DOCSLIB.ORG

Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism a Thesis Presented to The

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism a Thesis Presented to The Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Ryan J. O'Loughlin April 2017 © 2017 Ryan J. O'Loughlin. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism by RYAN J. O'LOUGHLIN has been approved for the Department of Philosophy and the College of Arts and Sciences by Philip Ehrlich Professor of Philosophy Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT O'LOUGHLIN, RYAN J., M.A., April 2017, Philosophy Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism Director of Thesis: Philip Ehrlich In this paper I discuss Giere’s reading of Kuhn as affirming perspectival realism and I present evidence demonstrating that this reading of Kuhn is correct. I consider several scientific realist theses that Kuhn rejects and discuss whether and to what extent perspectival realism may be regarded as a scientific realist position. I suggest adding Kuhn’s account of incommensurability, understood in its later form, to Giere’s account of perspectival realism. I conclude by providing a definition of perspectival realism that incorporates Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis as well as the specific claims of scientific realism that are compatible with perspectival realism. Perspectival realism thus understood is, at most, a weak form of scientific realism. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5 2. Giere’s Scientific Perspectivism ..................................................................................... 8 2.1 Color Science ............................................................................................................ 8 2.2 Observational Perspectives ..................................................................................... 12 2.3 Theoretical Perspectives ......................................................................................... 14 2.4 Some Problems for Perspectival Realism ............................................................... 17 3. Kuhn as a Perspectival Realist ...................................................................................... 22 3.1 Kuhn and Perspectivism ......................................................................................... 22 3.2 Kuhn and Realism ................................................................................................... 23 3.3 Hoyningen-Huene on Perspectival Realism ........................................................... 26 4. Lexicons and Perspectives ............................................................................................ 28 4.1 Lexicons as Theoretical Perspectives ..................................................................... 28 4.2 Incommensurability ................................................................................................ 35 5. Perspectival Realism is Not Scientific Realism ............................................................ 41 5.1 Kuhn is Not a Scientific Realist .............................................................................. 41 5.2 Massimi and Alethic Relativism ............................................................................. 47 5.3 Giere, Perspectival Realism, and Objective Realism ............................................. 49 6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 53 References ......................................................................................................................... 55 5 1. INTRODUCTION It is well known that Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) sparked a considerable degree of controversy and debate in both the scientific and philosophical communities. While Kuhn spent much of his career responding to charges of relativism—such as Imre Lakatos’ critique that Kuhn made theory choice a matter of “mob psychology” (Lakatos, 1970)—and other issues raised by his critics, his later views on the topic of realism have received comparatively little attention. Recently Ronald Giere has argued that Kuhn’s later views on realism, such as those expressed in the essays included in The Road Since Structure (Kuhn 2000; hereafter, RSS), can be regarded as affirming perspectival realism. Giere avoids drawing a comparison between perspectives and the paradigms of Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (henceforth: Structure) and instead focuses on Kuhn’s later development of lexical taxonomies or lexicons within scientific communities. As Giere notes, “By the time most of the essays in RSS were written, Kuhn himself had ceased talking about paradigms, preferring instead the more explicitly linguistic notion of a theoretical lexicon” (2013, 53). While Giere’s retrospective interpretation1 is brief, he makes a case for why Kuhn may be regarded as a perspectivist, why Kuhn is a realist of some sort, and thus why Kuhn may be regarded as a perspectival realist. What perspectival realism entails, and the extent to which it is a realist position, will both be considered in greater detail below, in 1 Giere makes it clear that he doesn’t “mean to imply that Kuhn himself ever held, or even contemplated, such a view” (2013, 53). 6 sections 2 and 5 respectively. However, Giere offers the following summary of perspectival realism in Giere (2013) that will suffice as a starting point: “some claims generated by scientific practice are claims about the world…that is the realism part. Second, these claims are not unconditional, but relative to a set of humanly constructed concepts…That is the perspectival part” (2013, 53). In what follows I will bolster Giere’s claim that Kuhn may be regarded as a perspectival realist while challenging the idea that perspectival realism is a scientific realist position in any substantive sense, despite its name. Specifically, in section 2 I will outline Giere’s account of perspectivism and perspectival realism and challenge some of his central claims. I will also take into consideration some critiques of perspectivism offered by Anjan Chakravartty in (Chakravartty, 2010). In Section 3 I will outline Giere’s claim that Kuhn may be regarded as a perspectival realist, taking into account the similar conclusion reached by Paul Hoyningen-Huene (2012). In section 4, by focusing both on Kuhn’s essays in RSS and some of the secondary literature, I will argue that it is correct to regard the later Kuhn as a perspectivist. Additionally, I will argue that the identification of Kuhn’s later views as affirming perspectivism provides a clearer picture of what perspectivism entails when added to Giere’s account. In section 5 I will argue that Kuhn should not be regarded as a scientific realist if ‘scientific realism’ is to be understood in anything like the familiar way in which it is standardly used. By considering several theses of realism I will argue that Kuhn and Giere, as perspectivists, should not be regarded as scientific realists. However, identifying Kuhn as a perspectival 7 realist allows us to clearly formalize the central claims/commitments of perspectival realism. 8 2. GIERE’S SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVISM In his book, Scientific Perspectivism (2006), Giere sets out to synthesize two opposing views regarding the truth-status of scientific claims: objectivism and social constructivism. Objectivism, which can be thought of as a strict scientific realism, is the position that scientific claims are true or approximately true and scientific knowledge is thus knowledge regarding the objective matters of fact about the world. In contrast, social constructivism is the thesis that scientific claims are not true claims about the world and scientific knowledge is really just a consensus reached by scientists within the scientific community. Giere’s synthesis of these two disparate viewpoints is “a version of perspectivism… [and] mediates between the strong objectivism of most scientists, or the hard realism of many philosophers of science, and the constructivism found largely among historians and sociologists of science” (Giere 2006, 3). Giere begins his discussion of perspectivism by focusing on color science, so I will begin by outlining his main points on this topic. 2.1 Color Science Giere discusses color science, in order to demonstrate how subjective and objective components interact in scientific observation, by focusing on how our understanding of color is best understood as an interaction between the human visual system and the environment. We perceive things as colored because light reflects off of objects and travels to our eyes with a given wavelength. Different wavelengths are perceived as different colors. Part of the reason objects appear colored is thus due to the wavelengths of light that reflect off of these objects. Light reflects off of different 9 surfaces based on their molecular structure, and the characterization of how a given surface will reflect light is called the spectral reflectance of that surface. Since the spectral reflectance of different surfaces can be accounted for based on optical science, one could argue that an objective account of colors can be given: “In principle, a specification of the molecular structure of a surface
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms
    Vol. 29, No. 7, July 2020, pp. 1650–1657 DOI 10.1111/poms.13188 ISSN 1059-1478|EISSN 1937-5956|20|2907|1650 © 2020 Production and Operations Management Society Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms Gopesh Anand Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 469 Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] Eric C. Larson Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 8 Wohlers Hall, 1206 S. Sixth, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] Joseph T. Mahoney* Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 140C Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] his study provides key arguments and contributions of Kuhn (1970) concerning paradigms, paradigm shifts, and sci- T entific revolutions. We provide interpretations of Kuhn’s (1970) key ideas and concepts, especially as they relate to business management research. We conclude by considering the practical implications of paradigms and paradigm shifts for contemporary business management researchers and suggest that ethical rules of conversation are at least as critical for the health of a scientific community as methodological rules (e.g., the rules of logical positivism) derived from the phi- losophy of science. Key words: Paradigms; paradigm shifts; scientific revolutions; normal science History: Received: February 2019; Accepted: March 2020 by Kalyan Singhal, after 3 revisions. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions the rich descriptions of the process of advancing this theory. SSR showed that science primarily advances Thomas S.
    [Show full text]
  • Popper and Kuhn: Where They Clash, How They Compliment Each Other, and Drawing Conclusions
    Popper and Kuhn: Where they Clash, How They Compliment Each Other, and Drawing Conclusions It has been said that the epistemological premises of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper have every reason to negate one another. For the last half century, these men have had to withstand the onslaught of intellectual and ideological attacks for their claims of scientific development and evolution. Popper, a follower of Charles Pierce, developed his unique theory of falsification as a form of natural selection in the scientific sphere. Kuhn, a graduate student during Popper‟s time, formulated his own ideas about science as a social development defined by the presence or absence of a paradigm. Pat Hutcheon in her essay “Popper and Kuhn on the Evolution of Science” lays out an argument for the “promising complimentarity” the science community can gain from the comparison of these two men‟s claims. Hutcheon she is able to identify specific instances of similarity, undeniable differentiation, as well as areas of “promising complimentarity” between Popper and Kuhn. In an analysis of a 1965 debate between Popper and Kuhn sponsored by Imre Lakatos, M. G. Narasimhan outlines just how different the two philosophers are. Hutcheon and Narasimhan share an understanding of the contrasting views between Kuhn and Popper however, Hutcheon‟s argument for the agreeability of their theories is overlooked by Narasimhan and what undercuts his analysis. Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper contributed valuable insights about the “nature of science and the way in which scientific knowledge evolves (Hutcheon 1).” Generally speaking, a theory‟s “unfitness” and falsification, Popper‟s and Kuhn‟s ideas, respectively, share a common perspective on the growth of scientific knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Carnap, Kuhn , and the History of Science J.C. Pinto De Oliveira IFCH
    1 Carnap, Kuhn , and the history of science J.C. Pinto de Oliveira IFCH - Department of Philosophy State University of Campinas - Brazil [email protected] Abstract The purpose of this article is to respond to Thomas Uebel´s criticisms of my comments regarding the current revisionism of Carnap´s work and its relations to Kuhn. I begin by pointing out some misunderstandings in the interpretation of my article. I then discuss some aspects related to Carnap´s view of the history of science. First, I emphasize that it was not due to a supposed affinity between Kuhn´s conceptions and those of logical positivism that Kuhn was invited to write the monograph on the history of science for the Encyclopedia. Three other authors had been invited first, including George Sarton whose conception was entirely different from Kuhn´s. In addition, I try to show that Carnap attributes little importance to history of science. He seldom refers to it and, when he does, he clearly defends (like Sarton) a Whig or an “old” historiography of science, to which Kuhn opposes his “new historiography of science”. It is argued that this raises serious difficulties for those, like Uebel, who hold the view that Carnap includes the historical or the social within the rational. Keywords: Carnap, History of science, Kuhn, Logical positivism, New historiography of science, Philosophy of science, Revisionism, Sarton 1. Introduction In his article “Carnap and Kuhn: On the Relation between the Logic of Science and the History of Science”, published in 2011 in the Journal for General Philosophy of Science, Thomas Uebel responds to my criticism of what I call the revisionism of the logical positivist work, particularly its thesis regarding the compatibility or intimate relation between the philosophies of science of Carnap and Kuhn.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Phil. 4400 Notes #1: the Problem of Induction I. Basic Concepts
    Phil. 4400 Notes #1: The problem of induction I. Basic concepts: The problem of induction: • Philosophical problem concerning the justification of induction. • Due to David Hume (1748). Induction: A form of reasoning in which a) the premises say something about a certain group of objects (typically, observed objects) b) the conclusion generalizes from the premises: says the same thing about a wider class of objects, or about further objects of the same kind (typically, the unobserved objects of the same kind). • Examples: All observed ravens so far have been The sun has risen every day for the last 300 black. years. So (probably) all ravens are black. So (probably) the sun will rise tomorrow. Non-demonstrative (non-deductive) reasoning: • Reasoning that is not deductive. • A form of reasoning in which the premises are supposed to render the conclusion more probable (but not to entail the conclusion). Cogent vs. Valid & Confirm vs. Entail : ‘Cogent’ arguments have premises that confirm (render probable) their conclusions. ‘Valid’ arguments have premises that entail their conclusions. The importance of induction: • All scientific knowledge, and almost all knowledge depends on induction. • The problem had a great influence on Popper and other philosophers of science. Inductive skepticism: Philosophical thesis that induction provides no justification for ( no reason to believe) its conclusions. II. An argument for inductive skepticism 1. There are (at most) 3 kinds of knowledge/justified belief: a. Observations b. A priori knowledge c. Conclusions based on induction 2. All inductive reasoning presupposes the “Inductive Principle” (a.k.a. the “uniformity principle”): “The course of nature is uniform”, “The future will resemble the past”, “Unobserved objects will probably be similar to observed objects” 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Kuhn's Philosophy of Science Liberal Arts Honors Program
    Providence College DigitalCommons@Providence Spring 2013, Kuhn's Philosophy of Science Liberal Arts Honors Program Spring 2013 Syllabus: Kuhn's Philosophy of Science Joseph Torchia Providence College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/kuhn_2013 Part of the Philosophy Commons Torchia, Joseph, "Syllabus: Kuhn's Philosophy of Science" (2013). Spring 2013, Kuhn's Philosophy of Science. 2. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/kuhn_2013/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Liberal Arts Honors Program at DigitalCommons@Providence. It has been accepted for inclusion in Spring 2013, Kuhn's Philosophy of Science by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Providence. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Providence College Department of Philosophy 1 "Let us then assume that crises are a necessary precondition for the emergence of novel theories and ask next how scientists respond to their existence. Part of the answer, as obvious as it is important, can be discovered by noting first what scientists never do when confronted by even severe and prolonged anomalies. Though they may begin to lose faith and then to consider alternatives, they do not renounce the paradigm that has led them into crisis. Once it has achieved the status of a paradigm, a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternate candidate is available to take its place." Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Introductory Remarks Welcome to your Honors Colloquium "Kuhn's Philosophy of Science". The following pages provide important information regarding its organization and objectives, basic requirements, attendance policy, a thematic outline, and a tentative schedule of readings.
    [Show full text]
  • “Thomas Kuhn.” in “The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy”, Edward Zalta, Ed
    Thomas Kuhn Reference: Bird, Alexander, 2005: “Thomas Kuhn.” In “The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy”, Edward Zalta, Ed. (online at plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2005/entries/thomas-kuhn ) Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922-1996) became the one of most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, perhaps the most influential—his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited academic books of all time. His contribution to the philosophy science marked not only a break with several key positivist doctrines but also inaugurated a new style of philosophy of science that brought it much closer to the history of science. His account of the development of science held that science enjoys periods of stable growth punctuated by revisionary revolutions, to which he added the controversial ‘incommensurability thesis’, that theories from differing periods suffer from certain deep kinds of failure of comparability. • 1. Life and Career • 2. The Development of Science • 3. The Paradigm Concept • 4. Perception, World-Change, and Incommensurability _ 4.1 Methodological Incommensurability _ 4.2 Perception, Observational Incommensurability, and World-Change _ 4.3 Kuhn's Early Semantic Incommensurability Thesis _ 4.4 Kuhn's Later Semantic Incommensurability Thesis • 5. History of Science • 6. Criticism and Influence _ 6.1 Scientific Change _ 6.2 Incommensurability _ 6.3 Kuhn and Social Science _ 6.4 Assessment • Bibliography • Other Internet Resources • Related Entries 1. Life and Career Thomas Kuhn's academic life started in physics. He then switched to history of science, and as his career developed he moved over to philosophy of science, although retaining a strong interest in the history of physics.
    [Show full text]
  • The Metaphysics Within Kuhn's Picture of Science by Justin Price
    Words or Worlds: The Metaphysics within Kuhn’s Picture of Science By Justin Price A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Philosophy Guelph, Ontario, Canada © Justin Price, May, 2013 ABSTRACT Words or Worlds: The Metaphysics within Kuhn’s Picture of Science Justin Price Advisor: University of Guelph, 2013 Professor A. Wayne This thesis project establishes that there is a metaphysical theory underlying Kuhn’s work, and that it plays an important role in justifying his arguments regarding scientific theory change. Chapter 1 explains how this metaphysical theory has led to what I will call the ‘world problem’ within The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It stems from the ambiguous use of the word ‘world’ and the problem is how one can account for either of its uses within Structure. In some cases it is used to refer to a single non- changing world and in other cases it is used to refer to a world that changes with a change in paradigms. In Chapter 2 it is argued that this problem has led to a dissonance between the critic responding to Kuhn’s work and the work itself, resulting in the critics’ arguments ‘talking past’ what is presented in Structure. This emphasizes the need for an adequate account of Kuhn’s metaphysical theory. Chapter 3 establishes that for Kuhn a metaphysical theory was vital to his continued work (especially regarding his response to the critics examined within Chapter 2) and how a robust account was lacking. Chapter 4 investigates what a more robust account would be by considering an inadequate solution and an adequate one.
    [Show full text]
  • Five Decades of Structure: a Retrospective View*
    Five Decades of Structure : A Retrospective View * Juan V. MAYORAL Received: 18.6.2012 Final version: 30.7.2012 BIBLID [0495-4548 (2012) 27: 75; pp. 261-280] ABSTRACT: This paper is an introduction to the special issue commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. It introduces some main ideas of Structure , as its change in historical perspective for the interpretation of scientific progress, the role and nature of scientific communities, the incommensurability concept, or the new-world problem, and summarizes some philo- sophical reactions. After this introduction, the special issue includes papers by Alexander Bird, Paul Hoyningen-Huene and George Reisch on different aspects of Kuhn’s work. Keywords: Kuhn; structure; paradigms; normal science; scientific revolutions. RESUMEN: Este artículo es una introducción al número monográfico que conmemora el 50º aniversario de la publi- cación de La estructura de las revoluciones científicas de Thomas Kuhn. En la introducción se presentan algunas de las ideas principales del libro, como su cambio de perspectiva histórica para la interpretación del progre- so científico, el papel y naturaleza de las comunidades científicas, el concepto de inconmensurabilidad o el problema del cambio de mundo, y se resumen algunas reacciones filosóficas a las mismas. Tras la introduc- ción, el número monográfico está compuesto por artículos de Alexander Bird, Paul Hoyningen-Huene y George Reisch que versan sobre diversos aspectos de la obra de Kuhn. Palabras clave: Kuhn; estructura; paradigmas; ciencia normal; revoluciones científicas. 1. Introduction The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ranks high among the most significant books in twentieth-century philosophy of science.
    [Show full text]
  • Kuhn and Philosophy of Science in the Twentieth Century
    Kuhn and Philosophy of Science in the Twentieth Century Introduction Thomas Kuhn was undoubtedly the strongest influence on the philosophy of science in the last third of the twentieth century. Yet today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century it is unclear what his legacy really is. In the philosophy of science there is no characteristically Kuhnian school. This could be because we are all Kuhnians now. But it might also be because Kuhn’s thought, although revolutionary in its time, has since been superseded. In a sense both may be true. We are all Copernicans—yet almost everything Copernicus believed we now disbelieve. In this paper I shall examine the development of Kuhn’s thought in connection with changes in the philosophy of science during the second half of the twentieth century. Now that philosophy in general, philosophy of science in particular, is in a post-positivist era, we all share Kuhn’s rejection of positivism. But we do not, for the most part, share Kuhn’s belief in incommensurability, or his scepticism about truth and objective knowledge. Just as in Copernicus’ case, Kuhn initiated a revolution that went far beyond what he himself envisaged or even properly understood. Philosophy of science in the second half of the twentieth century Philosophy of science in the second half of the twentieth century underwent a curious apostasy and apparent reconversion. In the decades following the Second World War philosophy of science was still dominated by logical empiricism. Logical positivism, the most influential version of logical empiricism, was waning, but even so some of its central problems remained the concern of philosophers of science.
    [Show full text]
  • ANALYSIS of the PREVAILING VIEWS REGARDING the NATURE of THEORY- CHANGE in the FIELD of SCIENCE Jonathan Martinez
    ANALYSIS OF THE PREVAILING VIEWS REGARDING THE NATURE OF THEORY- CHANGE IN THE FIELD OF SCIENCE Jonathan Martinez Abstract: One of the best responses to the controversial ‘revolutionary paradigm-shift’ theory posited by Thomas Kuhn is the theory, posited by Larry Laudan, that paradigm-shifts occur in the form of piecemeal changes. In this essay, I analyze these two positions and provide an account of why Laudan’s response to Kuhn is inadequate; Laudan’s response relies on both a limited, erroneous interpretation of historical events and an inductive argument structure that cannot guarantee that future paradigm-shifts will not be revolutionary. INTRODUCTION The prevailing philosophical views regarding the nature of theory- change in the field of science fall into two major categories: Kuhnian and non-Kuhnian. In The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions (1970), Thomas Kuhn articulated the Kuhnian perspective and argued that scientific theory-changes occur in a revolutionary fashion (Kuhn 86-88). This process makes individual scientific paradigms only assessable internally because the tools of evaluation (i.e.values) of each paradigm change at the beginning of each successive paradigm (Kuhn 94-96). As such, the practitioners of a previous paradigm cannot evaluate the validity (i.e. its correspondence with reality) of new paradigms because they have no evaluatory tools in common with practitioners of the new paradigm. 37 ALETHEIA SPRING 2018 This asymmetry has led the philosophical and scientific communities to hold that if Kuhn’s theory obtains, theory-changes in science may be nothing but arbitrary changes in the field, as the continuity of the field has been completely disrupted and as all tools of appraisal are rendered useless.
    [Show full text]
  • 36Pm Mathews
    Michael R. Matthews 223 Rescuing Two Positivist “Babies” from the Educational Bathwater Michael R. Matthews University of New South Wales It is an understatement to say that Positivism is unpopular in education circles. “Positivist” has become for educators, what “terrorist” is for politicians. In the past two decades positivists and their bathwater have been summarily dispatched out the education window. This situation represents a dramatic turn in philosophical and educational fashion. In the 1920s, adherents of the newly formulated positivism, or the “Scien- tific Conception of the World,” were social and educational progressives in a reactionary central-European milieu. In the 1950s and 1960s the logical empiricist variant of positivism dominated philosophy of science and monopolized the “nature of science” chapters of science textbooks. Most serious educational researchers measured their work against positivist norms of rigor, clarity, objectivity, repeat- ability, and so on. The change in intellectual fashion was dramatic: from comfortable bath to defenestration in just the time it took to say “Thomas Kuhn.” But how well based is the educational rejection of positivism? What can be rescued from the bathwater? This paper will answer the question by going back to the sources and examining the philosophical and educational views of two of the founding Vienna Circle positivists — Philipp Frank and Herbert Feigl — and arguing that they at least should be rescued from the bathwater; and further that most of their orientation to science, philosophy and education should be rescued along with them. Both Frank and Feigl followed in the scientific and philosophical footsteps of Ernst Mach, who also had deep and robust educational views.1 THE MENACE OF POSITIVISM The sheer volume of positivist “bad press” in education makes a comprehensive survey impossible, but a small sampling gives an idea of the whole.
    [Show full text]
  • Meet the New Normal, Same As the Old Normal: the State Balance and Economic Policy Debates After the Pandemic
    WP 2020-11 December 2020 Working Paper Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-7801 USA Meet The New Normal, Same As The Old Normal: The State Balance and Economic Policy Debates After the Pandemic Ravi Kanbur It is the Policy of Cornell University actively to support equality of educational and employment opportunity. No person shall be denied admission to any educational program or activity or be denied employmen t on the basis of any legally prohibited discrimination involving, but not limited to, such factors as race, color, creed, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, age or handicap. The University is committed to the maintenance of affirmative action prog rams which will assure the continuation of such equality of opportunity. 2 Meet The New Normal, Same As The Old Normal: The State-Market Balance and Economic Policy Debates After the Pandemic Ravi Kanbur www.kanbur.dyson.cornell.edu This version: 7 December 2020 Contents 1. Introduction 2. New Normal Predictions and Hopes 3. State and Market: Predicted New Normals in History 4. Paradigm Shifts and Dialectics 5. Conclusion References Abstract What will happen to economic policy debates after the Pandemic? The majority view seems to be that nothing will ever be the same again. A new normal will be upon us. A combination of prediction and hope points to a major reorientation of the state-market balance towards the state. The last time we had such millennialist thinking was of course after the financial crisis of 2008-2009, when a different sort of contagion spread through the world.
    [Show full text]