Midterm Essay

Mapping a Revolution: Kuhn, Mathematics, and the Machines

Weight: 20% of course grade · Length: 1,500-2,000 words · Due: 11:59 PM, Monday, October 26

Purpose

For seven weeks we’ve used Kuhn’s account of paradigms, normal science, anomaly, crisis, and revolution as a lens. This essay asks you to test the lens: apply it carefully to a case, and say where it fits and where it breaks. A strong essay disagrees with Kuhn somewhere, for a reason.

Choose ONE prompt

Prompt A – Was classical AI ever a paradigm?

Using Kuhn (any chapters, but engage at least Ch. II-V and XIII) and Charniak Ch. 1-4, argue whether symbolic AI (c. 1956-1990) was a genuine Kuhnian paradigm with real normal science, or something else (a pre-paradigm school, an engineering program, a research fashion). Then answer: was the common-sense problem an anomaly in Kuhn’s sense, and did it produce a crisis?

Prompt B – Progress, or just change?

In Ch. XIII, Kuhn suggests that science progresses from earlier stages but not toward truth. Test that claim against two revolutions from the course. Your choice may be one from mathematics, the AI shift in Charniak, the printing press in Harari, or a superseded theory from the class presentations. Does mathematics move toward something in a way science doesn’t? Does AI?

Prompt C – Who writes the history?

Charniak is a participant who switched sides. Using Kuhn Ch. XI-XII (invisibility of revolutions; resolution and conversion), evaluate AI & I Ch. 1-4 as history. Where does the book’s account show the “textbook” flattening Kuhn describes? Compare it with how Dunham treats one mathematical controversy (Newton-Leibniz or Cantor-Kronecker). Is a firsthand convert a more reliable historian of a revolution, or a less reliable one?

Prompt D: Can a paradigm be held by something that isn’t a community?

Kuhn says joining a paradigm means absorbing tacit judgment through worked examples rather than explicit rules (Ch. V and the Postscript). Charniak’s early career (Ch. 1–2) was an attempt to write that kind of knowledge down as rules, and it failed. Harari (Ch. 6) argues that today’s AI has intelligence without consciousness.

Using all three authors, argue whether a system that learns from a field’s literature, rather than from rules, could hold a paradigm in Kuhn’s sense, or whether it only reproduces the field’s outputs. Ground your argument in one concrete case: the piggy-bank story, Deep Blue, or a skill you learned yourself through imitation and practice.

Requirements

A clear, arguable thesis in the first paragraph.
Substantive use of Kuhn plus at least one other course text, with page or chapter citations.
At least one counterargument that you take seriously and answer.
Write the essay in a Google Doc titled HON201 Midterm - Lastname. Share it with me with comment access (or higher), and keep using that same doc through the draft workshop and final submission.
Use 12-pt font and double spacing, and put the word count at the end.
Do not use AI tools to generate text for this essay.

Timeline

Date	Milestone
Thu, Oct 15	Essay launched in class
Sun, Oct 18	Create your Google Doc and share it with me. At the top, put your prompt choice and a one-sentence working thesis (ungraded, required).
Thu, Oct 22	In-class draft workshop: have at least 2 pages in your doc. Peers will leave comments directly in it.
Mon, Oct 26, 11:59 PM	Final essay due. I’ll grade the doc as it stands at the deadline, so stop editing after 11:59 PM.

Rubric (100 points)

Criterion	What I’m looking for	Points
Thesis & argument	An arguable claim, developed and sustained; the essay goes somewhere	30
Command of Kuhn	Accurate use of Kuhn’s concepts, applied precisely rather than as labels	25
Evidence	Specific historical and textual detail from the readings, accurately reported and cited	25
Counterargument	A serious objection, fairly stated and answered	10
Writing	Clear, organized prose; correct citations; within length	10