Thomas S. Kuhn

A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were—and still are. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,” as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age. This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science.

For scientist and layman alike this book provides vivid evidence that the Copernican Revolution has by no means lost its significance today. Few episodes in the development of scientific theory show so clearly how the solution to a highly technical problem can alter our basic thought processes and attitudes. Understanding the processes which underlay the Revolution gives us a perspective, in this scientific age, from which to evaluate our own beliefs more intelligently. With a constant keen awareness of the inseparable mixture of its technical, philosophical, and humanistic elements, Mr. Kuhn displays the full scope of the Copernican Revolution as simultaneously an episode in the internal development of astronomy, a critical turning point in the evolution of scientific thought, and a crisis in Western man's concept of his relation to the universe and to God. The book begins with a description of the first scientific cosmology developed by the Greeks. Mr. Kuhn thus prepares the way for a continuing analysis of the relation between theory and observation and belief. He describes the many functions--astronomical, scientific, and nonscientific--of the Greek concept of the universe, concentrating especially on the religious implications. He then treats the intellectual, social, and economic developments which nurtured Copernicus' break with traditional astronomy. Although many of these developments, including scholastic criticism of Aristotle's theory of motion and the Renaissance revival of Neoplatonism, lie entirely outside of astronomy, they increased the flexibility of the astronomer's imagination. That new flexibility is apparent in the work of Copernicus, whose DE REVOLUTIONIBUS ORBIUM CAELESTIUM is discussed in detail both for its own significance and as a representative scientific innovation. With a final analysis of Copernicus' life work--its reception and its contribution to a new scientific concept of the universe--Mr. Kuhn illuminates both the researches that finally made the heliocentric arrangement work, and the achievements in physics and metaphysics that made the planetary earth an integral part of Newtonian science. These are the developments that once again provided man with a coherent and self-consistent conception of the universe and of his own place in it. This is a book for any reader interested in the evolution of ideas and, in particular, in the curious interplay of hypothesis and experiment which is the essence of modern science. Says James Bryant Conant in his "Professor Kuhn's handling of the subject merits attention, for... he points the way to the road which must be followed if science is to be assimilated into the culture of our times."

"Kuhn has the unmistakable address of a man, who, so far from wanting to score points, is anxious above all else to get at the truth of matters."—Sir Peter Medawar, Nature

Thomas Kuhn will undoubtedly be remembered primarily for The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , a book that introduced one of the most influential conceptions of scientific progress to emerge during the twentieth century. The Road Since Structure , assembled with Kuhn's input before his death in 1996, follows the development of his thought through the later years of his life: collected here are several essays extending and rethinking the perspectives of Structure as well as an extensive, fascinating autobiographical interview in which Kuhn discusses the course of his life and philosophy.

"A masterly assessment of the way the idea of quanta of radiation became part of 20th-century physics. . . . The book not only deals with a topic of importance and interest to all scientists, but is also a polished literary work, described (accurately) by one of its original reviewers as a scientific detective story."—John Gribbin, New Scientist"Every scientist should have this book."—Paul Davies, New Scientist

Ya han pasado más de treinta años desde la publicación de La estructura de las revoluciones científicas, de T. S. Kuhn. Fue y sigue siendo una obra fundamental para la historiografía de la ciencia. Pero, además, fue la que causó mayor impacto en la filosofía de la ciencia vigente entonces. Desde 1962 hasta hoy, Kuhn ha conseguido mantener el interés de sus críticos y de sus renovados enfoques. Lo cual pone de manifiesto dos cosas. La primera es la centralidad de las cuestiones que propone, incluso para sus oponentes y cualquiera que sea la perspectiva que éstos usen. La segunda, que supuestos esenciales que, al margen de otros personales, subyacían al rechazo de Popper en 1965 a la propuesta de Kuhn respecto al tipo de investigación a desarrollar, siguen condicionando el diálogo en la filosofía de la ciencia. A lo largo de esta dilatada polémica, Kuhn parece haber ido transformando lo que se presentaba como problemas distintos en distintos aspectos de una mismo problema. Mientras que previamente nos hablaba de proyectos de sociología de un progresivo desplazamiento hacia cuestiones centradas en el lenguaje. Los artículos que aquí presentamos constituyen una muestra de ello y el estadio más reciente de su evolución. La introducción ha corrido a cargo de Antonio Beltrán, profesor titular de Historia de la Ciencia en la Universidad de Barcelona.

A must-read follow-up to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , one of the most important books of the twentieth century. This book contains the text of Thomas S. Kuhn’s unfinished book, The Plurality of An Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development , which Kuhn himself described as a return to the central claims of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and the problems that it raised but did not resolve. The Plurality of Worlds is preceded by two related texts that Kuhn publicly delivered but never published in his paper “Scientific Knowledge as Historical Product” and his Shearman Memorial Lectures, “The Presence of Past Science.” An introduction by the editor describes the origins and structure of The Plurality of Worlds and sheds light on its central philosophical problems. Kuhn’s aims in his last writings are bold. He sets out to develop an empirically grounded theory of meaning that would allow him to make sense of both the possibility of historical understanding and the inevitability of incommensurability between past and present science. In his view, incommensurability is fully compatible with a robust notion of the real world that science investigates, the rationality of scientific change, and the idea that scientific development is progressive.

Il testo di Thomas Kuhn, fisico, storico e filosofo della scienza, segue le tappe più importanti dell'evoluzione di un pensiero che si è imposto come uno dei più rilevanti nel dibattito epistemologico del '900. Secondo Kuhn, da Copernico a Darwin, da Newton ad Einstein, il dogma, più che lo spirito critico, sembra reggere il mondo della ricerca. Senza l'attaccamento tenace alle idee predilette, senza una sorta di culto della personalità dei grandi maestri, non sarebbe nata neanche la scienza di oggi, quella dei grandi laboratori, dei telescopi orbitanti o degli sconvolgenti prodotti delle biotecnologie.

pp. 347–69 in A. C. Crombie (ed.). Scientific Change (Symposium on the History of Science, University of Oxford, 9–15 July 1961).

Ciência - Aspectos sociais

Kuhns Monographie ›Die Struktur wissenschaftlicher Revolutionen‹ von 1962 ist ein Klassiker der Wissenschaftstheorie. Der dort erstmals von Kuhn definierte Begriff des »Paradigmenwechsels« hat weit über die Philosophie hinaus Karriere gemacht und wurde kontrovers diskutiert. In scharfer Abgrenzung zu Popper beschreibt Kuhn in seinem Aufsatz ›Logic of Discovery‹ die Geschichte der Wissenschaft nicht als stetigen Fortschritt, sondern als geprägt von Umbrüchen: Auf eine Phase der »Normalwissenschaft« folgt eine Krise. Das gemeinsam vereinbarte Paradigma wird angezweifelt und schließlich in einer wissenschaftlichen Revolution durch ein neues ersetzt.Der Band bietet den Originaltext, eine neue Übersetzung sowie einen Kommentar, der den Argumentationsgang und seine Weiterentwicklung rekonstruiert und die Rolle verdeutlicht, die Kuhns Text bis heute spielt.

Madrid. 22 cm. 89 p. il. Encuadernación en tapa blanda de editorial. Traducción del inglés por Diego Ribes. Contiene ademá Ejemplares, teorías y matrices disciplinares / [por] Frederick Suppo. Referencias bibliográficas. Ciencia. Filosofía .. Este libro es de segunda mano y tiene o puede tener marcas y señales de su anterior propietario. 8430907637

Il volume contiene il testo del libro incompiuto di Thomas Kuhn La pluralità dei mondi. Una teoria evoluzionistica dello sviluppo scientifico, che Kuhn stesso ha descritto come un ritorno alle tesi centrali di La struttura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche e ai problemi che quest’opera fondamentale ha sollevato ma non risolto. La pluralità dei mondi è preceduto da due testi a esso relativi, presentati in pubblico ma mai dati alle “La conoscenza scientifica come prodotto storico” e “La presenza della scienza del passato”. Gli obiettivi che Kuhn si pone, in questi ultimi scritti, non sono da poco. Egli intende sviluppare una teoria del significato empiricamente fondata, che gli permetterebbe di dare senso sia alla possibilità stessa della comprensione storica sia all’inevitabile incommensurabilità fra la scienza del passato e quella attuale. A suo modo di vedere, l’incommensurabilità è pienamente compatibile con un concetto forte del mondo reale indagato dalla scienza, con la razionalità del cambiamento scientifico e con l’idea che lo sviluppo scientifico sia progressivo.

Dopo la pubblicazione della sua opera più celebre, "La struttura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche" (1962), Thonias Ruhn ribadì i principi fondamentali della sua teoria in una serie di interventi. È ciò che fa anche in questo piccolo libro, destinato all'ampio pubblico dei non specialisti e tuttora inedito in italiano. L'autore vi sostiene che il cammino della scienza verso la verità non procede per gradi, ma è soggetto periodicamente a rivoluzioni che comportano un mutamento del paradigma di riferimento, cioè dell'insieme di teorie, leggi e strumenti universalmente accettati. Il cuore del volume è dedicato alla presentazione di tre esempi di cambiamento scientifico il passaggio dalla concezione aristotelica del moto a quella newtoniana; il passaggio dalla teoria delle forze di contatto a quella chimica per spiegare la pila di Volta; infine il passaggio dalla derivazione di Planck della legge sulla radiazione di corpo nero a quella comunemente adottata oggi. Tre momenti cruciali nella storia della scienza, che Ruhn illustra con grande chiarezza e semplicità, per poi definire su questa base i tratti comuni che individuano la categoria di "rivoluzione scientifica".

Before he wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn wrote The Quest for Physical Theory--a series of eight lectures that examine the nature of scientific knowledge, how it is created, and how it changes through time. Commissioned as public lectures in 1951 by Boston's Lowell Institute, The Quest for Physical Theory adopts the historical approach Kuhn would later refine in Structure. He surveys the history of physics from Aristotle to Newton, of atomism from antiquity to modern chemistry, and he examines the concepts of fields and subtle fluids a creative metaphors that guide research. In the last four lectures, he turns to logic and philosophy, psychology, and theories of language to explain the workings of “creative science” that are typically ignored by textbooks and many influential philosophers of science.