Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 00:37:53 -0500
From: rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu (Rahul Mahajan)
Subject: Re: Thomas Kuhn


>Rahul Writes: "If I explain them to any of you, how
>will you be able to tell who's right? I'm not talking merely about
>idiosyncratic opinions of mine, but about generally understood matters, but
>none of you are aware of that general understanding."
>
>It's so nice that Rahul holds us in so high regard.  I feel sorry for his
>students.
>
>Yours &c.,
>
>Jeff Johnson                              "Amicus Socrates, amicus Plato,
>Graduate Student, Political Science             sed magis amica veritas."
>University of Wisconsin--Madison                              --Aristotle

Do you honestly expect that you can casually understand matters that other
people spend years studying, that can only be expressed in a language most
social scientists are at best barely acquainted with (I said most, not
all)? If you do, there is good reason for me to hold you in low regard.
Actually, though, all I meant is that this is difficult stuff, and even if
you were a genius you would require intensive work before you could really
understand it, as opposed to deluding yourself that you understand it.

So far, all my students have been studying high-school level physics (at
the university of course) and just wanted to know how to get the answers in
the back of the book. I was glad to oblige. You can bet that if I get
students who want to understand, though, I will not try to make them
believe they can learn without work. If you do that to yours, I'm sorry for
them.

Cheers,

Rahul




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