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Birth of Kuhn
On the 18th of July 1922, Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. -
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Kuhn's Career as a Professor
Kuhn was able to impact many young minds throughout his 40-year career as an instructor. From 1951-1956 he taught at Harvard but left due to not being offered tenure. From 1956-1964 he taught at UC Berkeley where he earned the job of Professor in 1961. He went on to teach at Princeton from 1964-1979 for his longest stint of 15 years. Finally he finished off his teaching at MIT from 1979-1991 where he retired at the age of 69. -
The Copernican Revolution
In 1957, Kuhn published his first book, "The Copernican Revolution", which largely evolved from his lectures in his "Principles of Physical Science" class he taught at Harvard during the early 1950s. (Westman). Westman even goes so far as to regard this book as a prime reason for the revolution of science metaphor that is popular in the scholarly scientific community. -
The Copernican Revolution: Work Cited
Westman, Robert S. “Two Cultures or One?: A Second Look at Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution.” Isis, vol. 85, no. 1, 1994, pp. 79–115. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/235897. Accessed 4 June 2021. -
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
In this infamous book of Thomas Kuhn's he introduces the idea of "Paradigm Shift". This in and of itself had a huge impact on science but he gave his take on what he believes to be the 4 phases of science:
1. Pre-Paradigmatic Science
2. Normal Science
3. Crisis
4. Scientific Revolution (A.K.A. Paradigm Shift) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQPsc55zsXA -
Incommensurability
Another influential impact Thomas Kuhn supplied the scientific community with when he published his "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" was the notion of incommensurability. Specifically towards scientific theories and paradigms, he meant they could not be measured by any neutral standard. More importantly, when he introduced the word "incommensurable" he meant to "characterize the holistic nature of the changes that take place in a scientific revolution."(Oberheim) -
Incommensurability: Work Cited
Oberheim, Eric and Paul Hoyningen-Huene, "The Incommensurability of Scientific Theories", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/incommensurability/. -
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Lifespan of Thomas Kuhn
18 July, 1922 - 17 June, 1996 -
Death of Kuhn
On 17 June 1996, one month before his 74th birthday, Kuhn died in Cambridge, Massachusetts.