Shift

Thomas Kuhn July 18, 1922 to June 17, 1996

By christi4037

  • A legend was born

    A legend was born
    Thomas Kuhn was born In Cincinnati OH.

  • College

    College
    Thomas Kuhn received his Bachelor’s at Harvard University in Physics.

  • Ph. D

    Ph. D
    Kuhn finished school and earned his Ph.D in Physics.

  • Teaching

    Teaching
    Kuhn became an Assistant Processor at Harvard and began teaching General Education and History of Science. (Buchwald J., Smith G. 1.)

  • The Copernican Revolution

    The Copernican Revolution
    His teachings of history of science lead to his first book called The Copernican Revolution. This revolution is how he showed that the history of science was influenced onto him and many others. Kuhn argued that science should be how it is in a particular time unlike Karl Poppers Theory. He knew things will change but until future scientist can do so, we should let science be true. (Buchwald J., Smith G. 3)

  • Berkeley

    Berkeley
    He became a History of Science Professor at Berkeley.

  • The Structure of the Scientific Revolutions

    The Structure of the Scientific Revolutions
    Thomas Kuhn published the book The Structure of the Scientific Revolutions. Within his book, Kuhn describes how we have a paradigm and that’s the way it is until some crisis comes along to change that paradigm to give us a new paradigm.

  • Four phases

    Four phases
    There are four steps to a paradigm shift. 1) “normal science”. 2) irregularities start to build causing things not be explained which resulted in what Kuhn called “model crisis”. 3) “The Model Revolution”. In this phase the paradigm has changed so much that Kuhn believed it to be a revolution. 4) Kuhn called it a “Paradigm Shift” meaning that it is the new way something is going to be.(Godfrey-Smith P. 77)

  • Princeton

    Princeton
    Taking a position at Princeton University, he filled M. Taylor Pyne Processor of Philosophy’s position. Here is where the debate between Feyerabend and him took place. Kuhn was defending his theory while Feyerabend tried to defend Poppers theory on science. Feyerabend was unable to attend this debate so John Watkins took his spot. (Bird A.)

  • Science

    Science
    Later he published some of his essays on the philosophy of science which emphasized the importance of the traditions of science (Bird A.)

  • Award

    Award
    He was awarded the George Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society and a year later awarded the John Desmond Bernal, Award of the Society for Social Studies of Science.

  • Video

    [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oI7qocMDsXM] Buchwald, Jed Z., and Smith, George E. “Thomas S. Kuhn, 1922-1996.” Philosophy of Science 64.2 (1997): 361–376. Web. Godfrey-Smith, Peter. Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.