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Early Years
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, OH on July, 18th 1922.
In his first year of life, his family moved to New York.
His parents were very liberally educated and they also pressed that upon their children. Thomas spent most of his primary years in different progressive schools that encouraged free thinking and less memorization of facts. From 6th to 9th grade his school taught and encouraged the children to accustom to pacifism. -
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The Life of Thomas Kuhn
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Kuhn's years in Harvard
Kuhn received a B.S in Physics summa cum laude in 1943.
Kuhn returned to Harvard after the war ended and graduated with a masters degree in Physics in 1946. He received his PhD in 1949 and his thesis was The Cohesive Energy of Monovalent Metals as a Function of the Atomic Quantum Defects. -
Kuhn in WWII
"During his sophomore year, Kuhn underwent another radical transformation. Although he was trained a pacifist, the atrocities perpetrated in Europe during World War II, especially by Hitler, horrified him." (Marcum, 2005, 6)
The summer after he graduated (1943), he joined the Radio Research Laboratory’s theoretical group at Harvard to help the war effort.
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Discovery of Paradigm
Kuhn started a project- investigating the origins of seventeenth century mechanics, he was puzzled. But alas one summer day he had a break though. "Once he realized that Aristotle had to be read using the assumptions and categories contemporary when Physics was written, suddenly Aristotle’s idea of motion made sense. From this experience, Kuhn formulated a hermeneutical method for the history of science, in terms of the following methodological maxim: ... -
Joins the Harvard Society of Fellows
"Kuhn realized that he wanted to be a philosopher of science by doing history of science. His interest was not strictly history of science but philosophy, for he felt that philosophy was the way to truth and truth was what he was after. To achieve that goal, Kuhn asked Conant to sponsor him as a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows."(Marcum, 2005, 10)... -
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
As a History of Science professor Kuhn studied history and had his Physics knowledge to view Aristotle's work. While he knew Aristotle was an immensely intelligent man, he couldn't understand why Aristotle could possibly believe some of the things he did about motion. As this perplexed Kuhn, he sought out a way to make sense of this.
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Awarded George Sarton Medal
In 1982 Kuhn was awarded the George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society for a lifetime of scholarly achievement.
