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Thomas Kuhn

By mrtomato

  • The birth of Kuhn

    Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born on July 18, 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He was the oldest of 2, his younger brother Roger was born three years after.
    Tom’s father, Samuel Louis Kuhn, was an engineer and investment consultant, who had also fought in World War 1. Tom’s mother, Minette Kuhn, came from a wealthy New York family.
    When Tom was a few months old, the family packed up and decided to move to New York.

  • Thomas Kuhn at Harvard

    American involvement in World War 2 occurred during Kuhn's second year at Harvard. Kuhn chose to attend summer school in order to complete his degree more quickly. In 1943, he received a "BS in Physics summa cum laude (with highest honor)" from the university. In addition to studying Physics, he also served as the chairman of the editorial staff for the student newspaper, the "Harvard Crimson," during his last year.

  • Paradigm shifts in science

    Paradigm shifts in science
    According to Kuhn, paradigm shifts happen when regular science is conducted fundamentally changes within a scientific community. In other respects, science is predicated on the idea that one's scientific community has a complete understanding of how the world operates, and scientists go to tremendous lengths to defend this viewpoint in a highly exclusive way.

  • Paradigm shift and incommensurability

    Paradigm shift and incommensurability
    The paradigm shift was initially proposed by Kuhn in his 1962 book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." The thought had first come to him when he pondered how a person as intelligent as Aristotle could have developed such ridiculous theories about motion. When he realized it, he realized that "the framework of science in which Aristotle viewed facts was fundamentally different from the framework of science."
    Here's a video link with more information. https://youtu.be/L70T4pQv7P8

  • Incommensurability

    Incommensurability
    When referring to paradigms that reflect various points of view on the same subject, Kuhn coined the term "incommensurable." As an illustration, compare the concepts of Aristotle and Newton, which are so dissimilar that there isn't anything in common.

  • The demise of Thomas Kuhn

    On June 17, 1996, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Thomas Kuhn passed away from cancer at the age of 73. Over almost two years, he had been struggling with lung and throat cancer.