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Birth
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born on 18 July 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kuhn's father, Samuel Louis Kuhn, worked as an industrial engineer and investment consultant, graduated from Harvard and MIT, and was a veteran of World War One. His mother, Minette Kuhn, was a graduate of Vassar College who wrote unpaid articles for progressive organizations, was a freelance editor, and was a patron of the arts. -
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Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)
Thomas S. Kuhn was an American philosopher and historian. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions he introduced the concept of a paradigm shift through the process of the scientific revolution. -
Harvard
Kuhn attended college at Harvard in the fall of 1940. After some initial doubt, he scored a C on his first exam. He graduated summa cum laude in 1943. Along with his studies, he spent his final year as head of the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson, the college newspaper. After World War Two, Kuhn returned to Harvard, earning his Masters in physics in 1949 and his Ph.D. in the history of science in 1949. -
Off to War
In the summer of 1943, Kuhn joined the Radio Research Laboratory's theoretical group. Working out of Harvard, he was tasked with devising countermeasures against enemy radar. Shortly after that, he continued his work in the United Kingdom. Later he would travel with the Royal Air Force into France and then Germany studying captured German radar installations. -
History of Science
In 1951 Kuhn began teaching the history of science at Harvard. In 1956 he accepted a teaching position at the University of California, Berkey as an assistant professor in the Philosophy and History Departments. In 1958 he was promoted to associate professor and given tenure. In the fall of 1958, he began a one-year fellowship at Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study. It was here where he started to write his most significant work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. -
Kuhn's Paradigm Shift
In 1962 Kuhn published his most influential work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In the book, Kuhn outlined his scientific revolution and paradigm change ideas. He separated the process of scientific revolution into multiple phases, ending in a paradigm shift. The video linked below gives a quick explanation of a paradigm along with the process of a scientific revolution.
Paradigm Explanation -
MIT
In 1964, Kuhn left Berkeley and moved to Princeton University as the M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Philosophy and History of science. Then in 1979, He became the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Kuhn would remain at MIT until his retirement in 1991. -
Death
Thomas Kuhn passed away at age 73 on June 17, 1996. He was diagnosed with throat and lung cancer two years earlier.
