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Thomas Kuhn
Born on July 18th, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio -
Education
Harvard - BS in Physics summa cum laude -
Education
Harvard - master’s degree in physics -
Education
Harvard – doctorate -
Major Work
Wrote first book The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought
Kuhn, Thomas H. The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Harvard Univ, 1957. -
Work at Berkely
Professor of the History of Science at Berkely -
Contribution to philosophy (2)
While studying the history of science and current scientific norms, he discovered that science was evolving in phases, “normal science” and revolutionary. These two fundamentally different approaches to science he discovered were quite different. -
Contribution to philosophy (4)
Once these anomalies piled up scientist looked outside of their “standard operating procedures” to find any different and “outside the box” views of solving these anomalies. This willingness to try anything is the point at which Kuhn saw the revolution of scientific thinking and operations. This is what he says leads to a “Paradigm Shift”. -
Major Work
Wrote second book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1962. -
Contribution to philosophy (1)
Thomas Kuhn began his career as a Physicist who later studied the history of science. He was interested in how scientists operated within scientific thinking. -
Contribution to philosophy (3)
The “normal science” which was cumulative knowledge based, typical puzzle solving, almost standard operating procedure which he called a paradigm. He realizes that this way of scientific thinking and operating doesn’t always get it right, and anomalies occur. -
Contributions to Philosophy Incommensurability
Thomas Kuhn introduced the concept of incommensurability, which describes paradigms of the same subject that do not share a common measure. [youtube](https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=L70T4pQv7P8) -
Contributions to Philosophy Paradigm Shift
Thomas Kuhn introduced the term paradigm shift into our culture, the fundamental change in approach to past assumptions. -
Work at Princeton
M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Philosophy and History of Science -
Work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at MIT -
Thomas Kuhn
Died Jun 17th, 1996, at the age of 73 of throat and lung cancer. -
References
“Thomas Kuhn - Biography, Facts and Pictures.” Famousscientists.org, 2017, www.famousscientists.org/thomas-kuhn/.