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From: greg@mind.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: On Kuhn's fashionability
Message-ID: <767@mind.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-May-87 17:27:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: mind.767
Posted: Thu May 21 17:27:15 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 01:37:36 EDT
References: <3978@ihlpa.ATT.COM> <8705200312.AA02647@brahms.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: greg@mind.UUCP (Greg Nowak)
Organization: Cognitive Science, Princeton University
Lines: 36

In article <8705200312.AA02647@brahms.Berkeley.EDU>  Matthew Wiener  writes:
>I've never been able to figure out why Kuhn is so "fashionable".  Is it
>because his book came out at the beginning of the sixties?  Was it the
>phrase "Gestalt switch"?

I think you mean "paradigm shift." Kuhn did use the phrase "gestalt switch"
as an analogy to help his readers understand what he meant by "paradigm
shift." On the other hand, I may be misreading you, and you may be saying that
this choice of analogy made Kuhn's work particularly palatable in the '60's.
Quite possible.

>
>Now, I can understand why, *during* the sixties, that Kuhn would be so
>popular.  But why today?  It doesn't make sense.  I've gotten the im-
>pression from the net that his book is the only philosophy of science
>book that most literate people ever end up reading.  Why?

Kuhn *is* getting less popular, in the sense that students of the History
of Science (among whom I number myself) are less likely to swallow him whole.
The reason for this loss of uncritical acceptance (although he is still 
considered influential) is his fuzziness on periods of "crisis", and his
neglect of situations in which supporters of different paradigms could
engage in fruitful debate. The initial popularity was due to the scope of
the book, and the fact that it appeared with a ready-made contemporary
example : the "Geological Revolution". The status of Kuhn's work was
enhanced by its seeming applicability to the G.R.; and the reification of
the G.R. was accelerated by the ease with which it was describable in
Kuhn's framework.
	As to why it is the only book on philosophy of Science that most
people end up reading, I blame the Sagan phenomenon : breadth of
scope, and good publicity. Those who are insufficiently aware of the
degree to which differences of opinion exist in the scientific community
think that once they have one expert's opinion, they know all they need to
know. Thus the laurels go to the first on the field.

greg