Source?
It has been my understanding that Kuhn was discussing the history and philosophy of science, and just science. And I think the important thing here is that he is discussing how science has evolved, and that science is based on a shared "paradigm" or "rational matrix" that all members of a scientific community must agree on in order to advance science in the normal fashion through "puzzle solving." And that a paradigm shift, which is the focus of his lecture, is a shift in that overall agreement on how the world is viewed by scientists and changes how they view the world. I have been reviewing this material for 3 days now before coming to the conclusion that I believe he is wrong. However, I also recognize that my conclusion is based on incomplete information. The problem is that I can only make my decision based on the information that is provided, and everything that I have found is very specific that his theory relates to how science advances, and I can find no supporting literature for the idea that his theory expands beyond that scope.
If you want an A in liberal arts classes you regurgitate what the professor says. You come up with your own shit and your grade gets knocked down.
So talk to him before or after class. Instead of saying "I'm right and you're wrong" you can say, "I read this other thing and it says this blah blah blah at first it sound like they were saying the oposite, but someone pointed out that instead of talking about science he was talking about the philosophy of science blah blah blah"
If you say right/wrong then he'll hate you. If you go with the second option then he'll love you for being interested and persuing this outside of the minimum required reading.
Ok, taking several peoples advice I am emailing him, and I am doing my best to go with the assumption that he is right and I am somehow missing something. I can't shake the feeling that I could write the letter in a more tactful manner, but
That is the method I tried to go with. Pointing out that what I read was not enough to support what he said, and asking for him to help me figure out what I was missing.
Kuhn's theories refer to some facts about thought and behavior, so to speak, and while it's appropriate to discuss Kuhn's theories as Kuhn's theories in some cases, it's also appropriate to discuss his theories in a broader context, in particular with respect to the facts and behavior that those theories hinge upon. To put it another way, if you see the notion of paradigm shift being owned and originated by Kuhn, then your notion that your teacher is wrong might easily apply whenever he says anything which is not attributable to Kuhn. This then amounts to the historical regurgitation of teaching material.
But IMO, to think that way is contrary to the reality that underlies Kuhn's theories and the perspectives of the times we live in. Scientists don't live in a vacuum where they only ever think about science and don't participate in the broader world and its evolution. Similarly, philosophers don't live in a vacuum unaffected by science. There's plenty of literature to back up this point. Whether or not Kuhn did it himself would be a reflection on him, not on the reality which underlies the broader point.
You have choices on your perspective on these topics, and you can choose to adopt the narrower perspective and see the notion of paradigm shift strictly in a Kuhnian manner, but even if you do so, you should recognize that this is a choice which you're making -- one which is not made by others. In this sense, your teacher is neither right nor wrong -- he's simply taken a view which covers an area that Kuhn didn't focus upon. You can take the view that Kuhn's focus contrasted or conflicted with your teacher's view, but that in itself does not make your teacher wrong, because that sort of thinking rests on an assumption that Kuhn was somehow 100% right and therefore any divergence is wrong -- it just doesn't work that way with philosophies in practice, and Kuhn didn't come up with a proof which makes his philosophy that exceptional. The point here however is that if you're going to make a judgment of right or wrong, you're doing that in a specific context, and not as not everyone is limited to that same context, you should try to recognize the difference of the judgment in your context and the context that others are operating in.
I understand where you are coming from and what you mean. When I say the teacher is wrong what I mean is that his examples of a paradigm shift are not paradigm shifts as explained by Kuhn in his book. At least as far as my understanding of Kuhn's work goes, which is small. I wish I could post the lecture itself, but it is property of the school, and I believe that the rules of the school do not allow me to do that. However, the title of the lecture is "Theories of Thomas Kuhn" and it goes directly from his very brief description of how Kuhn presented the idea that science evolves through paradigm shifts and then gives his examples of paradigm shifts. When I read the articles he told us to read, I did not feel that the examples were good examples, so I did more reading. Based on the reading I have done, I do not believe the examples he gives are examples of a Thomas Kuhn paradigm shift.
You appear to be more familiar with Thomas Kuhn than I am, so maybe you can help give me feedback on my conclusion. Would the shift of higher education from a formal classroom setting to a new delivery method through the internet be a paradigm shift in the form that Kuhn meant when he talked about scientific revolutions?
Heh. I don't claim to be a Kuhn expert, and it's easier to pick on you picking on your teacher than to try to defend what your teacher has said in detail, especially when I don't have most of his material at hand.
On this specific point, while I think you have a valid claim, I can adopt either position and be able to defend it -- in a specific context. The point here again is that the judgment depends on the perspective, and depending on the perspective, you have different views. Specifically -- phrased just as in your terms, where the teacher says "this is Kuhn's theory", and "these are some examples of it", you could indeed think that the examples don't really match the theory, for reasons you've given, and other reasons you could find in Kuhn's texts.
However, there is an alternate perspective, which says that the notion of paradigm shift is broader than just Kuhn's theory, and this perspective is easily defended. Ask a hundred people in the street if they've heard about paradigm shift, and for examples of them, and you'd likely find many answers not unlike your teacher's. Ask the same people if they've ever heard of Kuhn first, and you'd probably find very few affirmatives. The point here again is that the term paradigm shift is broader than Kuhn, and that while there are many "wrong" answers and opinions about what are paradigm shifts, "exactly what Kuhn says" is only a valid answer if you assume in the first place that the context is limited to being exactly what Kuhn says, which it generally isn't.
More specifically -- is non-classroom teaching a "paradigm shift" as the teacher claims? Well, yes, in part, and even so as a part of the "puzzle solving" nature of theoretical evolutionary phases. Teaching as a whole is and has been undergoing significant paradigm shifts. You could say that classroom teaching in the form of memorization and regurgitation was something of a phase itself which had preceding phases which were different, and is now in a subsequent phase which is different again. You could simultaneously claim that learning by doing is an ancient manner of teaching and learning, which was in a phase dropped for a sort of industrialization of education in classroom settings with mass-produced books, which is now being changed again, and the use of computers, multi-media, etc., are part of the puzzle-solving development which try to realize and better form the current theories of education, in a world which has itself seemingly changed, so that we can neither learn enough for our future needs from existing books nor from the doing of certain tasks, as the nature of the tasks themselves are changing. Education has been and is undergoing a massive paradigm shift, while you can criticize the adoption of this or that technology or technique in education as not in itself valid or a paradigm shift, you cannot successfully argue that education in itself has not significant changed from the past, and is not undergoing significant changes, because it is, and because those reasons relate very much to how we think about the world, in the paradigms in which we find and place ourselves. I think the differences here can be resolved here as issues of scale.
I think it'd be much easier to argue that, rather than finding ourselves at the end of a Kuhnian revolution, i.e. in a new paradigm, we're in the middle of the transitional phase where new ideas have been introduced that upset the established paradigm. The technologies of the past few decades are seriously challenging notions of academia, scholarship, education, and the fundamental relationship between teaching and student. We're still trying to figure out how those tools can actually be used effectively, though, which is why the revolution isn't over.
I'm sure that we'll see continued attempts at this shift in the coming years and maybe even decades, but I'm not confident the new paradigm will catch on. Of course, I could be blinded by my own involvement in the old paradigm, the one of brick and mortar classrooms with face to face interaction between the expert and the novice.
If the professor said somewhere that scenarios A and C represent the type of paradigm shift represented in Kuhn's work, then I'd say you're right to claim that this is misleading (BTW, I've read about a paragraph from Wikipedia about Kuhn aside from your post, so I'm no expert). However, if he's simply giving examples of paradigm shifts, then A and C are fine as examples. I view the purpose of him presenting these examples more as: Thomas Kuhn wrote this book about how scientific revolutions work. Out of this book came the idea of paradigm shifts (the generalized idea, not the specific ideas of Kuhn's arguments). A, B, and C are some examples of paradigm shifts that you can relate to.
If you do want to go after the professor over it, I would phrase it as a question rather than a "You're wrong, here's proof." Something like, "Professor X, you mentioned these as examples of paradigm shifts, but Kuhn's arguments are only about scientific paradigm shifts. Were your examples intended to be derived directly from Kuhn's idea of paradigm shifts, or the more general conception that is used today? If the former, I think only example B applies as a valid example."
If you do want to go after the professor over it, I would phrase it as a question rather than a "You're wrong, here's proof." Something like, "Professor X, you mentioned these as examples of paradigm shifts, but Kuhn's arguments are only about scientific paradigm shifts. Were your examples intended to be derived directly from Kuhn's idea of paradigm shifts, or the more general conception that is used today? If the former, I think only example B applies as a valid example."
This.
Just do the assignment as he wants you to do it. You're not there to debate the teacher, you're there to do the work he gives you. Even if you're completely right, and he's completely wrong, you will gain nothing from correcting him. It's likely that he'll mark this assignment down, and hold grudges for future assignments since he's only human. There's nothing teachers like more than to have students tell them they misunderstand the material and don't know what they're talking about.
In addition to this, he may be right and you wrong, since it's not a black and white issue. He might actually be justified in thinking you're a snotty know-it-all who hasn't actually read the books, but thinks you can tell the teacher that he doesn't understand the material.
You're free to do independent thinking and write a rebuttal to him on your own time. You can even send it to him if you want to be contentious, with nothing you can gain.
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