-
Thomas Samuel Kuhn started his career in physics and transitioned into the history of science. In 1946 he graduated from Harvard with a master's degree in physics and furthered his education with his doctorate in 1949.
-
From the years 1951 to 1956, Kuhn taught a science class for undergraduates that focused on historical case studies at Harvard University. This led to his interest in philosophy of science. During this time, he became enchanted by works of Aristotle where he focused on 18th century matter theory and early history of thermodynamics. Later in the year 1956 he moved to teach a history of science class in the philosophy department at the University of California at Berkeley
-
Kuhn took an interest in astronomy and published The Copernican Revolution, his first book. In this book he studied the heliocentric theory of the solar system and how it developed. He stated that Copernicus' theory and book was "a revolution-making rather than a revolutionary text." Kuhn also stated that "Copernicus' model was no more accurate and simpler in its portrayal of heavenly bodies than the previous system devised by Ptolemy."(Kuhn 1957)
-
In 1962, Kuhn published his second book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This is one of the most used academic books. In this book he develops the theory that the world of science is defined by paradigms. He argues that science does not evolve gradually and then expose a truth, but instead has a paradigm that is a constant before undergoing a shift when certain theories cannot be explained and a new theory is then proposed.
-
Thomas Kuhn questioned the traditional way of scientific thinking being a gradual collection of information. Traditional scientific ways were usually accepting of theories that were already set in place and just grew from that rather than new thoughts. He argued that the paradigm led to which scientific research and experiments were being done.
-
From Kuhn's book, developed The Kuhn Cycle which is a simple cycle of progress. There are five main steps after the concept of pre-science: normal science, model drift, model crisis, model revolution, and paradigm shift. https://youtu.be/Yn8cCDtVd5w
-
Bird, Alexander, "Thomas Kuhn", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/thomas-kuhn/.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957. Print.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962. Print
