1. The concept most clearly identified with Kuhn is
‘paradigm’, which has the sense of a ‘model’ or ‘pattern’. How does Kuhn apply
this concept to the stages of growth of scientific knowledge?
2. What is ‘normal science’ in Kuhn’s thinking, and what are
the social characteristics (group practices, institutions, methods of
doing science) of science in a period of ‘normal science’?
3. What changes occur which lead to a breakdown of ‘normal science’
and the ‘revolutions’ that Kuhn speaks of in his title?
4. What parallels can you draw between a ‘paradigm’ in the
natural sciences and an ideology in politics, a ‘school of thought’ in the
social sciences, or a prevailing moral philosophy?
5. Kuhn is sometimes read (and sometimes encouraged people
to read him) as promoting the idea that what is taken for truth, even in the
natural sciences, has less to do with what is ‘really out there’, but what
people have come to believe is out there. What aspects of his analysis would
lead to that conclusion, and how convincing are they?
Application 1: Is
President Trump leading a paradigm shift?
Application 2: Is the
justification of the Core Curriculum of Columbia College the justification of a
paradigm?
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