Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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Will Bouwman considers the development of a paradigmatic revolutionary.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/131/Thomas_Kuhn_1922-1996
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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Kuhn's work on paradigms applies not only to the philosophy of science but to the philosophy of philosophy as well.
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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Antoher brilliant article by Willj Bouwman.

Science: the misunderstood knowledge.

Science is knowledge, not truth, and as such, it is fallible. Science has been plagued by failure of explaining all in what it had set out to explain.

Further problems developed: the same data has been explained by wholly different explanations.

It has been made clearer and clearer that science, while it seeks the truth, is riddled by prejudice (Kuhn charitably called it "paradigm of enquiry"), personal ego, and even greed.

There is an other aspect of failed prejudice. Science historians had liked to liken science to a growing body of knowledge, where the new knowledge is built on the body of old knowledge. Kuhn pointed out that most if not all scientific advances occur by dislodging old beliefs of scientific truths; he called it revolutions in science.

However, on this I disagree with him. (Can you imagine.) Einstein depended on Newtonean physics to help him come up with the relativity theory. Heisenberg and other early quantum mechanics did need the molecular model and the historical atom-models to come up with their bizarre probability functions of electron fogs around the nucleus of an atom. Quantum mechanics would never have been able to come up with even more bizarre things had it not been able to process information using experiments based on relativity theory.

So Kuhn liked to look at science as the parallel running of the paradigm of methodical research and the innovative revolutionary ideas that had no paradigmic precedence, and which opened up brand new ways of looking at the world.

I think he erred on claiming that revolutionary science was not dependent for its development on previously achieved scientific knowledge.

----------------------

One word about Kuhn's and other's claim that science is far from getting concensus, even though it's data- and logic driven, because it's also personality-driven (by the very personality of scientists who advocate a theory or another).

One such example is a quote from Murphy's Law (a corollary, many of which had been collected into a three-volume book in the mid-seventies). "If a scientists discovers a publishable fact, then his fact will be central to his theory." And a corollary: "In turn, his theory will become central to all scientific thinking."

And the other, which makes me cry with agonizing sentimentality, while alternating with uproars of belly-laughs was a cartoon by the cartoonist of the eighties, who drew the series named "Far Side".

His seminal cartoon apropos to this article shows four scientists. The reader knows they are scientists, because they are in lab coats, middle aged, balding, with beards, and with high foreheads; bespectacled, and there is a black board with complicated equations in the middle-ground of the picture. Farthest from the viewer, there is one very short scientist, explaining and gesturing, obviously in the heat of something important in science; his audience, a tall scientist, has his chin in his hand, and is deep in thought, absorbing the little scientist's words.

The foreground shows two other scientists, also middle aged, but of normal height, observing the two in the back, with mild malice, and one is whispering to the other, "Here goes Dr. Smith again, trying to gain support for his "Little Bang" theory."

I thought, and still think, that was a hoot. So true!!
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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A_Seagull wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 11:57 pm Kuhn's work on paradigms applies not only to the philosophy of science but to the philosophy of philosophy as well.
Very true. And only to be complicated by the fact that some philosophers have solved scientific puzzles (Darwin, Einstein) while at the same time some sciences settled philosophical conundrums (What holds the middle, how come antipodes don't fall off the Earth, Maslow's Pyramid of Needs, etc.)
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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Another thing I disagree with Kuhn is his belief in the usefulness and desirability of Occam's Razor (O.R.) O. R. is an accompanying phenomenon, not a law, not a logically true condition or a condition that decides between two claims which of the two is closer to the truth.

O.R. is a misinterpretation of some of the times when the simpler answer or explanation is actually superior.

One million white swans don't prove all swans are white.

If Occam's Razor was true, and acceptable, then all scientific questions would be answered with "Because God wants it that way." You can't get any simpler than answering any- and everything with one single simple sentence, the same each time, and giving a satisfactory explanation (from a purely logical point of view).
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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-1- wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 12:20 am Another thing I disagree with Kuhn is his belief in the usefulness and desirability of Occam's Razor (O.R.) O. R. is an accompanying phenomenon, not a law, not a logically true condition or a condition that decides between two claims which of the two is closer to the truth.

O.R. is a misinterpretation of some of the times when the simpler answer or explanation is actually superior.

One million white swans don't prove all swans are white.

If Occam's Razor was true, and acceptable, then all scientific questions would be answered with "Because God wants it that way." You can't get any simpler than answering any- and everything with one single simple sentence, the same each time, and giving a satisfactory explanation (from a purely logical point of view).
Well I agree with you ....

However a simpler theory is preferable to a more complex theory, given that they are equally adept at matching the data.

In fact there may be an inverse relationship between the accuracy of the fit to the data and the complexity of the theory.

At opposite ends are theory A: 'This is the way god wants it'.. simple but inaccurate.
to theory Z: 'A listing of the data itself' .... accurate, but highly complex.
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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A_Seagull wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:02 am
Well I agree with you ....

However a simpler theory is preferable to a more complex theory, given that they are equally adept at matching the data.
This I accept. I still reject the acceptance of a theory ON THE MERIT that it's shorter or simpler.

If two theories explain the same data, to satisfactory predictive value, then the two theories are likely to be reduced to each other, or the complex one to a simpler one.

For instance, both f1(x) = X**2 + 1 and f2(x)=X**32 - X**21 + X**5 - 34567 satisfy the same three points which is "data". In this case, f1(x) is more useful, but only to humans' practical purposes, because it is easier to compute. To a being to whom computation is not a problem, the two are equal in all aspects.

Let's not forget, which I did, that science is knowledge, human knowledge, and human-employed knowledge. So the easier it is to use, the more human-friendly it is.
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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-1- wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:17 am If two theories explain the same data, to satisfactory predictive value, then the two theories are likely to be reduced to each other, or the complex one to a simpler one.
This is not true.

1. Explanation and prediction are independent processes.
2. Different predictive models could have different predictive utility. Depending on your requirements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_and_recall

Explanation is retrospective, prediction is prospective.
Explanation concerns itself with static datasets.
Prediction concerns itself with dynamic datasets.

For a static dataset there are an infinite number of mathematical functions that can be fitted e.g an infinite number of explanations.
How you grade explanations from 'best' to 'worst' is open for debate.


An explanatory model could have zero predictive utility.
A predictive model can have zero explanatory utility.

https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/1 ... hmueli.pdf

Or do some homework on machine learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Training, ... _test_sets

The simplest counter-example is that a human without a calculator prefers a simpler explanation than a human with a calculator...
We have BIG calculators now.
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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A_Seagull wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 11:57 pmKuhn's work on paradigms applies not only to the philosophy of science but to the philosophy of philosophy as well.
True dat. You can extend it to pretty much anything-history, politics, religion, art. The choices we make are as much aesthetic as practical- all with a cultural/educational bias. By and large we like what we know and as long as it produces results, we use it.
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

Post by Belinda »

Another useful essay from Philosophy Now.

An introduction to scientists as people who are subject to cultural and technological influences. Scientists aim to be objective but usually do their work as scientists inside the frame of the modern, not the postmodern, paradigm.
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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Belinda wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:40 pmAnother useful essay from Philosophy Now.
Thank you.
Belinda wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:40 pmAn introduction to scientists as people who are subject to cultural and technological influences. Scientists aim to be objective but usually do their work as scientists inside the frame of the modern, not the postmodern, paradigm.
Well, scientists who express any interest in the philosophy of science are more inclined to Popper on the whole. More often they just muddle along with the models and theories that work. As it happens, Kuhn's 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions', was instrumental in ushering in post-modernism. Some philosophers of science will never forgive him.
If you're interested where this all leads to, you might want to look at Bruno Latour's Actor Network Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor–network_theory
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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uwot, I imagine that falsificationism and Kuhn's social theory of science are mutually compatible. Not so?

I copied the following from the article you cited:

They do not attribute intentionality and similar properties to nonhumans.
Their conception of agency does not presuppose intentionality.
They locate agency neither in human "subjects" nor in non-human "objects", but in heterogeneous associations of humans and nonhumans.
("They " refers to subscribers to Actor- Network Theory)

I wonder if I 'm not comprehending, as agency seems to me to have been located in "heterogeneous associations of humans and nonhumans" for a long time past and also now. In other words ANT seems not to be a very novel idea .

Intentionality among the gods of ancient pantheons is debatable and debated https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/inte ... y-ancient/ therefore a god 'who' personifies a natural regularity, thunder for instance, is possessed of intentionality solely by virtue of his being personified, whereas the more sophisticated interpretation is one that doesn't involve personification.

A liver cell lacks intentionality and yet it's obvious to everyone,surely, that a liver cell is an agent of change, and acts in a "heterogeneous association of humans and nonhumans"
Indeed it's hard for me to imagine how anyone who is not superstitious does not intuitively know that Actor-Network Theory is how people intuit facts.

Thank you for the link to Actor Network Theory.
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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Belinda wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:58 pmuwot, I imagine that falsificationism and Kuhn's social theory of science are mutually compatible. Not so?
Well, this being philosophy, it depends what you mean. On the one hand the first is prescriptive, the second descriptive, so they're oil and water in that regard. You couldn't really say that ANT is compatible with falsificationism, in the sense that falsificationism embraces ANT, because it's simply a recommendation for what scientists should do. On the other hand, ANT describes what they actually do and the methodology of falsificationism is just an actor in the network.
Gonna have to put on my thinking cap for the rest. It's very clever and I'm not an expert on ANT.
As I remember, the thing that shocked us students when this was presented to us was the idea that human intentionality was relegated to a bit part. If a blacksmith is hammering away, making a horseshoe, there a many 'actors' involved, the fire, the steel, the bellows, the hammer and somewhere in there a blacksmith. According to ANT, intentionality is distributed amongst these different things, whereas we tend to think that the intention to make a horseshoe resides squarely in the blacksmith. My response was that ANT is really a response to the criticism of 'hard scientists' that sociology is not sufficiently empirical. As I understand it, the ANT attitudet is that if you are to survey a scene in which 'scientists' are doing 'science', from a strictly empirical point of view, you cannot ascribe intentionality solely to the scientist, because you don't know what she is thinking - you are compelled to take everything at face value.
Like I said though, I'm no expert on ANT.
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Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

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Sociologists value your face.

They told me mine was worth about fifteen bucks.
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Never mind -1-

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-1- wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:04 am Sociologists value your face.

They told me mine was worth about fifteen bucks.
Wouldn't take it to heart. No one listens to sociologists
.
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