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Kuhn Attends Harvard
Thomas Kuhn was born to a very affluent family, of which his father Samuel was a graduate of Harvard university. So naturally Kuhn was compelled to attend the Alma mater of his father. In the fall of 1940 Kuhn arrived at Harvard where he would study physics, however in his first semester he struggled earning a C on his first exam. After taking the advice of one of his professors Kuhn went on to graduate summa cum laude with a BS in physics. -
A change of heart, Physics to Philosophy
After working with the military to help devise countermeasures to counter German radars during World War II Kuhn returned to Harvard to complete a masters degree in physics in 1946 and a doctorate in 1949. However, over the years Kuhn's interest in physics had slowly diminished and he became more interested with philosophy, In fact while giving a lecture on Aristotle's ideas of motion he used the thinking of the ancient Greeks to better help himself understand the outdated ideas. -
Paradigm Shift
The thought of a paradigm shift first came to Kuhn's mind when he realized the thought process and ideals of Aristotle's "ideas of Motion' were completely different from that of Isaac Newton's, even though the two ideas stemmed from one another. This phenomena is called a paradigm shift which was laid out in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, now this term is widely used in other subjects as well as in science. -
Normal Science
In his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn laid out the idea of "normal science" he said the first step in a scientific revolution is called normal science where a group of scientists who shared a common set of ideals on a scientific idea called a paradigm, begin to question the theory or tried to catch anomalies with in the idea. -
Normal Science Continued.
However, over a long period of time the anomalies or questions within the paradigm begin to add up and scientists begin to question the paradigm itself. Kuhn states that this is just a normal part of the revolution and it usually returns back to normal science. -
Sources Cited
~ Bird, Alexander. “Thomas Kuhn.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 31 Oct. 2018, plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/.
~ Hall, Richard J. “Home.” Famous Scientists, 2000, www.famousscientists.org/thomas-kuhn/.
~ Naughton , John. “Thomas Kuhn: the Man Who Changed the Way the World Looked at Science.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 18 Aug. 2012, www.theguardian.com/science/2012/aug/19/thomas-kuhn-structure-scientific-revolutions.
