We’ve now finished reading two books in the course. Overall, the students have all done fairly well: basically everyone was able to complete the reading and actively participate in discussion. Of course, compared with the format of Mr. Wu’s class, my course still has far too little of a sense of pressure overall.
Mr. Wu’s reading class is entirely led by him: he sprays questions at random, asking all kinds of incisive questions. His questions are all tightly keyed to the text, yet none of them can be answered by just skimming it casually. Every class has to be approached with trepidation; after class, you dare not fail to read seriously; and during class, you dare not let your mind wander.
By comparison, my course is closer to the kind of graduate-school blow-off course in which one assigns tasks to students and then more or less leaves them alone. But of course I have no intention of making it into a blow-off course; the point of having students take turns giving the main presentation is still primarily to cultivate their abilities, not that I am simply letting things slide. In fact, my level of participation during class is still quite high. At the same time, I also emphasize that the students’ task is not merely to take turns presenting one book over the course of a semester; rather, each book is to be read closely together, and everyone is expected to participate actively in discussion in every class.
But this kind of emphasis on requirements still needs to be ensured in a institutional way; otherwise, conscientious students of course have nothing to say, but the less conscientious ones can always muddle through. So I hope to intersperse random questioning at any time during class, in order to check on students’ reading.
However, in the previous few sessions I mainly let the student who was presenting speak more freely, and did not especially emphasize the questioning segment. From now on I hope to improve this and more proactively add questioning segments. On the one hand, I myself will prepare some small questions in the future; on the other hand, I also hope that future student presenters will be mindful of leaving room for questions that test comprehension. They need not all simply present the material themselves; they can also use questions to lead into certain topics.
In the course plan I mentioned a four-part summary method of “key points, difficult points, highlights, and doubtful points,” but I did not require students to apply it, because it is not some universal method. Each book has its own characteristics, and there is simply no need to summarize it by forcing it into “points.” Still, when designing questions, one can refer to these points for classification:
Highlights: the presenter summarizes and points them out oneself; not used as questions
Key points: can be found directly in the original book
Difficult points: require additional verification and thought to understand
Doubtful points: discussion questions with no definite answer
Although close reading is required, it is not as if one must know every tiny detail in the book like the back of one’s hand. But at least the crucial key points—such as explicitly stated views, topics, or important cases and conclusions—should be familiar to every student, and at minimum one should be able to locate them immediately. If one has not read the book, or has read it too roughly, then when suddenly questioned one may well become flustered and be unable to find anything. So appropriately designing some “key point” questions is a direct check on the state of reading, and at the same time it also helps emphasize the corresponding key points.
Other questions are of a sort where, even if the specific location in the book is indicated, the author has proposed some concept or offered some argument, yet it is not something that can be easily understood; it requires some thought, and perhaps even some additional verification, in order to read it through. Questions of this “difficult point” type can test a more advanced level of reading: not only must one have read it, one must have read it thoroughly.
Finally, there are questions that may not have a definite answer: perhaps the author is ambiguous, or vague and unclear, or there are loopholes or places worth further extension. Such questions are also posed for classroom discussion. This tests the students’ initiative in thinking independently and participating in discussion. Those who are more active in discussion in class will of course receive extra points. Of course, this kind of extended elaboration is built on the premise of careful reading.
This time, when we got to the second half of Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I prepared several questions to ask in class (listed below). Many of the questions were not actually asked; some key-point questions were answered very well by the students (perhaps because the questions were too simple), but some difficult-point questions were not answered very well (for example, understanding Wittgenstein’s theory of language games, or understanding what it means for anomalies to become “tautologies,” and so on).
Below I am posting the questions I prepared, for reference.
Question: Relative to what is the priority of paradigms?
Answer: P36[43] Paradigms take precedence over rules.
Question: Which philosopher’s theory does Kuhn invoke to explain the “pre-rule” normativity of paradigms?
Answer: 37[45] Wittgenstein’s “language games.”
Question: How should we understand the meaning of “language games”; why are they called “games”?
Answer: The relation between games and rules……
Question: Which scientists are qualified to be regarded as having discovered oxygen?
Answer: 45[53] Scheele, Priestley, Lavoisier.
Question: What statement is Kuhn illustrating with the example of the discovery of oxygen?
Answer: 45[53] Unless…… scientists learn to see nature in a different way, new facts will not become scientific facts at all.
Question: Why is it said that the discovery of X-rays also changed the paradigm?
Answer: 50[59] It did not change theory, but it changed experimental expectations and procedures.
Question: What is the relation between paradigms and anomalies, and why is the paradigm said to be a “pointer” to anomalies?
Answer: 55[65] Anomalies only appear against the background provided by a paradigm. The more precise and the broader in scope a paradigm is, the more easily it points out anomalies.
Question: Taking the Copernican Revolution as an example, what is the core factor in the “crisis” of astronomy?
Answer: 58[69] The collapse of normal technical problem-solving activity (the prediction of planetary positions and precession).
Question: What was the crisis of Lavoisier’s chemical revolution?
Answer: 60[71] Two aspects: the phlogiston theory in gas chemistry was vague and confused; and there was the problem of the gain in weight during the calcination of metals.
Question: When is it possible to declare a paradigm invalid?
Answer: 66[77] Only when another suitable candidate is available to replace it.
Question: In 67[78], Kuhn says, “From the standpoint of a new theory of scientific knowledge, these anomalies look very much like tautologies……” What was Kuhn discussing above this point?
Answer: In Kuhn’s theory, the anomalies of traditional philosophy of science become necessary.
Question: How should we understand Newton’s second law as a tautology? (67[78])
Answer: F=ma is a definition of F and cannot be refuted by experiment.
Question: Does there exist scientific research without counterexamples, and why?
Answer: 68[80] There is no strict boundary between “puzzles” and “counterexamples”; the aim of normal science is precisely to solve puzzles.
Question: When is a political solution to a crisis bound to fail, and why? What feature of this political revolution is analogous to what feature of scientific revolutions?
Answer: 80[94] Social differentiation: many people seek to establish a new system in ways not permitted by the existing political system. 81[94] “There exists no standard that transcends the consensus among the relevant members of the community…… one must not only examine the push and pull of natural phenomena and logic, but also study those…… rhetorical techniques of persuasion.”
Question: What is “Gestalt,” and what does Kuhn use it to illustrate?
Answer: 94[112] A holistic perceptual switch. (The example from astronomy: why the Greeks could not see sunspots.)
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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