NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Kuhnian

Thomas Samuel Kuhn (pronounced [kuːn])(July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American intellectual who wrote extensively on the history of science and developed several important notions in the philosophy of science. It has been suggested that Contemporary philosophy be merged into this article or section. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... is the 199th day of the year (200th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Cincinnati, Ohio viewed from the SW, across the Ohio River from Kentucky. ... Official language(s) None Capital Columbus Largest city Columbus Largest metro area Cleveland Area Ranked 34th - Total 44,825 sq mi (116,096 kmÂ²) - Width 220 miles (355 km) - Length 220 miles (355 km) - % water 8. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 168th day of the year (169th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ... Philosophy of science is the study of assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, especially in the natural sciences and social sciences. ... Piaget, by AndrÃ© Koehne Jean Piaget [] (August 9, 1896 â€“ September 16, 1980) was a Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental psychologist, well known for his work studying children and his theory of cognitive development. ... Michael Polanyi (March 11, 1891 - February 22, 1976) was a Hungarian/ British polymath whose thought and work extended across physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. ... Paul Karl Feyerabend (January 13, 1924 â€“ February 11, 1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (1958-1989). ... Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 â€“ January 7, 1995) was an influential American economist, historian and natural law theorist belonging to the Austrian School of Economics who helped define modern libertarianism. ... Philosophy of science is the study of assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, especially in the natural sciences and social sciences. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the â€œInternational Phonetic Alphabetâ€. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... is the 199th day of the year (200th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... is the 168th day of the year (169th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by a global community of researchers making use of a body of techniques known as the scientific method, emphasizing the observation, experimentation and scientific explanation of real world phenomena. ... Philosophy of science is the study of assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, especially in the natural sciences and social sciences. ...

Life

He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Samuel L. Kuhn, an industrial engineer, and Minette Stroock Kuhn. He obtained his bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in 1943, and master's and Ph.D in 1946 and 1949, respectively. He later taught a course in the history of science at Harvard from 1948 until 1956 at the suggestion of university president James Conant. After leaving Harvard, Kuhn taught at the University of California, Berkeley, in both the philosophy department and the history department, being named Professor of the History of Science in 1961. At Berkeley, he wrote and published (in 1962) his best known and most influential work: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In 1964 he joined Princeton University as the M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Philosophy and History of Science. In 1979 he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy, remaining there until 1991. In 1994 he was diagnosed with cancer of the bronchial tubes, of which he died in 1996. This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... James Bryant Conant James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 - February 11, 1978) was a chemist, educational administrator, and government official. ... Sather tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ... Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by a global community of researchers making use of a body of techniques known as the scientific method, emphasizing the observation, experimentation and scientific explanation of real world phenomena. ... Princeton University is a private coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States of America. ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private, coeducational research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Laurance Spelman Rockefeller (May 26, 1910 - July 11, 2004) was a financier, philanthropist, and conservationist. ... Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ... A bronchus (plural bronchi, adjective bronchial) is a caliber of airways in the the respiratory tract that conducts air into the lungs. ...

Kuhn was married twice, first to Kathryn Muhs (by whom he had three children) and later to Jehane Barton (Jahane R. Kuhn).

Honors

Kuhn was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1954, and in 1982 was awarded the George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society. He was also awarded numerous honorary doctorates. Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded annually by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... The History of Science Society (HSS) is the primary professional society for the academic study of the history of science, founded in 1924 by George Sarton. ...

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

InThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR) (1962) Kuhn argued that science does not progress via a linear accumulation of new knowledge, but undergoes periodic revolutions that he called "paradigm shifts", in which the nature of scientific inquiry within a particular field is abruptly transformed. In general, science is broken up into three distinct stages. Prescience, which lacks a central paradigm, comes first. This is followed by "normal science", when scientists attempt to enlarge the central paradigm by "puzzle-solving". Thus, the failure of a result to conform to the paradigm is seen not as refuting the paradigm, but as the mistake of the researcher, contra Popper's refutability criterion. As anomalous results build up, science reaches a crisis, at which point a new paradigm, which subsumes the old results along with the anomalous results into one framework, is accepted. This is termed revolutionary science. In SSR, Kuhn also argues that rival paradigms are incommensurable—that is, it is not possible to understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another rival paradigm. For many critics, this thesis seemed to entail that theory choice is fundamentally irrational: if rival theories cannot be directly compared, then one cannot make a rational choice as to which one is better. Whether or not Kuhn's views had such relativistic consequences is the subject of much debate; Kuhn himself denied the accusation of relativism in the 3rd edition of SSR, and sought to clarify his views to avoid further misinterpretation. Freeman Dyson has quoted Kuhn as saying "I am not a Kuhnian!"^[1], referring to the relativism that some philosophers have developed based on his work. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. ... Normal science is a concept originated by Thomas Samuel Kuhn and elaborated in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. ... Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS, FBA, (July 28, 1902 â€“ September 17, 1994), was an Austrian and British[1] philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. ... // Commensurability in general Generally, two quantities are commensurable if both can be measured in the same units. ... In philosophy: Irrationality In music: Irrational rhythm In economics: Irrational exuberance In mathematics: Irrational number Proof that e is irrational Quadratic irrational List of integrals of irrational functions See also: rational This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same... Compare Moral relativism, Aesthetic relativism, Social constructionism and Cultural relativism. ... Freeman John Dyson (born December 15, 1923) is a British-born American physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum mechanics, solid-state physics, nuclear weapons design and policy, and for his serious theorizing in futurism and science fiction concepts, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. ... Compare Moral relativism, Aesthetic relativism, Social constructionism and Cultural relativism. ...

The book was originally printed as an article in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, published by the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. The International Encyclopedia of Unified Science (volumes of which are titled Fundamentals of Unified Science or FUS) was produced to address the growing concern throughout the world for the logic, the history, and the sociology of science. ... Logical positivism grew from the discussions of Moritz Schlicks Vienna Circle and Hans Reichenbachs Berlin Circle in the 1920s and 1930s. ... Moritz Schlick around 1930 The Vienna Circle (in German: der Wiener Kreis) was a group of philosophers who gathered around Moritz Schlick when he was called to the Vienna University in 1922, organized in a philosophical association named Verein Ernst Mach (Ernst Mach Society). ...

The enormous impact of Kuhn's work can be measured in the changes it brought about in the vocabulary of the philosophy of science: besides "paradigm shift", Kuhn raised the word "paradigm" itself from a term used in certain forms of linguistics to its current broader meaning, coined the term "normal science" to refer to the relatively routine, day-to-day work of scientists working within a paradigm, and was largely responsible for the use of the term "scientific revolutions" in the plural, taking place at widely different periods of time and in different disciplines, as opposed to a single "Scientific Revolution" in the late Renaissance. Since the late 1960s, the word paradigm (IPA: ) has referred to a thought pattern in any scientific discipline or other epistemological context. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... Normal science is a concept originated by Thomas Samuel Kuhn and elaborated in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. ... Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. ... The Renaissance (French for rebirth, or Rinascimento in Italian), was a cultural movement in Italy (and in Europe in general) that began in the late Middle Ages, and spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th century. ...

Kuhn's work has been extensively used in social science; for instance, in the post-positivist/positivist debate within International Relations. Kuhn is credited as a foundational force behind the post-Mertonian Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. In the philosophy of science, the term post-positivist has been used in two ways: 1) To refer to scientific philosophies that arose after, and in reaction to, positivism. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box: International relations (IR), a branch of political science, is the study of foreign affairs and global issues among states within the international system, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). ... Editing Robert K. Merton This article is about the sociologist. ... The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), closely related to the sociology of science, considers social influences on science. ...

Trivia

Niels (Henrik David) Bohr (October 7, 1885 â€“ November 18, 1962) was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1922. ...

Bibliography

Steve Fuller in 2005. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity:1894-1912 is a book by Thomas S. Kuhn, the philosopher and historian of science better known for The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. ...

References

is the 126th day of the year (127th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ...

See also

The history and philosophy of science (HPS) is an academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the history of science. ... John L. Heilbron was an American historian of science and academic. ...

External links

Categories: American historians | American philosophers | Harvard University alumni | Historians of science | Jewish historians | Jewish philosophers | Lung cancer deaths | Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty | People from Cincinnati | Philosophers of science | Princeton University faculty | 20th century philosophers | University of California, Berkeley faculty | 1922 births | 1996 deaths is the 170th day of the year (171st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 177th day of the year (178th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... The philosopher Socrates about to take poison hemlock as ordered by the court. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Western philosophy is a modern claim that there is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in ancient Greece (Greek philosophy) and the ancient Near East (the Abrahamic religions), that continues to this day. ... The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. ... This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, although for Western thinkers prior to Socrates, see Pre-Socratic philosophy. ... Philosophy seated between the seven liberal arts â€“ Picture from the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad von Landsberg (12th century) Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Europe and the Middle East in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Roman... 17th-century philosophy in the West is generally regarded as seeing the start of modern philosophy, and the shaking off of the mediÃ¦val approach, especially scholasticism. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Philosophy is a broad field of knowledge in which the definition of knowledge itself is one of the subjects investigated. ... This page aims to list articles on Wikipedia that are related to philosophy, beginning with the letters A through C. This is so that those interested in the subject can monitor changes to the pages by clicking on Related changes in the sidebar. ... The alphabetical list of philosophers is so large it had to be broken up into several pages. ... Philosophies: particular schools of thought, styles of philosophy, or descriptions of philosophical ideas attributed to a particular group or culture - listed in alphabetical order. ... This is a list of topics relating to philosophy that end in -ism. ... A philosophical movement is either the appearance or increased popularity of a specific school of philosophy, or a fairly broad but identifiable sea-change in philosophical thought on a particular subject. ... This is a list of philosophical lists. ... The Parthenons facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles in its proportions. ... Ethics (via Latin from the Ancient Greek moral philosophy, from the adjective of Ä“thos custom, habit), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of values and customs of a person or group. ... It has been suggested that Meta-epistemology be merged into this article or section. ... Logic (from Classical Greek Î»ÏŒÎ³Î¿Ï‚ logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... Plato (Left) and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box: Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what... The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. ... The philosophy of information (PI) is a new area of research, which studies conceptual issues arising at the intersection of computer science, information technology, and philosophy. ... Philosophy of History is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of human history. ... Philosophical anthropology is the discipline that seeks to unify the several empirical investigations of human nature in an effort to understand individuals as both creatures of their environment and creators of their own values. ... Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence which studies basic questions about law and legal systems, such as what is the law?, what are the criteria for legal validity?, what is the relationship between law and morality?, and many other similar questions. ... Philosophy and literature is the literary treatment of philosophers and philosophical themes. ... // Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. ... A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ... Metaphilosophy (from Greek meta + philosophy) is the study of the subject and matter, methods and aims of philosophy. ... Philosophy of physics is the study of the fundamental, philosophical questions underlying modern physics, the study of matter and energy and how they interact. ... Philosophy of psychology typically refers to a set of issues at the theoretical foundations of modern psychology. ... Philosophy of science is the study of assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, especially in the natural sciences and social sciences. ... Philosophy of social science is the scholarly elucidation and debate of accounts of the nature of the social sciences, their relations to each other, and their relations to the natural sciences (see natural science). ... The Philosophy of technology is a philosophical field dedicated to studying the nature of technology and its social effects. ... The Philosophy of war examines war beyond the typical questions of weaponry and strategy, inquiring into the meaning and etiology of war, what war means for humanity and human nature as well as the ethics of war. ... Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ... Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. ... Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major traditions of modern Western philosophy. ... Critical theory, in sociology and philosophy, is shorthand for critical theory of society or critical social theory, a label used by the Frankfurt School, i. ... Deconstruction is a term in contemporary philosophy, literary criticism, and the social sciences, denoting a process by which the texts and languages of Western philosophy (in particular) appear to shift and complicate in meaning when read in light of the assumptions and absences they reveal within themselves. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ... According to many followers of the theories of Karl Marx (or Marxists), dialectical materialism is the philosophical basis of Marxism. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas. ... Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus (c. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement which claims that individual human beings create the meanings of their own lives. ... Hegelianism is a philosophy developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel which can be summed up by a favorite motto by Hegel, the rational alone is real, which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. ... Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. ... Humanism[1] is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualitiesâ€”particularly rationality. ... This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedias quality standards. ... â€œKantâ€ redirects here. ... Logical positivism grew from the discussions of Moritz Schlicks Vienna Circle and Hans Reichenbachs Berlin Circle in the 1920s and 1930s. ... Marxism takes its name from the praxis (the synthesis of philosophy and political action) of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ... The Monad was a symbol referred by the Greek philosophers as The First, The Seed, The Essence, The Builder, and The Foundation Monism is the metaphysical and theological view that all is one, that there are no fundamental divisions, and a unified set of laws underlie nature. ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists. ... The New Philosophers (French nouveaux philosophes) were a group of French philosophers (for example, André Glucksmann and Bernard Henri-Lévy) who appeared in the early 1970s, as critics of the previously-fashionable philosophers (roughly speaking, the post-structuralists). ... Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical position which argues that the world, especially past and current human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article is about the philosophical movement. ... Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. ... // Positivism is a philosophy that states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. ... Postmodern philosophy is an eclectic and elusive movement characterized by its criticism of Western philosophy. ... Post-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand the Western world as a network of structures, as in structuralism, but in which such structures are ordered primarily by local, shifting differences (as in deconstruction) rather than grand binary oppositions and... Pragmatism is a philosophic school that originated in the late nineteenth century with Charles Sanders Peirce, who first stated the pragmatic maxim. ... The Pre-Socratic philosophers were active before Socrates or contemporaneously, but expounding knowledge developed earlier. ... In epistemology and in its broadest sense, rationalism is any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification (Lacey 286). ... Contemporary philosophical realism, also referred to as metaphysical realism, is the belief in a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. ... Compare Moral relativism, Aesthetic relativism, Social constructionism and Cultural relativism. ... Scholasticism comes from the Latin word scholasticus, which means that [which] belongs to the school, and is the school of philosophy taught by the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100â€“1500. ... Philosophical scepticism (UK spelling, scepticism) is both a philosophical school of thought and a method that crosses disciplines and cultures. ... A restored Stoa in Athens. ... Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ... Utilitarianism (1861), see Utilitarianism (book). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

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