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SUMMARY:Kuhn's education: Wittgenstein\, pedagogy\, and the road to struct
 ure - Joel Isaac (Queen Mary\, University of London/CRASSH\, Cambridge)
DTSTART:20110310T163000Z
DTEND:20110310T180000Z
UID:TALK28982@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Nicky Reeves
DESCRIPTION:The theoretical edifice of _The Structure of Scientific Revolu
 tions_ rests on a very particular – and peculiar – account of what is 
 involved in learning a theory by example. Normal science\, anomaly\, crisi
 s\, revolution\, even the paradigm itself – each of these mechanisms dri
 ving scientific development can operate in the way that Kuhn suggests only
  insofar as theories and their applications are learned\, not as sets of e
 xplicit rules or operational algorithms\, but instead from a concrete and 
 finite range of model puzzle solutions enshrined in textbooks and laborato
 ry or classroom demonstrations. What is peculiar about this account of the
  learning of scientific theory through practical modes of instruction is t
 hat\, despite the recent flourishing of historical studies in science peda
 gogy – many of which take Kuhn as their lodestone – few of _Structure_
 's innumerable exegetes have noted how philosophically undermotivated and 
 historiographically unsubstantiated the treatment of this topic is in Kuhn
 's book. We see this most clearly in the chapter that presents the nerve o
 f Kuhn's argument about how normal science can function without collective
  agreement on rules: Chapter V – The Priority of Paradigms.\n\nDrawing o
 n Kuhn's unpublished papers\, I show that the all-important Chapter V – 
 and Kuhn's repudiation of rules in favour of paradigms – were very late 
 additions to _Structure_. This apparently minor revision in the drafting p
 rocess is illuminating in several respects. Kuhn's enthusiastic endorsemen
 t of Wittgenstein's discussion of an agent's learning of words through exp
 osure to finite sets of applications (with the implication that a family r
 esemblance or overlap between speakers' model examples of the application 
 of a term would be enough to secure common meaning in the absence of rules
 ) reflected the growing influence of the _Philosophical Investigations_ on
  American philosophy and the human sciences in the 1960s. Importantly\, ho
 wever\, Kuhn's appeal to Wittgenstein was at variance with the sceptical s
 urmises that colleagues such as Stanley Cavell took from the _Investigatio
 ns_. Even more significant was Kuhn's near total neglect of the historical
  study of the textbooks and pedagogical regimes that underpinned both norm
 al and revolutionary science. Here I argue that Kuhn's elaborate appeal to
  the idea of learning by example – in the absence of any systematic hist
 orical study of science pedagogy – can be explained by his acculturation
  in case-based pedagogy and the theory of general education at Harvard Uni
 versity during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Thus the hastily patched to
 gether remarks on Wittgenstein and training regimes in _Structure_'s Chapt
 er V are\, so I will claim\, the shadow cast by Kuhn's formative engagemen
 t with the case method at Harvard University.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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