Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

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committed to a particular research programme, oreven formally trained in it. Popper differed from hispositivist cousins only in his insistence that thislanguage must be itself revisable in light of futuredevelopments in science and society.Nevertheless, the fact that both learned academicsand ordinary folks do not normallyquestion the devolution of allegedly universalforms of knowledge to specific experts testifies toPlato’s lingering influence. As a result, intellectualdiscrimination continues to function as a relativelynon-coercive vehicle for social control. In thisrespect, Kuhn is the latest rider on Plato’s wave.While neither Kuhn nor Popper would care to denythat a specific paradigm may dominate theunderstanding of a particular slice of reality atparticular time, they differ over whether it shouldbe treated as a source of stability (Kuhn) or aproblem to be overcome (Popper). Authoritarianinterpretations of Hegel rest on the former view,while Lakatos tried to recover a more liberalinterpretation of Hegel that spoke to the latter. Herea set of analogies proves useful: what Popperdemonised as ‘historicism’ relates to history’sopenness to the future as monopoly capitalismrelates to the free market – or alternatively, asKuhn’s winner-takes-all view of scientific para-54
digms relates to a public good conception ofscientific knowledge whereby innovations aredistributed as widely as possible.Thus, Kuhn and Popper embody both ‘pluralist’and ‘universalist’ attitudes toward scientific inquiry,though each turns the two terms to opposite effect.Kuhn’s pluralism is a reluctant outcome compelledby his brand of universalism, whereas Poppereagerly embraced pluralism as a means for realisinghis brand of universalism. For Kuhn, a science isalways dominated by one paradigm that its memberspursue religiously until it runs up against thelimits of its puzzle-solving capabilities. Pluralismthen emerges in the form of increasingly specialiseddomains of inquiry, each dominated by its ownparadigm. In contrast, for Popper pluralism is, atleast ideally, intrinsic to the day-to-day conduct ofscientific inquiry, as scientists are encouraged toproliferate alternative hypotheses that then facestiff cross-examination by standards that commanduniversal assent. To be sure, Popperians havetended to stress – more than Popper himself – thatscientists may rationally continue to pursuehypotheses after they have been falsified but only inthe recognition of what it would take to change theminds of fellow inquirers.Textbook caricatures of Kuhn and Popper tend to55
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Kuhn vsPopperThe Struggle for theSo
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CONTENTSIntroduction 1Chapter 1: In
Page 9 and 10: more than ever preoccupied with fac
Page 11 and 12: paradigmatic pedigree than by its p
Page 13 and 14: . CHAPTER 1 .IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSE
Page 15 and 16: second concerns how the debate mana
Page 17 and 18: Watkins, who relied on the student
Page 19 and 20: actual precursor but who are no les
Page 21 and 22: debate, especially as they bear on
Page 23 and 24: extended encyclopaedia entry, as th
Page 25 and 26: means by which people become scient
Page 27 and 28: happened to be an apt vehicle for a
Page 29 and 30: logic is for. For positivists, logi
Page 31 and 32: suppressed by the first great autho
Page 33 and 34: Russell and Popper shared an antipa
Page 35 and 36: theories. Kuhn’s reception was he
Page 37 and 38: was Conant who recommended Kuhn to
Page 39 and 40: Legend has it that while Popper lik
Page 41 and 42: new paradigm. For Kuhn, a paradigm
Page 43 and 44: matters of ‘tradition’, ‘trac
Page 45 and 46: studies practitioners is sufficient
Page 47 and 48: The series of exchanges alluded to
Page 49 and 50: already doing, not over whether the
Page 51 and 52: disciplines, can determine the best
Page 53 and 54: considerations to influence the cou
Page 55 and 56: associated with the civic republica
Page 57: own aversion to Hegel’s authorita
Page 61 and 62: looking standard, one based on enti
Page 63 and 64: the 19th-century roots of modern ma
Page 65 and 66: Lakatos believed he had improved on
Page 67 and 68: est track record, a kind of evoluti
Page 69 and 70: more than Kuhn himself - concluded
Page 71 and 72: the incommensurable theories are tr
Page 73 and 74: systematically misunderstood. Consi
Page 75 and 76: progress. However, Kuhn and Popper
Page 77 and 78: . CHAPTER 7 .WHY PHILOSOPHERS GET N
Page 79 and 80: Darwin’s theory of natural select
Page 81 and 82: But the complete alienation of phil
Page 83 and 84: having supped on the gruel of norma
Page 85 and 86: permits the survival of chance muta
Page 87 and 88: iochemist Lawrence J. Henderson (18
Page 89 and 90: . CHAPTER 8 .SO, WHY ARE PHILOSOPHE
Page 91 and 92: Cold War science policy - namely, t
Page 93 and 94: pure inquiry. Exceptionally disappo
Page 95 and 96: would seem to require the abandonme
Page 97 and 98: what an omnipotent deity friendly t
Page 99 and 100: the rather technical and tedious wo
Page 101 and 102: narrator considers herself at least
Page 103 and 104: would now say) awaiting propitious
Page 105 and 106: were secular Jews who did not exhib
Page 107 and 108: ‘conjectures and refutations’.
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At various points in Western histor
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is how second-order colonialism fee
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external grants, scientists have be
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. CHAPTER 11 .DO WE BELIEVE BY EVID
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case through acquaintance with chur
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showed how Galileo had to resort to
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grounds for what the Jesuits call t
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is rather different. For him, a sci
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Kuhn was that if design in nature i
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except that the venue should provid
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effectively preoccupied with the pr
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whereby our liabilities simulate vi
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Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), f
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However, from its inception, the un
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the uncharted domain. This rather l
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producers in their domains. Here it
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original distinction between the tr
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Indeed, what had made the natural s
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influence dissipated in the long te
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philosophical disciplines?) that sh
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Here we see an important difference
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tendency of experimental psychology
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that the Enlightenment has yet to b
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people would need to come to regard
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. CHAPTER 14 .POPPER AND ADORNO DIV
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idealised understanding of scientif
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new evidence), criticism must opera
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oth of which were in evidence in th
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translated into emancipatory action
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egan in the Weimar Republic as a by
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address their own. For the many soc
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ment of their ideals. By failing to
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. CHAPTER 15 .HOW TO BE RESPONSIBLE
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sciences. (Back then, the philosoph
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a certain way would have increased
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over time. In other words, it is al
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A good model for understanding the
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. CHAPTER 16 .FAILING THE POPPERIAN
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use ‘philosopher’ as the name o
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whenever someone infers the validit
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The genetic fallacy is not designed
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unwitting captives to that context
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Heidegger’s ideas from Heidegger
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However, this question became diffi
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. CHAPTER 17 .IS THOMAS KUHN THEAME
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philosophers came to rely on Heideg
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alternative contemporaries - have c
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say something similar in the case o
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1960s - he did not believe that a p
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world-historic spirit has played a
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out what is now often called the
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mention the analytic philosophy tha
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physical sciences than Kuhn, but th
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features from two or more historica
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I have already raised the examples
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self-serving over time, since we ar
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1978). Kuhn’s historiographical e
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Rather than listing many texts of v
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‘received view’ in the philosop
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Franklin, The Science of Conjecture
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qualified defence of genomic-based
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lishers, 1997). Kuhn’s views on h
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