-
Early Life of Thomas Kuhn Pt. 2
Samuel L Kuhn entered world war 1, and served in the Army Corps of Engineers. After leaving the armed services, Sam returned to Cincinnati for several years before moving to New York to help his recently widowed mother Kuhn. Kuhn’s mother, Minette, was a liberally educated person who came from an affluent family. -
Early Life of Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 18 July 1922. He was the first of two children born to Samuel L. his father and Minette Kuhn his mother. Thomas had a named brother Roger born several years later. Kuhn father was a raised Cincinnatian and his mother a raised New Yorker. Kuhn’s father, Samuel, was a hydraulic engineer, trained at Harvard University and MIT before World War I. -
Kuhn Early Education
In 1927, Kuhn began schooling at the progressive Lincoln School in Manhattan. His early education taught him to think independently, but by his own admission, there was little content to the thinking. He remembered that by the second grade, for instance, he was unable to read proficiently. When Kuhn started the sixth grade, Thomas family moved to Croton-on-Hudson, a small town outside of Manhattan. -
Kuhn Early Education Pt. 2
Kuhn attended the progressive Hessian Hills School. Kuhn said the school was staffed by left-oriented radical teachers, who taught the students pacifism. When he left the school after the ninth grade, Kuhn felt he was a bright and independent thinker. After spending a year at the preparatory school Solebury in Pennsylvania, Kuhn spent his last two years of high school at the Yale-preparatory Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. -
High School
He graduated third in his class of 105 students and was inducted into the National Honor Society. He also received the prestigious Rensselaer Alumni Association Medal. -
Period: to
College Life
Kuhn attended to Harvard College in the fall of 1940, following his father footsteps. At Harvard, Thomas found a better sense of himself socially by participating in various organizations. Thomas chose physics because of career opportunities.In the fall of his sophomore year, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Kuhn chose to expedite his undergraduate education by going to summer school. The physics department focused on teaching mainly electronics, and Kuhn followed suit. -
Graduation
In 1943, Kuhn graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with an S.B. -
Period: to
The Transformation
In 1947 Thomas Kuhn struggled to understand Aristotle’s idea of motion in Physics. Kuhn tried to make sense of Aristotle’s idea of motion using Newtonian assumptions and categories of motion. Once he realized that he had to read Aristotle’s Physics using assumptions and categories contemporary to when the Greek philosopher wrote it, suddenly Aristotle’s idea of motion made sense. After this experience, Kuhn realized that he wanted to be a philosopher of science by doing history of science. -
Period: to
Road to Philosophy
From 1948 to 1961 Thomas Kuhn trained to become a philosopher of science. Thomas attended many lectures like the Lowell's Lectures where Kuhn outlined the conception of science in contrast to the traditional philosophy of science’s conception. Also during this time Kuhn began reconstruction of the Copernican Revolution. -
The Structure of a Scientific revolution was published
The structure of scientific development, according to Kuhn, may be written, as follows pre-paradigm science to normal science to extraordinary science to new normal science. The step from pre-paradigm science to normal science involves agreement of the community around a single paradigm, where no prior agreement existed. This is the step required for transitioning from immature to mature science. -
The Structure of a Scientific Revoulution Pt. 2
The step from normal science to extraordinary science includes the community’s recognition that the reigning paradigm is unable to account for accumulating anomalies. A crisis ensues, and community practitioners engage in extraordinary science to resolve its anomalies. A scientific revolution occurs with crisis resolution. Once a community selects a new paradigm, it discards the old one and another period of new normal science follows. -
Period: to
The After Math
In 1979, Kuhn moved to M.I.T.’s Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. In 1983, he was appointed as the Professor of Philosophy. At M.I.T., he took a linguistic turn in his thinking, reflecting his new environment, which had a major impact on his subsequent work, especially on the incommensurability thesis. -
