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Metaphorical Models of Mastery: or, How to Learn to do the Problems at the End of the Chapter of the Physics Textbook

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Hugh G. Petrie
Hugh G. Petrie*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

Without question, one of the most important cluster of issues in recent philosophy of science has centered around the attack on the rigid positivist distinction between theory and observation or between a theoretical language and an observational language. Kuhn, Feyerabend, Hanson, Toulmin, and Polanyi are all names closely associated with one version or another of this attack. All have argued that observational categories are essentially theory-determined and there is no determinate observational base, or neutral observational language. Thus at least the positivist account of the objectivity of scientific knowledge would seem to be seriously threatened by the thesis of the theory-ladenness of observation. For without an independently accessible observational base against which to test scientific theories, wherein would objectivity consist ?

A number of philosophers of science have rallied to the defense of objectivity against the threat posed by the thesis of the theory-ladenness of observation. One of the earliest defenses and still one of the most reasonable and persuasive was offered by Israel Schemer in his book, Science and Subjectivity.

Type
Symposium: Science Education and the Philosophy of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1974 , 1974 , pp. 301 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

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References

Notes

1 See for example, Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago University, Chicago, 1970)Google Scholar; Feyerabend, Paul, ‘Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge’, in M. Radner and S. Winokur (eds.), Analyses of Theories and Methods of Physics and Psychology, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. IV (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1970);Google Scholar Hanson, N. R., Patterns of Discovery (Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1958)Google Scholar; Toulmin, Stephen, Human Understanding (Princeton University, Princeton, 1972)Google Scholar; and Polanyi, Michael, Personal Knowledge, revised edition (University of Chicago, Chicago, 1962).Google Scholar

2 Scheffler, Israel, Science and Subjectivity (Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1967).Google Scholar

3 Both Scheffler and one of my co-symposiasts do seem to grant this very assumption. See Scheffler, Ibid., e.g., pp. 40-Ul and 64-65. See also Michael Martin, Concepts of Science Education (Scott-Foresman, Glenview, 111., 1972), p. 127.

4 Scheffler, op. cit., p. 43.

5 Scheffler, op. cit., p. 43.

6 Ibid., pp. 65-66.

7 Charles M. Weller, ‘A Psycho-Epistemological Model for Teaching Science and Its Articulation with Classroom Activities’. A position paper delivered at the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science Meeting, Chicago, March, 1974.

8 Ibid., pp. 26-27.

9 In the following, I am extremely indebted to my student, Felicity Haynes, and my colleague, Andrew Ortony, for having opened my eyes to the crucial importance of metaphor in learning situations where a new scheme of reference is being learned. See Andrew Ortony, ‘Why Metaphors are Necessary and Not Just Nice’, Educational Theory 25, Winter 1975, pp. 45-53.

10 See Richards, I. A., The Philosophy of Rhetoric (Oxford University, London, 1936)Google Scholar and Black, Max, Models and Metaphors (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1962).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Ibid., pp. 25-47.

12 Ibid., p. 37.

13 I am indebted for this point to Felicity Haynes. Ortony, op. cit. makes a similar point in speaking of the inexpressibility thesis of metaphors. Ortony urges that there literally are things which cannot in fact be expressed in a given language. For my purposes, I only need admit that some things are not now expressible literally in the language presently at the command of one speaker, namely, the student.

14 Black, op. cit., p. 36, 46.

15 This is, in roughest outline, my own version of Popper's method of conjectures and refutations. See Popper, Karl, Conjectures and Refutations, 2nd ed. (Basic Books, New York, 1965).Google Scholar

16 I am indebted for this point to my colleague, F. L. Will.

17 Kuhn, Thomas, ‘Second Thoughts on Paradigms’, in F. Suppe (ed.), The Structure of Scientific Theories, (University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 1974), p. 471.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 477.

19 Feyerabend, Paul K., ‘Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge’, in Michael Radner and Stephen Winokur (eds.), Analyses of Theories and Methods of Physics and Psychology, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. IV (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1970).Google Scholar