The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

[Hegemonicretribution]

There is a largely scientific element to the board, but there is not often much interest in philosophy of science. What do you think about Kuhn's idea that we need normal science to reach the crisis point needed for a scientific revolution? Also what do you make of his idea that his position is mostly a relativist one, although he does agree that we "progress"?

Personally I think Kuhn is an important philosopher, more so than Popper in many respects, and one that is often neglected. I am guessing that there are members that largely disagree with him, and I thought that such criticisms could spark a decent debate.

If people are not familiar with Kuhn, I can post links to brief summaries, or give a more in depth outline of his work, but Wiki isn't too bad a starting point.

[red_che]

Please give links, I'm not familiar with his thoughts.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 04:15 AM
Please give links, I'm not familiar with his thoughts.
Try this for starters...

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions)

I am quite favorably impressed with Kuhn and I recommend his book highly.

In its way, I think it is a very "Marxist" work. :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Hegemonicretribution]

Thanks RS.

I was sure I put a link to it, but my computer hasn&#39;t been the best lately <_<


I am quite favorably impressed with Kuhn and I recommend his book highly.

In its way, I think it is a very "Marxist" work.

It is interesting that you read him as a Marxist. It is does seem that his theory leads to an almost relativist position, but not in a solipsistic sense. It seems that it is similar to a dialectical (excuse the term) progression of ideas, in that they invariably develop, even if they don&#39;t find a definite end.

To anyone that is interested in science Kuhn is a must read, in fact I will add him to the sticky when I get a chance. In so for as he is important for analysis of scientific practice he is invaluable, although the conclusions can be a little more problematic.

[hoopla]

Lakatos&#39;s ideas look pretty in my head... I think that they&#39;re an extension to Kuhn.

[Chrysalis]

In another thread, I was thinking about how to discuss Marxism&#39;s being scientific and didn&#39;t know where to start. Thanks for opening this thread. Never thought of Kuhn before, although he was briefly mentioned in my reading of epistemology (a chapter was devoted to his theory). So, I read his The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions.

So two things I want to say for a start: First, I think I agree with Redstar about the very Marxian attitude of Kuhn, if only because Kuhn parallels a change in scientific paradigm (or theory) with that of a change in political power (or structure), a change that starts when a theory can no longer satisfy occurence of new phenomena and has become incompatible with new evidence (or what he calls a "crisis"?). Second, I would say that Kuhn is rather a contextualist, not a relativist, although the difference between the two positions isn&#39;t always clear.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Anyone who thinks Kuhn is a relativist should read Wes Sharrock and Rupert Read&#39;s book &#39;Kuhn: Philosopher of Scientific Revolution&#39; (Polity Press, 2002), where they will find their assumptions thrown into considerable doubt.

It is easily the best book on Kuhn.

Rupert Read&#39;s website also contains many excellent essays on Kuhn, and Marx, among other topics:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j339/

[Read is also a Green Party councillor, in Norwich, UK., and is highly sympathetic to Marx&#39;s Historical Materialism.]

And comrades who are interested in a Marxist History of Science (one that escapes from the &#39;great man&#39; theory of scientific advancement that Kuhn and almost everyone else adopt) should read: "A People&#39;s History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and &#39;Low Mechanicks&#39;", by Clifford Conner (Nation Books, 2005).

Most Marxist books on the Philosophy of Science are very poor (this is because of their authors&#39; adherence to &#39;dialectics&#39;, and their ignorance of logic), however the best study so far is &#39;Fact and Method&#39; by Richard Miller (Princeton University Press, 1987), and this is because this author ignores &#39;the dialectic&#39; completely.

[Hegemonicretribution]

I don&#39;t personally think that Kuhn must be a relativist, but if one has read only some of his work it is not an unreasonable assumpyion. I share may views with Kuhn, and I am not a relativist, although my personal position is perhaps a little obscure.

I shall read that link with interest, cheers RL.

[Monty Cantsin]

Rosa Lichtenstein, great link you put forward... can&#39;t say i&#39;ve read Kuhn but those other essays are great, I’ll find that stuff on Wittgenstein particularly interesting.

[Hegemonicretribution]

I just read the essays regarding Kuhn, and I thnk I may have to look into the actual book you suggested. The essays themselves seemed to hint at why his position was not relativist, but the explanations were not completely clear or concise.

Actually both essays had some of the exact same examples as the very first text I ever read regarding philosophy of science. The Ptolemic example appeared almost as it did within that book (I shall have to find its name because it is an excellent beginner&#39;s guide). So although incommensurability was fairly well illustrated (although perhaps not his later moderated version), I didn&#39;t feel it the clearest regarding the "theory ladenness" of data. (Not that Kuhn himself always was)

I will give them a closer reading though, and I may be proved wrong about them by this.

I am impressed still though, it probably shows through some of my posts, but Kuhn and Wittgenstein are easily in the top 5 philosophical influences in my life.


Lakatos&#39;s ideas look pretty in my head... I think that they&#39;re an extension to Kuhn.
I need to read more on Lakatos, I have only read a couple of his essays before. I was a little turned off to be honest because of how he sold Popper out a little more than was necessary.


Lakatos is important contempory reading, but Kuhn is in my oppinion still the most fundamental philsopher of science, and someone I would recommend to anyone with an interest in science.

[redstar2000]

I am almost certainly unqualified to discuss Rupert Read&#39;s interpretations of Kuhn.

But Mr. Read has some distinctly odd views...as. for example, in this piece...

The fantasy of safety through power: the psycho-political philosophy of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j339/LOTR2.htm)

This sort of thing does not "inspire confidence".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Red, you are right; Mr Read is a Quaker. Apart from that, his other stuff is excellent.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Monty, thanks for that.

Rupert Read is one of a new breed of Wittgensteinian&#39;s who, in my view, are beginning to get to the heart of W&#39;s philosophy. This &#39;school&#39; if such it may be called, originated in the teaching of Burton Dreben (at Harvard) and Cora Diamond, but there are others involved in this too (James Conant, Alice Creary, Juliet Floyd, etc.).

It treats W&#39;s work as anti-metaphysical from beginning to end (i.e., in his earlier and later &#39;periods&#39;), an idea I had hoped to incorporate in my PhD thesis twenty odd years ago (when it was an original idea&#33;), but I never completed it.

Naturally, I find this approach conducive to my own attempt to de-mystify Marxist Philosophy (by showing, like W, that all traditional Philosophical theories (ie., metaphysics) are just hot air); except I have a political/materialist explanation as to why traditional ideas caught on in early class society, why they have dominated thought ever since, and why they still &#39;rule&#39;, as Marx noted.

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


Most Marxist books on the Philosophy of Science are very poor (this is because of their authors&#39; adherence to &#39;dialectics&#39;, and their ignorance of logic), however the best study so far is &#39;Fact and Method&#39; by Richard Miller (Princeton University Press, 1987), and this is because this author ignores &#39;the dialectic&#39; completely.

BTW, Richard Miller also wrote the excellent, Analyzing Marx (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691014132/103-8835822-4139007?v=glance&n=283155), which applied analytical philosophy, especially postpositivist philosophy of science (i.e. Kuhn, Feyerabend), to the elucidation of aspects of Marxism including the materialist conception of history (Miller offers an interesting critique of G.A. Cohen), Marxist theories of the state, and the role of morality in Marxism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim, thanks for that&#33;

&#39;Analysing Marx&#39; has its weaknesses, but it is a major step in the right direction.

Allen Wood&#39;s (not the one who co-authored &#39;Reason In Revolt&#39;&#33;&#33;) book on Marx (which has just gone into its second edition) is also excellent:

&#39;Karl Marx (Arguments of the Philosophers)&#39; [Routledge, 2004.]

[Chrysalis]

One point, which I think is really important in Kuhn&#39;s "scientific revolution", is the idea of scientific theories as a) cumulation of facts, theories, ideas: a history that we can trace back from earlier scientific works to the present, and that which we can also rely on for future modifications, etc. VERSUS the b) scientific theory (or theories) that refutes entirely the previous established paradigm and become itself the new paradigm. Kuhn leans towards the second, hence his metaphor, the "scientific revolution".

Anyone who has any comment about this?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chrysalis, I am not sure you will find your point b) (or anything like it) in Kuhn.

[Chrysalis]

Hi Rosa:

I might not have expressed that clearly. Still new to Kuhn. :blush:

Kuhn does talk about "normal science" in which he acknowledges the cumulation of facts (or discoveries). BUT this is within the scientific paradigm itself, while the theory is being refined, modified, improved, etc. But, in his "paradigm destruction", he seems to say that, just like a political structure that must be dismantled, when new discoveries are incompatible with the existing theory, and a new theory is adequate enough to accomodate these new facts (incompatible with the old), then we get a "scientific revolution".

[Hegemonicretribution]

I will try and give a brief summary here, as some of the links are a little more complicated, especially to those not familiar with Kuhn. It can also be a little hard to explain Kuhn, as he invariably uses his own terminology, even though much of it has become part of mainstream language.

I will restrict this to talk about normal and revolutionary science, although there is pre-paradigm and other versions he does talk about, they are not necessary to get a general idea.

Kuhn sees the role of science as empirically validating a current hypothesis about a particular aspect of the universe. Results improve and refine this theory, and further justify the reliance that we place in it, and also increase the accuracy of predictions that can be drawn from it. Anomalies are generally seen as resulting from a poor application of current scientific method. That is to say that mistakes in the experiment caused unexpected results, not a flaw in a particular theory.

This phase is seen as necessary to develope scientific theories to the full extent of their usefulness. Rather than having energies spent in all manner of unrelated research directions, the scientific community exercises a dogma over individual scientists. In capitalist society this is imposed not only my the scientific community, and its attitude, but also by the financial restraints that are placed upon would be deviant scientists.

Eventually any given theory will highlight several problems that exist within itself. The anomalies that were previously put down to poor scientific practice, (as at the time it was "known" that the current theory was right) become more and more common place. The "sea of anomalies" that occurs throws the scientific world into crisis.

This crisis generates a new type of science; revolutionary science. During this time it is accepted that no one theory is sufficient, and the race is on to find one that is. Some scientists try and refine the old theory, some propose radically new theories, it isn&#39;t until one that adequately explains phenomena is discovered that science leaves this phase.

When a new theory is developed, and that is one that can explain the problems that led to the abandonment of the previous theory, as well as accounting for other current problems, then science enters a "normal" phase again. During this phase scientists work within the new theory, (paradigm) improving, refining, and justifying it until such time as it becomes swamped by a sea of anomalies itself.

For Kuhn this proccess was ongoing, but this doesn&#39;t necessarily mean that anyone theory is as good as any other. There is a definite progression involved, and we do find the newer theories more useful (this is scientific development).

Kuhn does not think it sufficient however, to simply say that one theory is wrong, and that another theory is correct. Often they can simply not be compared, and this is what he meant by "incomensurability." Critics have pointed out that theories can be compared at some level. For example Copernican and Ptolemic theories are an example of two that are incomensurable. Talk about predictions from either is pointless, as they start from different assumptions, and are not compatible. However it has been commented that each theory states the other is wrong by its own claim to truth. That is in this case that Copernicans refute anything resulting from Ptolemic theory as the earth revolves around the sun.

Kuhn saw this as a partial answer, and moderated his incomensurability somewhat. He saw that some comparison was possible between theories, but not in the same way as opposing results within the same theory could be compared.

Part of his justification for incomensurability was his claim that observable phenomena are themselves paradigm dependant. For example what a layman and a scientist would claim to have observed when viewing particular phenomena will vary. The layman will likely recall raw sense-data, or conclusions drawn from this based on their own reason. The educated scientist will talk about observation in terms of the theory they understand to best explain what they saw.

I have just realised how long this is :P, I have pretty much typed this from my head as an attempt to briefly explain Kuhn, but it is heading away from this. There are some basic there though^ and there is a wealth of resources online for further reading.

Please correct anything I have said above, because as I have said I just typed it straight from memory and I may well have made major mistakes.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chrysalis, I think, once again, you are putting this in a way that Kuhn would have disowned.

He would not use words like &#39;refute&#39; and &#39;incompatible&#39; to depict different scientific theories.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Heg (forgive the contraction of your monicka&#33;) thanks for that; anyone who wants a longer summary, check this out:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/#2

Unfortunately, this was written by someone who gets Kuhn wrong in places; a longer (and far more accurate) overview can be found here:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j339/Kuhntogo.htm

Which is an early version of the book I mentioned above.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Cheers Rosa, I will examine it soon. I am actually looking for additions to the philosophy resource stickies above. If you have any more sites I will gladly view and add them if they are suitable.

If you have any other contrbutions they would be valid, also critiques of my very brief summary of Kuhn would be appreciated. Cheers.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here&#39;s a link I posted a few weeks ago, which then went &#39;dead&#39; for a while, but now looks OK again:

http://www.guyrobinson.net/

Guy is a very sophisticated Wittgensteinian/Marxist. He manages to say the sorts of things I would like to say, but in about 1/100th of the space&#33;

Here is his essay on Kuhn:

http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/PhilosophyA...dingScience.pdf (http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/PhilosophyAndMystification_MisunderstandingScience .pdf)

And here is an excellent essay that shows how and why computers will never be &#39;conscious&#39;:

http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/Friends_and_Machines.pdf

This is his take on Historical Materialism:

http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/Materialism.pdf

Here he explains things in the way I would like to be able to do:

http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/PhilosophyA...on_Chapter2.pdf (http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/PhilosophyAndDemystification_Chapter2.pdf)

[Chrysalis]

Originally posted by Rosa
Chrysalis, I think, once again, you are putting this in a way that Kuhn would have disowned.

He would not use words like &#39;refute&#39; and &#39;incompatible&#39; to depict different scientific theories.
At least this is the impression I get when I read his essay Nature and Necessity of Scientifc Revolutions. When I say "incompatible", I mean the "anomalies" which he himself had mentioned in that essay. Of course, I may be misreading this. But, I think I need to read more to continue with this.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fair enough, but remember Kuhn was trying to get away from the idea that there is any logical connection between theories that represented paradigm shifts (the &#39;received&#39; view he was undermining); the Guy Robinson link above (ie.,

http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/PhilosophyA...ingScience.pdf) (http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/PhilosophyA...dingScience.pdf))

brings his out well, as does the Ruper Read book (but in far more detail).

[Chrysalis]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 21 2006, 08:07 AM
Fair enough, but remember Kuhn was trying to get away from the idea that there is any logical connection between theories that represented paradigm shifts (the &#39;received&#39; view he was undermining);
Yes. I get this idea, too. I think the two-step process of his scientific revolution expresses this idea, no?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I wasn&#39;t too sure what you meant by &#39;two step&#39; process. [Sorry to be a pain&#33;]

[Chrysalis]

No, Rosa, you&#39;re not a pain. In fact, I&#39;d like to say more, but I&#39;ve been feeling tired the last few days. :(

Okay, two-step----I mean two-phase, I think it&#39;s how Hegemonicretribution explained it: 1) normal science, 2) revolutionary science. The normal science being the development and refinement of a particular theory itself. From Hegemonic:


Eventually any given theory will highlight several problems that exist within itself. The anomalies that were previously put down to poor scientific practice, (as at the time it was "known" that the current theory was right) become more and more common place. The "sea of anomalies" that occurs throws the scientific world into crisis.

And then comes the revolutionary phase.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fair enough.