Thomas Kuhn

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Thomas Samuel Kuhn (July 18 1922-June 17 1996) wrote extensively on the history of science and developed several important notions in the philosophy of science.

Kuhn obtained his Ph.D in physics from Harvard University in 1949 and taught a course in the history of science at Harvard from 1948 to 1956. After leaving Harvard, Kuhn taught at the University of California, Berkeley until 1964, at Princeton University until 1979 and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) until 1991.

Kuhn is most famous for his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR), in which he presented the idea that science does not evolve gradually toward truth, but instead undergoes periodic revolutions which he calls paradigm shifts.

Selected works

  • Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962 - ISBN 0226458083.