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Thomas Kuhn (1922 - 1996)

  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

    The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    In Kuhn's book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" He highlights many different scientific revolutions such as Aristotle’s analysis of motion, Ptolemy’s computations of plantery positions, Lavoisier’s application of the balance, and Maxwell’s mathematization of the electromagnetic field as paradigms. In this book's second edition, Kuhn goes further into depth over scientific paradigms and it's relevance to future developments. Video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L70T4pQv7P8
  • Period: to

    Incommensurability Thesis

    From Kuhn's first visit to his Incommensurability Thesis, some of his own examples are rather stretched—for instance he says Lavoisier saw oxygen where Priestley saw dephlogisticated air, describing this as a ‘transformation of vision’. Compared to his later return to his Incommensurability Thesis, he changed it to the idea that certain kinds of translation are impossible.
  • Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity

    Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity
    In this book by Kuhn, "Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity", Kuhn's historical work turned toward the early history of quantum theory. Kuhn notes Planck's experiment after using a device to divide up energy states into multiples of a unit or ‘quantum' to explain the distribution of energy within a cavity.
  • Social Sciences

    Social Sciences
    Kuhn denied that psychoanalysis is a science and argued that there are reasons why some fields within the social sciences could not sustain extended periods of puzzle-solving normal science.