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Thomas Kuhn
Thomas S. Kuhn was born on April 18th, 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He passed away in June of 1992.
He was an American historian of science and was best known for The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Thomas Kuhn was the first of two children born to Samuel L. and Minette Kuhn, with a brother Roger born several years later. Kuhn’s father, Sam, was a hydraulic engineer, trained at Harvard University and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) prior to World War I. -
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Kuhn's Education
In 1927, Kuhn began schooling at the progressive Lincoln School in Manhattan. His early education taught him to think independently, but by his own admission, there was little content to the thinking. He remembered that by the second grade, for instance, he was unable to read proficiently. Later on, Thomas Kuhn earned a bachelors degree (1943) as well as a masters degree in (1946) in physics at Harvard University. He then went on to complete a PHD in the history of science (1949). -
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Thomas Kuhn's Career as a Teacher
Thomas Kuhn started his career by teaching the Philosophy of Science at Harvard University until 1956. He then moved to The University of California until 1964 when he started teaching at Princeton University. His final University that he taught at was Massachusetts Institute of Technology. -
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The Copernican Revolution - Kuhn
The Copernican Revolution is a shift in the field of astronomy from a geocentric understanding of the universe, centered around Earth, to a heliocentric understanding, centered around the Sun. Kuhn reconstructed the Copernican revolution by portraying a radically different image of science than that of traditional philosophers of science. He justified that scientific knowledge was not only based around logical or objective affairs, but non-logical or subjective affairs as well. -
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Thomas Kuhn's Philosophy
Kuhn wrote his first book, The Copernican Revolution. In this book, Kuhn explains a paradigm shift from the view that the Sun revolves around the Earth—to the view that the Earth is one of several planets revolving around the Sun. Kuhn's second book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, explains how science advances through paradigm shifts.. It challenges the idea of scientific progress as a linear accumulation of knowledge and proposes a new model for understanding scientific change. -
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Thomas Kuhn & Paradigm Shifts
Kuhn fundamentally argues that “science” does not progress as a linear accumulation of new knowledge, but undergoes periodic revolutions called “paradigm shifts.” A “paradigm” is a specific theoretical orientation, based upon a particular epistemology and research methodology, reflective of a particular scientific community at a particular time in history. Attached is a short video explaining paradigm shifts.
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Thomas Kuhn Major Works Citations
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, 1962. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Harvard University Press, 1957. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. University of Chicago Press, 1977.