Excellent, and well stated! People in the "first Paradigm", absolutely can not understand, or even tollerate even a discussion of the, "second Paradigm". I learned that the hard way, when writing a book about the Dynamic Behavior of all fundamental eyes, from birth.
it has a yuge impact 0:44 great videos, best series on Kuhn and paradigm shifts that I have found so far. Much easier to get people to watch RU-vid videos than read books!
@@VictorGijsbers All other Universities SUCK. Leiden is the Best and Most Powerful University. Students from other Universities want to come here and take out Knowledge. SAD. #RebuildTheLeidenWall
Great video series, but my reading of Kuhn here is a little different. The progress that happens during the normal science phase isn't lost during during a scientific revolution. The paradigm shifts and there is a new normal science, but the puzzle solving during the previous paradigm produced facts that aren't lost. Progress that was made in that previous paradigm remains. Some facts may be proven to have a different explanation in the new paradigm, but not necessarily.
A misunderstanding of 'incommensurability.' It's easy to see where you go wrong if you look at the two paradigms in terms of concepts and not mathematics. Incommensurability doesn't mean that the previous paradigm becomes useless, it means that research as such is based on different concepts than was the previous paradigm (hence Kuhn's saying that scientists from a newer paradigm live in a different world and speak a different language than do scientists who came up within the preceding paradigm; the heart of incommensurability). If a physicist went back to the 17th-19th century and began speaking about the curvature of spacetime, 'natural philosophers' would have no reference point within their conceptual framework. Also, note how controversial STR and GTR were when they were first put forward (Einstein won his Nobel for his work on the photoelectric effect); for STR/GTR to come to full prominence, the old guard had to fade away into the background. Aside, there's also the little-studied concept of 'Kuhn Loss'--wherein a previous paradigm is better suited to describe/predict given phenomena (Kuhn uses the phlogiston theory as an example). Kuhn Loss underscores that incommensurability isn't about the invalidation of previous work (which, when you think about it, is much more controversial than the inverse of this point as laid out by you above). Yes, engineers use Newtonian equations to build bridges and don't bother with the ins and outs of the GTR; this doesn't mean we haven't moved beyond 'Hypotheses non fingo.'
@@slybuster So I am kind of confused, so Einstein's theories are based upon Newton's ideas which don't make his ideas necessarily obsolete right? But then you say that " for STR/GTR to come to full prominence, the old guard had to fade away into the background." So does it mean that Newton's laws should be dismissed? Sorry if that doesn't make sense! I am currently trying to understand this concept of incommensurability for an assignment for class and I just need some clarification :) Any help would be appreciated!
This is not the reality - even in the literature things are lost and forgotten as newer ideas are embraced and the body of work grows. Take the role of a simple substance like magnesium - completely overlooked and full of assumptions yet could have cut the pandemic length considerably had it been studied but it wasn't due to blood test culture dependency.
How many languages do you speak? - I am guessing that Victor speaks at least three. His English is very good in fact and he delivers the points very clearly. Not sure what your comment was trying to say
About the only thing I think can be said while we're in-between Paradigms is that there are more than one Paradigms active right now. But that's not an unimportant thing to say! I actually think it's one of the most important things that can be said about it! Without judging any of them, we can count them and compare them. Sure, we can list pros and cons, but that's not even as useful as just listing their qualities. I've found that "Explanatory Power" is a thing. When a new idea has more EP than what the current Paradigm can offer, an opinion gap forms in the general population and fills with tension. Such tension can only build so far before it becomes destructive. Then something's got to give.
You can't compare paradigms? But, crisis stage develops when paradigms cannot find a solution? And the new paradigm, after the scientific revolution can find that solution? How does incommensurability fit with crisis and revolution? If you can't compare paradigms by any objective metric, why aren't there still scientists working in the Aristotelian paradigm? Why do crises occur? Why do revolutions occur? Why do we generally adopt the new paradigm? For fun? For subjective reasons?
But there is a fairly neutral standard, which is the practical effects in the real world of using said paradigm. Say in medicine, one paradigm is better at improving human health than the other. Plus the paradigm shift takes place when a new idea appears and it is compared with the old ones. Therefore we could tell that it is still progress as the paradigm changes taking into account the existence of previous ones
Kuhn isn’t really arguing that science doesn’t progress per say, but that it doesn’t progress toward truth. The evolution of life is a good example. Organisms don’t evolve to become objectively better, but to adapt to the environment they inhabit. Evolution is directionless. Kuhn thinks that science is pretty much the same in that respect.
Great job man, these videos on Kuhn are excellent, they really helped. One thing I would like to put in here though, is when talking about progress, Kuhn of course wasn't referring to our standard concept of progress as we know it (i.e. Popper's accumulative view), but when talking about "progress" we should rather think simply: "change". This agrees with the incommensurability of paradigms, as they can not be objectively compared - by the same standards - because they abide by different rules. However, this *would* mean that change, aka *progress* , does in fact happen even during scientific revolutions, because there is a _change_ of paradigm (the shift). Demonstrations of these changes can be seen in discarding old textbooks, articles, claims etc. that support and propagate the old paradigm. Am I wrong on this? I would really like critique on my understanding here.
Although it would certainly solve a problem for Kuhn if "progress" just meant "change", it would also be seriously misleading to use the word that way. Progress is not just change; it is positive change; and there is no doubt in my mind that Kuhn wants to use the term that way. Otherwise, why not just talk about change? And why think there's a puzzle at all, if you're just talking about change? In fact, it turns out that the later Kuhn does want to safeguard some kind of progress even between paradigms. In a well-known article, "Objectivity, Value Judgment and Theory Choice", he explicitly tries to give criteria for goodness of scientific theories that apply across paradigms. So in his later work, Kuhn softens his stance and does allow some kind of objective comparison of paradigms.
I didn't know about that article and his softening criteria there, thanks :D As for the "positive change" aspect of "progress", yeah, I agree, changes must be positive -- forgot to put that in there
Awesome, I don't agree with Kuhn, however. I do believe that there can be commensurability between different paradigms of science when measuring the scientific progress within a particular field such as medicine or physics
hahaha ... engaging soliloquy ... reminds me of another magnetic genius who goes by the moniker 'theories apollonius' ... incommensurability ... that is what i feel connects in a certain way ... and keep up the great work ... hahaha
Early 20th century the paradigm on Newton was replaced by the paradigm of Einstein. But Einstein's relativity theory didn't make Newton's laws obsolete. At lower speeds, Newton still rules. But at speeds approaching light speed, Einstein rules. Einstein's theory includes Newton's theory. So because Einstein explains the world better than Newton, Einstein's theory seems to be objectively better than Newton's. Doesn't this mean you can have a revolution (Newton replaced by Einstein), while still the new paradigm is objectively better than the old one?
@julio1c1saga Incorrect and a misunderstanding of 'incommensurability.' It's easy to see where you go wrong if you look at the two paradigms in terms of concepts and not mathematics. Incommensurability doesn't mean that the previous paradigm becomes useless, it means that research as such is based on different concepts than was the previous paradigm (hence Kuhn's saying that scientists from a newer paradigm live in a different world and speak a different language than do scientists who came up within the preceding paradigm; the heart of incommensurability). If a physicist went back to the 17th-19th century and began speaking about the curvature of spacetime, 'natural philosophers' would have no reference point within their conceptual framework. Also, note how controversial STR and GTR were when they were first put forward (Einstein won his Nobel for his work on the photoelectric effect); for STR/GTR to come to full prominence, the old guard had to fade away into the background. Aside, there's also the little-studied concept of 'Kuhn Loss'--wherein a previous paradigm is better suited to describe/predict given phenomena (Kuhn uses the phlogiston theory as an example). Kuhn Loss underscores that incommensurability isn't about the invalidation of previous work (which, when you think about it, is much more controversial than the inverse of this point as laid out by you above). Yes, engineers use Newtonian equations to build bridges and don't bother with the ins and outs of the GTR; this doesn't mean we haven't moved beyond 'Hypotheses non fingo.'
@@slybuster So I am kind of confused, so Einstein's theories are based upon Newton's ideas which don't make his ideas necessarily obsolete right? But then you say that " for STR/GTR to come to full prominence, the old guard had to fade away into the background." So does it mean that Newton's laws should be dismissed? Sorry if that doesn't make sense! I am currently trying to understand this concept of incommensurability for an assignment for class and I just need some clarification :) Any help would be appreciated!
@@hnhcho I think I see a point of confusion by your saying "Einstein's theories are based upon Newton's ideas." The point with incommensurability is that STR/GTR was a completely new framework with a different set of novel concepts. Conceptual frameworks/schemata are what is central to the idea of incommensurability. Einstein's theories have core elements that didn't exist within Newtonian Mechanics (NM) rendering STR/GTR incommensurable with NM; if a modern physicist approached Newton and started rambling on about spacetime/time dilation, Newton would have no idea what he was talking about. Incommensurability has to do with the ability to move between conceptual frameworks--it doesn't necessarily mean one framework is less valid or less scientific. Here's an example I thought of that might be helpful. Imagine getting into a time machine and travelling back to an ancient market. If you were to approach a shopkeeper and try to initiate a transaction with paper currency he'd be extremely confused. He'd have no concept of paper money and all of the phenomenological elements entailed by it. Your idea of 'money' would be totally alien and you wouldn't be able to participate in the market. So, does that mean that the market was less valid than a modern market or just different? I hope that helped. If not, feel free to respond back and let me know where you need clarification.
@@hnhcho No prob. For a quick review, you can read Chapter IX of Kuhn's *Structure* as a standalone summary of the entire work. I think Chapter X is where he gets into the consequences of incommensurability. If you're doing a degree in philosophy...The Library of Living Philosophers is an amazing resource for future reference. It's an amazing series and you'll be able to impress your profs with the info you get from it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Living_Philosophers
It seems something wrong is here. There is a way to say something is better. That is the answer to notices anomalies. The reason why the old paradigm actually was changed with new paradigm
Kuhn ignores the scope of the revolution and the depth of the paradigm shift. He implies it’s complete, whereas this has only ever been observed in the early stages of development of a discipline.
Is Kuhn say that Newton can claim his views regarding the universe are better than Einstein's, and we can't compare two of these people? No sane person claims that his way of thinking is absolute, and of course, if there is enough evidence, we can falsify the claim; however, saying that we can't compare two other findings because these are perceptual, then fundamentally, we can't go further. I agree with the normal science definition but do not agree with the idea of incommensurability
I think, all scientists would agree, that their goal is to explain the world, then predict it through a theory and thereby transform it. There are the branches in which Kuhn's incommensurability simply doesn't work.
this is really helpful... can this only be applied to the context of science or is it a general concept that can also be related to other disciplines like philosophy or literature for example?
i think it can be applied for other disciplines as well, as they would also most likely go to through the processes of gathering information about concepts and creating a paradigm
The speaker is misrepresenting Kuhn, perhaps to promote a radical relativist attitude. Kuhn though scientific paradigms were incommensurable but still comparable, and this does not make science subjective or irrational. Incommensurability just means the concepts in different theories are cross-cutting and cannot be evaluated directly in each other's terms. The theories can still be compared and evaluated rationally using scientific metrics such as predictive power and simplicity. I notice this lecture series later goes full pseudo-science woo-woo with Foucault and Structuralism, so any rational viewers should bail out at this point.
Kuhnites exaggerate the occurrence of paradigm shifts. Only rarely is there a total Einsteinian revolution. And afterwards, Newton is still right for most events. Crises in modern science do not threaten the entire structure. We know too much to be completely wrong. You can add to the model. You can reshape it here and there. But you won't wipe it off the desk and introduce a completely new system. The stuff we know has been thoroughly tested and consistently shows the same results. This shit works, as I will now prove by uploading this rather uninspiring comment to the cloud so that you can read it on the other side of the world... Neil. (Unless you can prove we're living in The Matrix :-)
This presentation is utterly uncritical of Kuhn. Please revise with the very many solid critiques of Kuhn that have been published. You say it’s up for debate, and don’t present the debate except for a simplistic strawman.
Well, the method of 'Science' includes 'Predictability' as a verification of their 'Model/Paradigm'. In the example of modern Cosmology, we find that their model did not predict the observations made in the last and into this century. That old Paradigm shares the new Paradigm of Physics which attempts to explain the observations, *And* the undefined theories which formed the old Paradigm of Cosmology; e.g., gravity, mass and energy which are not adequately identified, but assumed by the previous efforts of Cosmology. When 'Science' acknowledged the 'Fourth State of Matter' they ignored it and failed to put its reality into their Model, but instead claimed that that 'Plasma' was specious, 'incommensurable' with their facts. Now, the IEEE (the hotbed of dielectric technology) is incommensurable with Cosmology. :) Lot's of embarrassment for last century's Scientists and this New Age continuance of that good-old-boy network labeling themselves as 'Scientists' ...:)
