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Thomas Kuhn

American historian, physicist and philosopher (1922 - 1996) · United States · Scientists · Died at 73

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He gave us "paradigm shift" - and then spent decades watching people misuse it. Kuhn argued that science doesn't crawl forward; it jolts, breaks, reinvents its own rules when the old framework can't hold the contradictions anymore.

AcademicsScientistPhysicsPhilosophyHistoryUnited StatesAmericas20th Century

A life in dates

1996Died17 June 19961983John Desmond Bernal PrizeAward1982George Sarton MedalAward1970“If a demarcation criterion exists (we must not, I think, seek a sharp or decisive one), it may lie just in that part of science which Sir Karl ignores.”In their words"Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970)

“Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers.”In their words"Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970)

“I suggest that scientific knowledge, though logically more articulate and far more complex, is of this sort.”In their words"Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970)

1954Guggenheim FellowshipAward1922Born18 July 1922

Also in Deutsch

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In their own words 10

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Thomas Kuhn
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10 statements, newest first

  1. If a demarcation criterion exists (we must not, I think, seek a sharp or decisive one), it may lie just in that part of science which Sir Karl ignores.

    1970, "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970), Own words

  2. Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers.

    1970, "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970), Own words

  3. I suggest that scientific knowledge, though logically more articulate and far more complex, is of this sort.

    1970, "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970), Own words

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Awards

John Desmond Bernal Prize1983
George Sarton Medal1982
Guggenheim Fellowship1954
Honorary Doctor of the University of Padua

Family

Thomas Kuhn

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About this person

Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born July 18, 1922, and trained as a physicist before turning to the history and philosophy of science. In 1962 he published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which upended the tidy story of science as steady accumulation. Kuhn claimed that fields lurch through "paradigm shifts" - wholesale breaks where new approaches open and old certainties lose their grip - and that scientific truth at any moment is defined not by pure objectivity but by the consensus of a community working inside shared assumptions. Competing paradigms, he argued, are often incommensurable: no clean translation of terms or worldviews, which means science can never escape the subjective conditioning of the people doing it. The book made "paradigm shift" an English idiom and rattled both labs and lecture halls. He died June 17, 1996.

Country
United States
Category
Scientists
Type
Scientist
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1922 to 1996 · aged 73

Scientists from the United States 6

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