SS Final Study Guide SOC SCI H1F|100% correct answers

(1) What is Kuhn's central thesis in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions? Why does this thesis require him to argue for a strong sort of incommensurability between competing paradigms? Why, according to the strong Kuhn, can one never have a rational justification for moving from one paradigm to another? Kuhn’s central thesis is that science progresses towards an inaccurate truth dictated by paradigms rather than towards the truth behind the universe. This relies on strong incommensurability because if paradigms could co-exist, his thesis on progress being shifts from paradigm to paradigm would not make sense because if they were commensurable, such radical shifts would not need to occur. You can never have rational justification for moving from one paradigm to another because you do not know that the second one is any better than the first and that you know even if you swap now, you will swap again in the future, meaning the next one is still wrong. (2) Explain each of the following Kuhnian concepts and how they fit with each other to form his theory of scientific revolution: normal science, puzzle-solving, anomaly, crisis, paradigm, revolution, and incommensurability. According to Kuhn, what is the structure of a scientific revolution? Explain how a revolution starts, the process by which the transition occurs, and how the revolution is completed. Normal Science is period where puzzles are solved with paradigm, puzzle-solving is done during normal science, anomaly is question that cannot be answered with paradigm, paradigm is set of theory and belief, revolution is paradigm shift, incommensurability is non-comparability of paradigm. SR is Normal Science -> Anomaly -> Crisis -> Revolution -> Paradigm Shift (3) What does Kuhn mean by "progress through revolutions"? Does he take this to be progress toward the truth? Explain. Progress through revolution is the idea that a paradigm that better fit our observation replaces the old one, but is not progress towards the truth because we don’t know if it’s actually any closer to the truth. (4) What is the distinction between seeing and seeing as supposed to be? What does it mean to claim that observation is theory-laden? It is sometimes said that if observation is theory-laden, then there is no distinction to be made between seeing and seeing as. What does it mean to say that there is no paradigm-neutral observation language? Why does Kuhn believe this? If this is right, what are the implications? Explain. Seeing as supposed to be is viewing through a paradigm, seeing is just observing the world neutrally. Observation is theory laden means that you cannot view the world without any influence on paradigm. No paradigm-neutral observation language means that our language has been used to describe paradigm biased observations. Kuhn believes this because we use words to describe what we see, but what we see is not neutral. This would mean that the entire world is viewed through and learned through a paradigm bias. (5) Why, according to Kuhn, are scientific revolutions largely invisible? Scientific revolutions are invisible because when new generations are indoctrinated it is portrayed as additive to old