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The Lowell Lectures
Lowell Lectures outlined a conception of science in contrast to the traditional philosophy of science conception in which facts are accumulated. Kuhn presented theories on scientific methodology by mentioning the history of science could be instructive for identifying the process by which creative science advances, such as an alternative historical approach to scientific methodology. He proposed an alternative image of science based on the new approach to the history of science. -
Paradigm Shift
Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolution changed the way ideas and terms were thought. One of his ideas was the use of the term paradigm.
Kuhn's theory of a paradigm was a whole way of doing science in a particular field. He theorized the big changes in how scientists see the world, the revolutions that science undergoes every now and then occur when one paradigm replaces another.
Kuhn's theory became known as a paradigm shift, changing the history and philosophy of science. -
Postscript to Structure
Kuhn qualified his claims about the role of crisis in the Postscript to Structure. He maintained crises are the usual prelude to revolutions.
Kuhn argued that revolutions are capricious, disorderly events that are affected by idiosyncratic personal factors and accidents of history.
Kuhn believed the sudden appearance of problem-solving power as a spark to revolutions could not be described by an explicit philosophical theory of evidence and testing. -
Planck’s Black-body Radiation Theory and the Origins of Quantum Discontinuity.
Kuhn claimed the traditional account was inaccurate and the transition was initiated by Einstein’s and Ehrenfest’s independent 1906 quantum papers. Kuhn did not use paradigm, normal science, anomaly, crisis, or incommensurability in the black-body radiation and quantum discontinuity historical study. He claimed current historiography should attempt to understand previous scientific texts in terms of contemporary context, not in terms of modern science.
Thomas Kuhn