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Thomas Kuhn July 18, 1922
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents, John Timothy Kuhn, a lawyer, and Mary Clara (Holtzheimer) Kuhn, a high school teacher, both descended from German immigrant families. Kuhn attended Cincinnati public schools and earned his Swarthmore Preparatory School diploma in 1940. Enrolled at Harvard University to study mathematics and physics. He entered in the U.S.N. in 1943 after getting his B.A. in physics and served as a radio technician in the Pacific theater of WWII. -
Thomas Kuhn's Graduate Work and Early Professional Life
Kuhn returned to Harvard on the G.I. Bill following the war and started work on his physics Ph.D. there. The development of the concept of physical momentum in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the subject of his dissertation for his Ph.D. in 1948, after which he quickly changed his focus to the history of science. Later, Kuhn took a number of temporary teaching jobs at numerous other schools, among them are Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard and Berkeley's Un.. -
The Release of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
His most well-known book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was released by Kuhn in 1962. His dissertation served as the basis for the book, which also drew from his teaching experiences and readings in the philosophy of science. In The Structure, Kuhn made the case that the history of science is actually a series of "scientific revolutions" interspersed by eras of "normal science," rather than a continuous march of accumul... -
Later Works and Legacy of Kuhn
Kuhn continued to work on the philosophy of science in the years after the release of The Structure, and he also developed a growing interest in the sociology of science. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was appointed professor of philosophy and history of science in 1970. He held this position until he retired in 1991. At the age of 74, he passed away from cancer on October 17, 1996.