Reading Questions for Kuhn’s “Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions” & “Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice”

Due Date: 9/25

1. What parallels does Kuhn see between scientific and political revolution? Why does he characterize revolutionary change as involving choice between “incompatible modes of community life” and “mass persuasion” with “no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community”?

2. The traditional view of the history of science and scientific change is one of continuous cumulative growth (indeed, at least one of us in class has appealed to this conception in arguing for the merit of science over mythologies and religion). But Kuhn argues that the history of science is actually beset with periods of revolution which are importantly discontinuous, and that cumulative incorporation of novel phenomena is improbable. Explain this view and the support he gives for it, as well as the claim that “the differences between successive paradigms are both necessary and irreconcilable”. (bottom of 94)

3. In the second piece, Kuhn cites accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness as providing (at least part of) the shared basis for theory choice. This seems to be a bit of a back-pedal on the themes of the first piece, but he then cites certain difficulties in applying these criteria. Explain what these difficulties are and why they are important to the question of objectivity in science, drawing on the examples Kuhn uses to illustrate them (though don't just parrot Kuhn).

What is the distinction between the ‘context of discovery’ and the ‘context of justification’, and how is this distinction supposed (by Kuhn’s critics) to explain how objectivity is preserved despite the historical and personal idiosyncrasies inherent in the practice of science? Why does Kuhn reject it as even a useful idealization?

4. “What the tradition sees as eliminable imperfections in its rules of choice I take to be in part responses to the essential nature of science.” (110) “What from one viewpoint may seem the looseness and imperfection of choice criteria conceived as rules may, when the same criteria are seen as values, appear an indispensable means of spreading the risk which the introduction or support of novelty always entails.” (112) Explain these quotations and the view of theory choice Kuhn develops. In particular, what is the difference he sees between rules and values, and how does he use this difference to argue that the looseness in choice criteria is not a defect of (or lack of objectivity in) theory change and choice, but an essential part of the progress of science?

5. Kuhn acknowledges that values (and the weights we put on competing values) change, often in response to theory change; yet he does not see this as particularly problematic. Why might it be seen as problematic and why does he not see it this way?

Explain Kuhn’s discussion of objectivity and subjectivity. Does Kuhn’s view cast theory choice as subjective?

Among the things Kuhn is famous for are claims of the following sort: During times of paradigm change, when two paradigms are competing, adherents of the two paradigms are unable to communicate fully with one another and see very different sets of facts as a result of their different theoretical commitments, and the acceptance of the new paradigm over the old (for those who make the shift) is not a rational choice, but more like a conversion. Some of what Kuhn has said in the second piece seems to soften the above claim, yet Kuhn still maintains (in the last page or so of the second piece), the view above. Does Kuhn’s view seem more clear or less radical (or both) to you after reading the second piece?