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Kuhn's Academic Life
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. In 1943, he graduated from Harvard, and spent the remainder war years in research related to radar at Harvard and then in Europe. He gained his master’s degree in physics in 1946, and his doctorate in 1949, also in physics. -
The Copernican Revolution
Kuhn focused on the history of science and was soon appointed to an assistant professorship in general education and the history of science. During this period, his work focused on eighteenth century matter theory and the early history of thermodynamics. Kuhn then published his first book in 1957, The Copernican Revolution, after turning to the history of astronomy. This was a paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model to the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System. -
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas Kuhn published his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962, describing that the development of science is driven, in normal periods of science, by adherence to what he called a ‘paradigm’. Kuhn describes paradigm shifts as the big changes that scientists are able to recognize in the world. It is about the views and interactions rather than logic. One concept of Kuhn's paradigm shift was "normal science". Scientists doing normal science can agree upon important issues. -
Paradigm Shifts and Scientific Revolutions
When there is a great achievement in normal science and it expands further and further, it turns into a paradigm because it provides enough insight into the way of the world. Although, when there is a break in a paradigm, it is replaced by another one, defining it as a scientific revolution. Kuhn believed there were only two scientific changes, revolutionary science, and a change within normal science. -
Bibliography
Bird, A. (2018). Thomas Kuhn (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/ CrashCourse. (2018). The Scientific Revolution: Crash Course History of Science #12. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzo8vnxSARg Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009). Theory and Reality: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. University of Chicago Press.