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Thomas Kuhn 1922-1996
Bird, Alexander. Thomas Kuhn. Routledge, 2014, doi:10.4324/9781315710839. Nickles, Thomas. Thomas Kuhn. Cambridge University Press, 2003. -
Early Life and Education
Thomas Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 18, 1922. He attended Harvard College where he received a BSc in Physics in 1943, followed by an MSc in Physics in 1946, and finally a PhD in Physics in 1949. He is most well known for his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. -
The Path to Structure
Kuhn joined the Harvard Society of Fellows in 1948 and began researching the history of science. He delivered an address for the Lowell Institute in 1951, where he first presented an alternative to the historically accepted methodologies of science. He stated that science needed to focus on the process of how it advanced and not just on the finished product. -
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is the work that made Kuhn famous and the publication where he introduced the term "paradigm shift". Serialization of Structure began in 1962 with a complete collection of Kuhn's ideas presented in the second edition published in 1970. He made arguments for a schematic of science that is as follows: pre-science, normal science, crisis science, and paradigm shift. -
Legacy
Kuhn’s theories were controversial. While he always maintained support for the scientific process and how it accumulated information, he was embraced by radicals and accused of relativism and fostering anarchy in the scientific method. His views of science history inspired intense debate and prompted competing theories from prominent philosophers such as Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan, and Paul Feyerabend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn8cCDtVd5w