BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Kuhn Philosopher's Biography

Thomas Kuhn Philosopher's Biography

Introduction

Thomas Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish family, moved to New York when Thomas was 6 months. His father, Samuel L. Kuhn, was a hydraulic engineer, a graduate of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his mother, Minett Kuhn (nee Struck), worked as an editor.

He studied theoretical physics at Harvard University, where in 1949 he defended his doctoral thesis. He taught at Harvard since 1949, since 1957 in Princeton. From 1968 to 1979 served as a professor at Princeton University until his retirement in 1991 (Kuhn 2000, pp. 450). The timeline of Kuhn life is as follows:

1943 - Graduated from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree in physics.

During the Second World War has been defined for civil works in the Office of Research and Development (the Office of Scientific Research and Development).

1946 - Harvard received a master's degree (master's degree) in physics.

1947 - The beginning of formation of the basic thesis: "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and "paradigm".

1948-1956 - held various teaching positions at Harvard, he taught history of science.

1949 - Harvard Ph.D. in physics.

1957 - Taught at Princeton.

1961 - Worked as a professor at the Department of History of Science, University of California at Berkeley.

1964-1979 - worked as a university faculty at Princeton, he taught history and philosophy of science.

1979-1991 - Professor at MIT.

1983-1991 - professor of philosophy at the Lawrence S. Rockefeller in the same institute.

1991 - Retired.

1994 - In Kuhn was diagnosed with cancer of bronchi.

1996 - Thomas Kuhn died.

Discussion

Scientific Activities

The first methodological concept which has received wide recognition based on the study of history of science was the concept of an American historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn fame brought the second of the books he wrote - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962. This book which deals with the theory that science should not be seen as constantly evolving and accumulating knowledge toward truth, but as the phenomenon of passing through periodic revolution, called in his terms “paradigm shift. Initially, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" was published as an article for the “International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, published by the Vienna Circle of logical positivists.

Progress in the Scientific Revolution

His ideas were born during the period of teaching at Harvard, when the author researched the origins of the theoretical mechanics of the 17th century. Kuhn found that the physics of Aristotle was not at the preparatory phase for the physics of Galileo and Newton (Kuhn 1962, pp. 24).

Analyzing the revolution in science, Kuhn suggests that the history of science was not a linear process of accumulation of knowledge; rather it is the alternation of periods of "normal science" and denies its revolutionary science. Thus, Aristotle's physics to function as a model ("Paradigm") normal science from classical antiquity to the late Middle Ages, and during this period, she asked the conceptual tools and the basic direction of scientific ...