Write on one of the following topics (for roughly 4-5 pp. or 1200-1500 words):
• Discuss an issue that appears in the reading assignments appropriate for this paper (see below), outlining both sides of the issue and considering the ways people holding these views might respond to one another.
• Discuss a question about science to which Kuhn directs our attention, comparing it to an alternative question raised from a different perspective, noting what is to be gained or lost by pursuing one question rather than the other.
This assignment is intended to cover material since the first paper was assigned, so you should not focus on chs. 1 or 2 of Okasha or the corresponding JSTOR material. Any material assigned for classes from Sept. 15 on is fine. (Although material assigned for earlier classes should not be the focus of your paper, there is nothing wrong with referring to it in the course of your discussion.)
The first topic is intended to be close to the sort of paper that was your first assignment. This paper is a bit longer, and asking you to consider the way each side might respond to the other is intended to suggest one natural way of developing your topic further. (If another way of developing seems more natural for your topic, speak to me about the way of approaching the paper you have in mind.) This topic is the most natural one for material in Okasha, but it will work also for some of the material in Kuhn.
Second topic is intended to provide an alternative approach that may work better for some areas on Kuhn. It is suggested by Kuhn’s comment that the traditional view of science led historians to ask the wrong questions and that a different view of science might lead them to ask different questions (pp. 2-3). You can see another example in Kuhn’s §V, where he suggests asking what examples scientists follow rather than asking what rules constrain their activity. The significance of a change in questions can be twofold. First, the wrong questions can be difficult or even impossible to answer. And, second, asking different questions can lead people to notice different aspects of science.
One natural way to organize a discussion of the first topic would be to follow the model of a disputation. (i) Present a position on the issue. In most cases, this will involve an exposition of some part of what you have read for the course. Next, (ii) consider an objection. This might also come from things you’ve read but it might be something you have devised; in some cases, it might be easier to develop the statement of the initial position on your own even though the objection is found in your reading for the course. Then (iii) look at how someone holding the original position might reply to the objection. And finally, (iv) consider the sort of response someone sympathetic to the objection might make to this reply.
In the case of the second topic, you will, of course, need to describe each of the two questions, and one of these descriptions should involve an exposition of material in Kuhn’s book. Your discussion of these questions will naturally come by considering what each would lead someone to notice about science and what difficulties people might face in answering each of them. These considerations amount to arguments for and against asking each of the questions, and you should be sure to devote a significant part of your paper to evaluating the relative strength of these arguments.
I prefer to have assignments submitted as e-mail attachments (my address is helmang@wabash.edu), but I will be happy to accept them on paper if that is more convenient for you.