HU3700: Study Questions for Second Exam

Fall, 2003

I. Define, Explain, Describe, Identify  

accretion model

anomaly

articulation

commensurable

context of discovery

context of justification

conversion experience

Copernicus

crisis

Dalton

Einstein

evolutionary view of science

extraordinary science

Gestalt switch

instrumentation

interpretation of data

Lavoisier

model

mopping-up operation

nature

neutral language of

observation
Newton

normal science

paradigm

pattern

perception

persuasion

pre-science

puzzle-solving

rule

scientific progress

scientific revolution

truth

II. Discussion

1. According to Kuhn, what are the major shortcomings of the accretion model of scientific change?

2. What does Kuhn mean by “paradigm”? What sorts of things does a paradigm include? Why does Kuhn believe that a paradigm cannot completely reduced to a set of rules? Give a historical example of a paradigm (in Kuhn’s sense of the word).

3. According to Kuhn, what are the essential characteristics of normal science? What is the nature of scientific research that takes place during a period of normal science? Consider what Kuhn has to say about “mopping-up operations,” “puzzle-solving,” and “articulation.” Why, according to Kuhn, does normal science tend to suppress novelty?

4. What is a scientific crisis, according to Kuhn? What are the causes of scientific crises? What is extraordinary science? How does it differ from normal science? What are the possible ways in which scientific crises get resolved? Do all crises lead to scientific revolutions, according to Kuhn? Do all scientific revolutions occur as a result of crises? Why or why not?

5. What does Kuhn mean by “scientific revolution”? Do all scientific revolutions involve changes of theory? Why or why not? Why do paradigm shifts occur, according to Kuhn? Are there usually logically compelling arguments for replacing one paradigm by another? Why or why not? Why does Kuhn believe that competing paradigms are incommensurable? What does he mean by this?

6. What does Kuhn mean when he says that after a paradigm shift, “scientists are responding to a different world”? Why does he believe that after a change of paradigm, scientists see the world differently from how they saw it under the old paradigm? Is a practicing scientist usually aware that his/her field of science has undergone a change of paradigm, according to Kuhn? Why or why not?

7. According to Kuhn, what sort of progress occurs during periods of normal science? What does he say about progress in scientific revolutions? Why does he believe that “[w]e may . . . have to relinquish the notion that . . . changes of paradigm carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth”? Why does he believe that understanding scientific change as evolutionary may not require us to presuppose “that there is some one full, objective, true account of nature and that the proper measure of scientific achievement is the extent to which it brings us closer to that ultimate goal”?