[lit-ideas] Re: Normal and Revolutionary Learning
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:23:20 -0230
Well done, John. That is truly a very fine account of the distinction. (And not
simply because I completely support its cogency and correctness :-) My
pedagogical point would be perfectly made if, in your penultimate sentence
below, we change "practice" to "mind" (or "dispositions," if you're
anti-Cartesian) and "field" to "student."
Would anybody here be able to recall in one's own biography a case of
revolutionary learning?
Walter O
MUN
Quoting John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>:
> On 8/15/07, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > In so far as this involves an allusion to T.S.Kuhn, particularly his 'The
> > Structure of Scientific Revolutions', could someone venture to elucidate
> > the
> > difference between 'normal' and 'revolutionary' thinking (without using
> > question-begging explanations like 'well, one is paradigmmatic and the
> > other
> > non-paradigmmatic thinking' or "well, one is 'in the box' and the other
> > 'out
> > of the box" thinking).
>
>
>
> The trick here, as Kuhn himself recognized, is not to focus on thinking
> itself but on the sociological context within which thinking occurs.
> Paradigmatic thinking occurs when thoughts are embedded in an
> established/conventional/usual way of doing things. Pre-paradigmatic
> thinking occurs when there is no consensus and numerous opinions contend
> with no established procedures for adjudicating between them. Revolutionary
> thinking occurs when someone challenges an established paradigm and actually
> succeeds in transforming it.
>
> Consider, for example, the case of medicine. Prior to the establishment of
> medical schools and licensing boards, the practice of medicine was
> empirical and informed only by whatever opinions a doctor happened to pick
> up during his apprenticeship or however else he learned his trade. What we
> think of as modern medicine emerged with the establishment of schools with
> the same required prerequisites and curriculum, including internships and
> residencies leading to specialization defined in biomedical, a.k.a.,
> scientific terms. We have seen a lot of grumbling about the deficiencies of
> what has become the conventional biomedical paradigm and the thinking and
> research that go on within it, but have yet to see the kind of breakthrough
> that, for example, the 17th century brought to physics with the introduction
> of analytic geometry, the calculus, and the experimental method.
>
> The critical thing about revolutionary thinking is not that it's merely
> different from what has gone on before. That happens all the time at the
> pre-paradigmatic stage. It is, instead, that the new thinking is so
> compelling that it radically transforms the practice of the field.
> Revolution is a social fact, not a purely intellectual one.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> John McCreery
> The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
> Tel. +81-45-314-9324
> http://www.wordworks.jp/
>
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