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College Career
Thomas Kuhn got accepted to Harvard and began prep school at the age of 18. He Majored in Physics and graduated with his BS in 1943. During his time at Harvard he was also the head of the editorial board of the college Newspaper, Harvard Crimson. Kuhn took a break from college during the war and helped research for countermeasures regarding enemy radar detectors. He finished his degree graduating with a doctorate in Physics in 1949. -
Epiphany
When invited by Harvard to deliver a History of Science class Kuhn realized that it was difficult to understand Aristotle's ideas of motion. He made sense of it by coming to the conclusion that he was not able to understand the earlier ideas because he was looking at it through a modern physic's mind. He had to shift his viewpoint to that of Aristotle before it made sense. This is the beginnings of his idea of Paradigms. -
Paradigms
Kuhns most influential book, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," introduces the concept of The Paradigm Shift. He also discussed the concept of Incommensurability and its relation to the idea of a paradigm. From there what we now know as the "Kuhn Cycle" has been accepted and utilized for the subject of Philosophy of Science. -
Battle with cancer
Kuhn retired from teaching in 1991 and fell ill to throat and lung cancer in 1994. He battled with the cancer until his death in 1996. His idea of paradigm shifts have become very familiar in regards to the Philosophy of Science field.
