Kuhn 2

[koganbot]

As promised, here's some guidance for your reading of "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" a Thomas Kuhn essay that Google Books is giving you in its entirety here, running uninterrupted from p. 13 to p. 32, at least for the time being (though my experience with Google Books is that what pages it gives you can change without warning). First, a brief

Comments

[skyecaptain]

Technical question -- is this a post as you go deal, or is there a rough due date for reading?

[skyecaptain]

^In response to your pre-footnote paragraph -- if everyone has a time to have read the thing and look for responses, might help keep things going. Otherwise, as you said, LJ will be pretty frustrating.

[koganbot]

Good question? What do people think would work best? My post above isn't all that clear in comparison to the way I wrote on the ilX thread, the relative lack of clarity being deliberate, in that, while I want to give you guys some guidance, I also want to give you the opportunity to play with ideas before you've heard all of mine. But at some point I'll want to speak unfettered about the article; and some of you might have the same concerns I have (like, Oh, I get this aspect, but do I want to ruin it for the person who's still working it out?).

[koganbot]

So one possibility - this is just an example, not necessarily what we'll do - would be:

You all can start posting at any time on the essay "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" but at the start you should post questions, like "Here's something I don't understand" or, "If he says this, shouldn't he also say that?" or "What the fuck is going on with that battery example?" Or you can post lines you think are significant, or something. And we can use our judgment which to answer and how much.

Then, say, we'll have a deadline so that starting next Tuesday anyone can post what he or she wants on the subject "OK, this is what I think the guy means by 'paradigm' and 'incommensurable' and this is what I think the issues are etc." except that I still might hold myself in reserve a little bit, answering but maybe not in full if I can hold myself back, and then maybe Wednesday I let myself loose.

But of course anyone who feels at sea can always go to that ilX thread for what I said there, or can email me edcasual at earthlink dot net.

[mcatzilut]

Frank, it's so odd that you're writing/reading about this right now, since I have to start reading it in a week or two from now. So expect me to chime in - tho perhaps a bit belatedly.