Discussion Questions - Kuhn, chapters 1-2:

1. According to Kuhn, what is the major shortcoming of the “usual image of science” 
    that emphasizes procedures of confirmation and falsification?
2. What is the view of scientific development Kuhn refers to as “development-by-
    accumulation” and “process of accretion”? What reasons does he give for doubting 
    this view?
3. Why does Kuhn believe that rigorous application scientific methods is not sufficient to 
    provide definite answers to scientific questions? What sorts of additional factors 
    influence how scientists answer those questions, according to Kuhn?
4. According to Kuhn, what sorts of changes accompany scientific revolutions such as 
    those associated with Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier, and Einstein?
5. What is the distinction, to which Kuhn refers, between “the context of discovery” and 
    “the context of justification”? Why does Kuhn believe that the distinction does not 
    discredit his historical approach to issues in the philosophy of science?
6. What does Kuhn mean by the term “normal science”? What does he mean by 
   “paradigm”? How are the two concepts related to each other?
7. According to Kuhn, what are the main characteristics of work in an area of science 
   (e.g., optics, electricity) during the period before a paradigm takes hold and normal 
   science emerges? What are the main differences between the activities of scientists 
   during the pre-normal-science phase and their activities during the normal-science 
   phase?
8. According to Kuhn, what role do paradigms play in fact-gathering activities by 
    scientists? What are the advantages of having a paradigm in deciding which facts to 
    look for? What are the disadvantages of not having a paradigm?
9. According to Kuhn, does a paradigm have to explain all the facts that it confronts? 
    Why or why not?
10. According to Kuhn, what happens to the losing sides (i.e., competing paradigms and 
      the scientists who support them) when one paradigm emerges as dominant in an area 
      of scientific inquiry?
11. According to Kuhn, what are the typical effects of the emergence of a dominant 
      scientific paradigm on (a) the kinds of research problems addressed by scientists in the 
      field and (b) the kinds of communications (e.g., writings) produced by those scientists 
      and the audiences for which they are intended?

Discussion Questions - Kuhn, chapters 3-4:

1. What does Kuhn mean by the sentence, "Mopping-up operations are what engage most scientists throughout their careers"? What sorts of "mopping-up operations" is he referring to?
2. Kuhn says that normal science "seems an attempt to force nature into the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies." What does he mean by this?
3. Kuhn says that a paradigm in science serves as a "model" or "pattern" in one sense of the terms but not in another sense. What are the two senses that he has in mind, and which of them does he associate with scientific paradigms?
4. According to Kuhn, what are the "three normal foci for factual scientific investigation" for normal science?
5. What does Kuhn mean by the phrase "articulate a paradigm"? What are the three kinds of experiments that scientists conduct in order to articulate a paradigm? What kinds of information do those experiments provide?
6. According to Kuhn, what are the three types of theoretical problems of normal science?
7. According to Kuhn, in what ways are the research problems of normal science similar to puzzle-solving? How are those problems different from other sorts of problems that scientists could address? What role do the paradigms associated with normal science play in the selection of research problems? What explains the "enthusiasm and devotion" of scientists in pursuing the solutions of those problems?
8. How, according to Kuhn, does the paradigm associated with a normal science assure the research scientist that the problem he/she is attempting to solve actually has a solution?
9. According to Kuhn, what sorts of restrictions does normal science place on solutions to research problems?
10. What are the main categories of rules that restrict solutions to research problems of a normal science, according to Kuhn? What is the relationship between those rules and the governing paradigms?

Discussion Questions - Kuhn, chapters 5-6

1. Why, according to Kuhn, can scientific paradigms not be understood entirely in terms of shared rules, such as those he discusses in chapter 4?
2. What reasons does Kuhn provide for believing that a paradigm "could determine normal science without the intervention of discoverable rules"?
3. Why does Kuhn believe that "research under a paradigm must be a particularly effective way of inducing paradigm change"?
4. What does Kuhn mean by "anomaly"? Why does he say that, until something anomalous has been assimilated by an adjustment of a theory, it "is not quite a scientific fact at all"?
5. Why, according to Kuhn, is it often difficult to find a precise date for scientific discoveries? What does this imply about the nature of discovery in science?
6. What, according to Kuhn, are the characteristics of scientific discoveries that involve paradigm changes? What are the three examples of scientific discoveries that Kuhn uses to illustrate these characteristics? What contrast does Kuhn draw between the paradigm change that occurred with the discovery of oxygen and the paradigm change that occurred with the discovery of X-rays?
7. Kuhn says that there is evidence that the characteristics of scientific discoveries that involve paradigm changes "are built into the nature of the perceptual process itself." What does he mean by this, and what evidence does he refer to? Do you find his argument plausible? Why or why not?
8. How, according to Kuhn, does normal science, which tends to suppress novelty, lead to the emergence of anomalies and eventually to changes of paradigm?

1. What does Kuhn mean by "crisis" in relation to scientific paradigms? Are all paradigm changes a result of crises, according to Kuhn? Explain.
2. What are the three examples that Kuhn uses to illustrate crises in scientific paradigms? For each case, explain the nature of the crisis that occurred. What sorts of anomalies were involved in each? What theories were replaced as a result of those crises? What theories replaced them?
3. According to Kuhn, precursors of important scientific theories are sometimes proposed long before those theories are accepted by scientific communities. How does Kuhn explain why those precursor theories are ignored at the time that they are proposed even though they are later accepted as correct?
4. What reasons does Kuhn give for doubting that scientists reject paradigms because they are confronted with anomalies or counterinstances? (By the way, what, according to Kuhn, is the main difference between an anomaly and a counterinstance?)
5. What does Kuhn mean by the following statements? "Once a first paradigm through which to view nature has been found, there is no such thing as research in the absence of any paradigm. To reject one paradigm without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself." Do you agree? Why or why not?
6. According to Kuhn, how do crises in science permit new paradigms to emerge? Why do those new paradigms emerge gradually and not instantaneously? (p. 80)
7. What, according to Kuhn, accounts for the popularity of the (mistaken) view that truth and falsity in science are determined by confronting scientific statements with facts through the processes of confirmation and falsification? Do you agree with Kuhn? Why or why not? (p. 80)
8. According to Kuhn, what are some of the reasons why some anomalies lead to scientific crises (and others do not)? (p. 82)
9. Why, according to Kuhn, do scientific crises involve the loosening or blurring of the rules of normal science? How does this make it easier for rival paradigms to emerge? (pp. 82-83)
10. According to Kuhn, what are the three ways in which a scientific crisis can "close"? How many of them involve a change of paradigm? (p. 84)
11. Why are "thought experiments" likely to occur during scientific crises? What function do they perform in testing existing paradigms? (p. 88)
12. Why, according to Kuhn, are individuals who invent new scientific paradigms often very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change? Does Kuhn's view seem plausble? Why or why not? (p. 90)
13. What are the "symptoms" of a transition from normal to extraordinary research in science, according to Kuhn? (p. 91)