The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas Kuhn, 1962) is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of knowledge, and popularized the terms paradigm and paradigm shift.

Related Topics:
Thomas Kuhn - 1962 - History of science - Sociology of knowledge - Paradigm - Paradigm shift

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The book was initially published as a monograph in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, then as a book by University of Chicago Press in 1962 (ISBN 0-226-45808-3). (All page numbers below refer to the third edition of the text, 1996). In 1969, Kuhn added a postscript to the book in which he replied to critical responses to the first edition of the book.

Related Topics:
Monograph - University of Chicago - 1962 - 1996 - 1969

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Kuhn traced the origin of the book to 1947, when he was a graduate student at Harvard University and had been asked to teach a science class for humanities undergraduates, with the focus being historical case studies. Kuhn later said that, until then, "I'd never read an old document in science." Aristotle's Physics was astonishingly unlike Isaac Newton's work in its concepts of matter and motion. Kuhn concluded that Aristotle's concepts were not "bad Newton" but, rather, simply different.

Related Topics:
1947 - Harvard University - Science - Aristotle - Isaac Newton

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