Thomas Kuhn

By Alexx Lopezz
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    Thomas Kuhn

  • “The Copernican Revolution”

    Thomas Kuhn started his educational focus on physics. He completed his doctorate degree in physics in 1949. He spent the following years teaching a science class in humanities where he had the opportunity to study historical science. He then turned to the history of astronomy which led to publishing his first book, “The Copernican Revolution”, in 1957. Citation: Kuhn, Thomas S. Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Harvard University Press, 1957.

  • “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”

    By 1961, Kuhn was a full time professor at the University of California, Berkeley. There he was introduced to the works of Wittgenstein and Paul Feyerabend. In 1962, he published his most influential book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. That book is where he introduced the idea of paradigms, or periods of normal science. Citation: Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. University Of Chicago Press, 1962.

  • “Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge”

    In 1965, there was an International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science held in London which Kuhn had a major role in. At the colloquium, Kuhn’s viewpoints were discussed in comparison to Karl Popper’s. This ultimately showed Kuhn’s significance in the philosophical community and led to papers titled, “Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge”, in 1970. Citation: Kuhn, Thomas S. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by Alan Musgrave and Imre Lakatos, Cambridge University Press, 1970.

  • “The Essential Tension”

    The collection of Kuhn’s essays titled “The Essential Tension”, involving philosophy and the history of science, was published in 1977. In 1978, he published his last work titled “Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity”. This work was his second historical monograph which discussed the history of quantum mechanics. Citation: Kuhn, Thomas S. The Essential Tension. University of Chicago Press, 1977. Link: https://youtu.be/sOGZEZ96ynI?si=UDzGfJVGRqias9dj