Who would you say is correct? Kuhn or Marx?

Well, Marx wasn't a historian or philosopher of science, and both disciplines has moved on considerably in the 100 years that separated them. So, with a few reservations I side with Kuhn here.

Having said that, there is little Marx got wrong in any other area.


My other problem is that I don't like the idea of science never reaching the point of knowing everything. Perhaps this has to do with how I grew up, but I have this urge for myself to be wrong.

The point is that science progresses when it serves our purposes better (given that it faces all kinds of distortions and obstacles as a result of the class war). The idea that it is progressing toward the 'ultimate truth about nature' is based on the old fable that scientists are 'thinking "god"s thoughts after "him"', and that the universe is 'rational'.

[I'll be saying more about this in several of my essays, as yet unpublished.]

[ChrisK]

Having said that, there is little Marx got wrong in any other area.

Math?:D


The point is that science progresses when it serves our purposes better (given that it faces all kinds of distortions and obstacles as a result of the class war). The idea that it is progressing toward the 'ultimate truth about nature' is based on the old fable that scientists are 'thinking "god"s thoughts after "him"', and that the universe is 'rational'.

[I'll be saying more about this in several of my essays, as yet unpublished.]

Well that makes me feel better. Progressing to suit our needs suits me. Maybe my issue is coming from my History of Ancient Philosophy course. I had to give a presentation on Aristotle's Physics; I need to purge myself of Aristotlean notions of knowledge!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I was referring to published work -- fortunately he did not publish his mathematical manuscripts!

And Christian ideas about nature are suffused with Ancient Greek attitudes to the world -- they reach their mystical apotheosis in Hegel's work. Which, in combination with his own work on Greek philosophy, is largely where Marx imbibed them

[ChrisK]

And Christian ideas about nature are suffused with Ancient Greek attitudes to the world -- they reach their mystical apotheosis in Hegel's work. Which, in combination with his own work on Greek philosophy, is largely where Marx imbibed them

How unfortunate:(. Would it be fair to characterize Hegel as a Neo-Aristotlean (of the Aquanis persuasion) Heremtic? Fusing the Aristotlean notion of science with the faith of the Dominicans and the mystical belief that he had true knowledge?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hegel was certainly an Aristotelian, but he fused the latter's ideas with those of the Neo-Platonists (http://www.iep.utm.edu/neoplato/) and the Hermeticists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism), to such an extent that he is best descirbed as a Hermeticist:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/magee.htm

Oddly enough, Engels was brought up in the German Pietist faith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietism). The Pietists were heavily influence by Jakob Boehme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_B%C3%B6hme), the leading Hermeticist in Germany before Hegel.

[ChrisK]

Thank you!

[mikelepore]

For example, if Kuhn were right then there is no such thing as 'convergent realism' (the idea that science is homing in on 'truth' -- absolute or ultimate) -- which many Marxists believe in.

I see the opposite. If, as Kuhn said, the newer paradigm solves additional problems that the earlier paradigm couldn't solve, then the newer paradigm is more true. When I'm on Main Street, and my GPS device says I'm on Main Street, it gets it right because the software take the time measurement from the satellite and substitutes it into Einstein's time dilation formula. Without Einstein's new paradigm, the device couldn't tell me correctly what street I'm on. To solve the new problem, science is homing in on the truth.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


If, as Kuhn said, the newer paradigm solves additional problems that the earlier paradigm couldn't solve, then the newer paradigm is more true. When I'm on Main Street, and my GPS device says I'm on Main Street, it gets it right because the software take the time measurement from the satellite and substitutes it into Einstein's time dilation formula. Without Einstein's new paradigm, the device couldn't tell me correctly what street I'm on. To solve the new problem, science is homing in on the truth.

1) Only if the earlier paradigm (theory) was itself concerned with truth. [See my analogy at the end.]

2) You are going to have serious problems explaining what 'more true' means.

3) I also think you are confusing the semantic properties of empirical propositions that are derivable from a theory with those of the theory itself.

For example, if you follow the rules of chess, then that will allow you to state truly (at some point), say, that your Queen has just put your opponent's King in check, but that does not mean that the rules of chess are true. Indeed, rules cannot be true, they can only be followed or not, accepted or rejected.

[blake 3:17]

Oddly enough, Engels was brought up in the German Pietist faith (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietism).

Thank you. I didn't know that.

[mikelepore]

Mike:

1) Only if the earlier paradigm (theory) was itself concerned with truth. [See my analogy at the end.]

2) You are going to have serious problems explaining what 'more true' means.

3) I also think you are confusing the semantic properties of empirical propositions that are derivable from a theory with those of the theory itself.

For example, if you follow the rules of chess, then that will allow you to state truly (at some point), say, that your Queen has just put your opponent's King in check, but that does not mean that the rules of chess are true. Indeed, rules cannot be true, they can only be followed or not, accepted or rejected.

I'm talking about factual disagreements about now nature operates, such as Ptolemy versus Copernicus. Suddenly there is new data calling for an explanation: Galileo reported about Jupiter's moons and Venus's phases. I'm using Kuhn's own criterion that the new viewpoint solves a problem that the older viewpoint could not solve.

Or consider the passage through the Dalton, Thompson, Rutherford, Bohr and Schrodinger models of the atom. We are given new and improved explanations for observable things, such as the line spectrum. Is this what Kuhn meant by a paradigm shift? We have competing factual assertions: either the atom is structured this way or it is not. In the case of various factual assertions, someone is wrong, and we aim to find out who it is.

If this isn't a perfect occasion to say that the newer model is more true, and that this activity is a progression toward truth, then I can't think of any better reason to have a word such as "truth." Since we do have such a word in the language, this is a situation where I think the word applies.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


I'm talking about factual disagreements about now nature operates, such as Ptolemy versus Copernicus. Suddenly there is new data calling for an explanation: Galileo reported about Jupiter's moons and Venus's phases. I'm using Kuhn's own criterion that the new viewpoint solves a problem that the older viewpoint could not solve.

But these aren't factual disputes, they are theoretical disputes. The new paradigm does not solve a fact, but a problem.


Or consider the passage through the Dalton, Thompson, Rutherford, Bohr and Schrodinger models of the atom. We are given new and improved explanations for observable things, such as the line spectrum. Is this what Kuhn meant by a paradigm shift? We have competing factual assertions: either the atom is structured this way or it is not. In the case of various factual assertions, someone is wrong, and we aim to find out who it is.

I agree, but as I pointed out above, Kuhn admits that one can have progress in science without science approaching anything called 'the truth' about nature.

Now, you already agree these are paradigm shifts, so they can't be factual disputes, since the disputants do not agree on what the facts are. For example, what Dalton meant by an atom is not what, say, Thomson meant, or what Rutherford meant, or what Bohr meant.


If this isn't a perfect occasion to say that the newer model is more true, and that this activity is a progression toward truth, then I can't think of any better reason to have a word such as "truth." Since we do have such a word in the language, this is a situation where I think the word applies.

But you want to use 'more true' and that implies you know what 'fully true' means here so that you can say that theory A is closer to that final truth than theory B (which it replaced). But you can't possibly know that, and neither can anyone else for that matter.

You would have to know the final truth about nature to be able say that A is 'more true' than B.

[turquino]

I'm talking about factual disagreements about now nature operates, such as Ptolemy versus Copernicus. Suddenly there is new data calling for an explanation: Galileo reported about Jupiter's moons and Venus's phases. I'm using Kuhn's own criterion that the new viewpoint solves a problem that the older viewpoint could not solve.
Kuhn says that observation and factual disagreement about what we observe in nature are theoretical disagreements,

"The operations and measurements that a scientist undertakes in the laboratory are not "the given" of experience but rather "the collected with difficulty." They are not what the scientist sees - at least not before his research is well advanced and his attention focused. Rather, they are concrete indices to the content of more elementary perceptions, and as such they are selected for the close scrutiny of normal research only because they promise opportunity for the fruitful elaboration of an accepted paradigm. Far more clearly than the immediate experience from which they in part derive, operations and measurements are paradigm-determined. Science does not deal in all possible laboratory manipulations. Instead, it selects those relevant to the juxtaposition of a paradigm with the immediate experience that the paradigm has partially determined. As a result, scientists with different paradigms engage in different concrete laboratory manipulations." (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 126)[my bold]

Unlike the logical positivists, Kuhn doesn't think a pure observation-language is possible. Any observation language is based in many expectations about nature and breaks down as soon as they are violated.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

This is part of the idea that all observations in science are 'theory-laden', an idea expanded more fully in Norwood Russell Hanson's work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwood_Russell_Hanson

http://philpapers.org/s/Norwood%20Russell%20Hanson

Much of my work in this area is based on his ideas.

[turquino]

This is part of the idea that all observations in science are 'theory-laden', an idea expanded more fully in Norwood Russell Hanson's work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwood_Russell_Hanson

http://philpapers.org/s/Norwood%20Russell%20Hanson

Much of my work in this area is based on his ideas.
Hanson attacked Kuhn's idea that there is no view from nowhere when it comes to scientific paradigms. He thought there was an underlying logic that could be used to show why one theoretical tradition overthrew another. For Kuhn, it's just a matter of whether the new paradigm allows for progress in puzzle-solving. The new paradigm might even have gaping holes in it, or offer some inferior explanations compared the old.

[JimFar]

Kuhn wasn't all that good in providing attribution for the sources of his ideas. The notion of paradigm shift was already pretty much spelled out by Paul Schrecker in his book, Work and History: An Essay on the Structure of Civilization and Kuhn's ideas concerning the theory-ladenness of observations was already implicit in W.V. Quine and Morton White. George Reisch in his book, How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science, notes the similarities of many of Kuhn's ideas with those of the logical empiricist Philipp Frank. And the thesis that Kuhn's ideas were opposed to those of the logical positivists is often overstated. After all, it was the logical positivist Rudolf Carnap who promoted the publication of the Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in the first place, which first appeared as a volume in the logical positivists' Encyclopedia of Unified Science. Apparently, Carnap didn't see Kuhn's ideas as being all that antithetical with the general program of the Vienna Circle.