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Thomas's Birthday
The birth of a very influential philosopher. -
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The Life of Thomas Kuhn
American philosopher of science who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sources:
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Thomas S. Kuhn". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Jul. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-S-Kuhn. Accessed 9 January 2022.
Marcum, James A. “Thomas S. Kuhn (1922—1996).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, iep.utm.edu/kuhn-ts/. -
Bachelor's in Physics
Earned at Harvard University -
Master's in Physics
Earned at Harvard University -
Ph.D. in History of Science
Earned at Harvard University -
Period: to
Philosophy of Science Professor
Kuhn taught at Harvard University, then at University of California at Berkeley, then Princeton University, and finally at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. -
The Copernican Revolution
Here, Kuhn makes claims of discovering that plurality, or the philosophical or religious belief system that a scientist has, plays a big role in this revolution. This created a whole new view of the Copernican revolution that brought much attention to himself from other philosophers and historians in the community. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution : Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Harvard University Press, 1957. -
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Continued)
Bohm, David, and Thomas S. Kuhn. “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), vol. 14, no. 57, The University of St. Andrews, 1964, pp. 377–79, https://doi.org/10.2307/2217783. -
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
This book became a highly influential and very important piece of knowledge in the 20th century for the philosophy of science. In this book, Kuhn describes what he calls "normal science" and explains paradigm shifts for scientific revolutions. A paradigm being a generalized worldview of beliefs about science, and a paradigm shift being the change of the general view or beliefs about scientific topics.
Video on Scientific Revolutions -
The Essential Tension
In this paper, Thomas Kuhn describes creative thinking and convergent thinking as it relates to science and the science revolution. He explains how divergent thinking is necessary to come up with different solutions that can lead to scientific progress while convergent thinking, even though it is more structured, also helps to lead in scientific progress by helping in designing proper functional experiments. -
The Essential Tension (Continued)
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Essential Tension : Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. University of Chicago Press, 1977, https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226217239. -
Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity
This was a historical study Kuhn did on Planck's black-body radiation theory and the origins of quantum discontinuity. He explains his discovery of the inaccuracy of depicting Planck's 1900 and 1901 papers being the transition from classic physics to quantum physics. Instead, he explains why it was actually Einstein's and Ehrenfest’s 1906 quantum papers that created the transition. This paper was not met well as he did not uses his notions from the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. -
Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity (Continued)
Kuhn, Thomas S. Black-body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity: 1894-1912 : with an Afterword. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Print. -
End of Kuhn
The death of a great philosopher.