Amazon.com
There's a "Frank & Ernest" comic strip showing a chick breaking out of its shell, looking around, and saying, "Oh, wow! Paradigm shift!" Blame the late Thomas Kuhn. Few indeed are the philosophers or historians influential enough to make it into the funny papers, but Kuhn is one.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is indeed a paradigmatic work in the history of science. Kuhn's use of terms such as "paradigm shift" and "normal science," his ideas of how scientists move from disdain through doubt to acceptance of a new theory, his stress on social and psychological factors in science--all have had profound effects on historians, scientists, philosophers, critics, writers, business gurus, and even the cartoonist in the street.
Some scientists (such as Steven Weinberg and Ernst Mayr) are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts--or the way his work has been used to cast doubt--on the idea of scientific progress. Yet it has been said that the acceptance of plate tectonics in the 1960s, for instance, was sped by geologists' reluctance to be on the downside of a paradigm shift. Even Weinberg has said that "Structure has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science." As one of Kuhn's obituaries noted, "We all live in a post-Kuhnian age." --Mary Ellen Curtin
Book Description
Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.
"A landmark in intellectual history which has attracted attention far
beyond its own immediate field. . . . It is written with a combination
of depth and clarity that make it an almost unbroken series of
aphorisms. . . . Kuhn does not permit truth to be a criterion of
scientific theories, he would presumably not claim his own theory to be
true. But if causing a revolution is the hallmark of a superior
paradigm, [this book] has been a resounding success." —Nicholas Wade,
Science
"Perhaps the best explanation of [the] process of discovery." —William
Erwin Thompson, New York Times Book Review
"Occasionally there emerges a book which has an influence far beyond its
originally intended audience. . . . Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions . . . has clearly emerged as just such a
work." —Ron Johnston, Times Higher Education Supplement
"Among the most influential academic books in this century." —
Choice
—One of "The Hundred Most Influential Books Since the Second World
War," Times Literary Supplement
Thomas S. Kuhn was the Laurence Rockefeller Professor Emeritus of
linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His books include The Essential Tension; Black-Body Theory and the
Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912; and The Copernican
Revolution.
Customer Reviews:
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.......2007-09-19
Frankly I found this book difficult to understand. It isn't hard to grasp the concept of the book, but forget trying to retain anything specific.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.......2007-08-06
I haven't read this book, so do not review the text, but say only that I bought it for a teacher in Meghalaya, India who is taking post-graduate studies and needs it for his own classes. He was extremely appreciative to receive this book and will use it to help him serve his community better.
The Paradigm of Paradigms.......2007-07-22
When a book has so many enthusiastic supporters and detractors, it's surely a classic. Kuhn delivered one of the all-time landmarks of the philosophy of science, with the potential to truly capture the interest of the informed layperson. However, it's far from foolproof, as if any work of philosophy could deliver ALL the answers. You can see many of the other reviews here for very specific critiques from the hardcore philosophy crowd. For the interested and educated general reader, Kuhn supplies an inherently fascinating historical focus on the way science has worked over the eons, and any reader could enjoy his highly plausible connections between the behavior of scientists and the structure of revolutions. He also gets credit for defining the term "paradigm" - which was once much more useful than today's trendy buzzword lovers could imagine.
However, I tend to agree with some of the biggest philosophical critiques of Kuhn's theory, particularly the fact that he was able to come up with very few examples of supposed scientific revolutions. Meanwhile, Kuhn's theory is completely at odds with the vast majority of scientific progress that is not necessarily "revolutionary." One could plausibly condemn Kuhn for coming up with his theory first, finding historical episodes that could be used as proof, and ignoring historical evidence that does not fit the theory. This is hardly the method followed by the groundbreaking scientists lauded by Kuhn. Also, while nobody should expect a work of philosophy to be generally accessible, Kuhn badly damages his interesting ideas with wooden prose that is nearly impenetrable, with entire sentences bordering on incomprehensibility. For example, "those questions will seem ever more urgent if we now note one respect in which the terms used so far may be misleading." In his introduction, Kuhn succeeds in obfuscating his major philosophical question to the point of absurdity, in asking "how could history of science fail to be a source of phenomena to which theories about knowledge may legitimately be asked to apply?" Kuhn immediately alienates many potentially fascinated general readers and sets himself up for severe criticism from the small body of professional philosophers who think that this kind of language is more insightful than the straight talk delivered by revolutionary scientists. [~doomsdayer520~]
A timeless classic!.......2007-07-09
Although written in 1962, this book is as valid now as ever, perhaps more so. Right now we are witnessing a paradigm shift. Move over Big Bang, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and mathematical anbstraction in general, and say hello to Plasma Cosmology and The Electric Universe!
Is this book proof that the world has gone mad?.......2007-06-05
Iconic? Absolutely. Influential? Undoubtedly. The source of an incredible amount of philosophical error and mischief? Yes - perhaps more so than any other book of the 20th century. Was this despite its many errors? I doubt it. I think it was precisely BECAUSE of its many errors it became so popular. But to explain...
The primary implication of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is that science has no, and should be granted no, privileged standing amongst competing methods of ascertaining reality. It claims that knowledge is "created" merely by "assent" (not *discovered*), and likens the replacement of one theory with another - like Newtonian physics with Einsteinian - to "religious conversion" (an act regard by most critical thinkers as the example par excellence of irrationality).
That being the case, it is no wonder that the book should have become so popular amongst members of the softer sciences, like sociology, philosophy, political science, history, etc., as well as amongst the clearly insane, like astrologers, religious lunatics, and palm readers. To quote Kuhn himself, "as in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice - there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community". Well, of course not, once it has been adopted as a premise that nothing about the world-in-itself can ever be known. All "facts", in that case, only become a matter of *what "relevant" people decide are, or should be, the "facts" (it is no wonder that Steve Fuller has been able to make the case for Kuhn as a Platonic [in the worst way] elitist. See Fuller's "Kuhn vs. Popper" or his "Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History For Our Times").
Kuhn also argues that the idea that there has been an accumulation of objective knowledge about the world is a myth. I can only hope that those readers who may have noticed the existence of electricity, cell phones, air flight, radios, immunizations, and about three billion other discoveries and inventions over the past few hundred years, will regard Kuhn's claims as as ludicrous as they deserve to be regarded.
For an unsparing (and frequently hilarious) critique of Kuhn's philosophy (and that of Popper, Feyerabend, and Lakatos), I strongly recommend "Scientific Irrationalism: Origins of a Post-Modern Cult", by the late University of Sydney philosopher David Stove.
I hope this review has been of benefit to someone.
Good luck in your studies.
Book Description
Here's the new, 10th Edition of the "bible" of pediatric radiology! Since 1945, this classic has offered comprehensive coverage of all areas of interest to the radiologist who deals with children. The title has been changed from Pediatric X-Ray Diagnosis to emphasize the new material included in this extensively revised version. This work is edited by Dr.Jerald Kuhn, the co-editor with Dr. Fred Silverman of the previous edition, and two new authorities, Dr. Thomas Slovis, former president of the Society for Pediatric Radiology, and Dr. Jack Haller. Over 30 contributors have added their expertise to nine sections of the new work.
Book Description
"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
Customer Reviews:
An extremely challenging book.......2005-08-24
Anyone who has learned quantum mechanics has been told, in a general way, what Planck did and how it fits into the history of quantum physics. Kuhn shows that Planck thought about his goals and his results very differently than do textbook writers today.
Warning! This is a very tough read:
- You will not get much out of this book unless you are able and willing to follow detailed arguments in thermodynamics and statistical physics, in fairly gory mathematical detail. Quantum history-lite this isn't!
- You will also not get much out of this book unless you are willing to relax about the "right" way of thinking about thermodynamics and quantum theory. However YOU may think about it, Planck thought about it differently -- and Kuhn attempts to follow his thought, zigging & zagging as he did. If you're not willing to follow along closely and attentively for the ride, you will miss the story.
The payoff from reading this book is a more vivid understanding and appreciation for how very very differently we think about physics than the way it physicists saw it 100 years ago.
All you wanted to know about q.m. but were afraid to ask.......2001-10-01
The solution to the blackbody radiation problem is often quoted in Physics books as the formal bridge between the classic and quantum world viewpoints. However, as Kuhn points out, the full solution and not just the answer is nowhere else to be found.
Well beyond the satisfaction that reading this book should present to any serious Quantum Physics related student it is an absoulte requirement in the History of Physics.
Yes, the mathematical arguments get quite dense and most are not trivial. However, little is needed beyond basic calculus, statiscal mechanics and thermodynamics. View this as an excellent excuse to get going in those areas.
If every time you hear something about the beginnings of q.m. something stirs in your guts telling you that something is not quite right about the story you're being fed, that the full story isn't being told, then who could be better than Kuhn to show you that you were after right, after all?
How the Quantum came to be.......2000-06-29
Excellent book, as Kuhn's usually are, on the origin of quantum theory. "Everyone" knows Planck arrived at the quantum by studying black-body radiation, but what you are never told is *why* he was doing that! Kuhn reaches back as to why Planck was, and has an interesting story to tell for it (the question of thermodynamic irreversability vs reversability in classical mechanics). Another major part of Kuhn's tale is that even after he arrived at his quantum hypothesis, Planck still saw it as a direct extension of classical physics. It was others, mainly Einstein, who realized the revolutionary nature of the quantum (and who ran with the idea), and physicists like Planck had to conceptually play catch up in the quantum revolution in the first decade of the 20th century. One serious WARNING: while interesting and well written, the book has some very technical parts, requiring at least intermediate college physics. While not flooded with equations, Kuhn freely gets into thermodynamics and statistical mechanics (entropy, free energy, H-theorem,...) in explaining the core of Planck's early work. The reader should be prepared for some technical physics on the journey!
Average customer rating:
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World Changes: Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science (Bradford Books)
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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| Science
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| History & Philosophy
| Science
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History of Science
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ASIN: 0262082160 |
Book Description
Thomas Kuhn is perhaps the most widely known and influential philosopher of science of our time. His book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions called into question such central notions of scientific method as the concept of absolute truth, the observation/theory distinction, the determinate rationality of theory choice, and the normative function of philosophy of science. It replaced these with a historically more accurate model of scientific change. Kuhn's critique turned several fields upside down and continues to be read and debated not only by philosophers and historians of science but also by many practicing scientists. Inspired by his contributions, these twelve original essays address central aspects of Kuhn's thought. Most of the essays are philosophical, four are primarily historical, and one, by Kuhn himself, responds to issues raised in the other essays.
Paul Horwich is Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Probability and Evidence, Asymmetries in Time, and Truth.
The essays: Introduction, Paul Horwich. Thomas Kuhn, Colleague and Friend, C.G. Hempel. Carnap, Kuhn, and the Philosophy of Scientific Methodology, John Earman. Remarks on the History of Science and the History of Philosophy, Michael Friedman. Rationality and Paradigm Change in Science, Ernan McMullin. A Mathematicians' Mutiny, with Morals, J. L. Heilbron. Science and Humanism in the Renaissance: Regiomontanus's Oration on the Dignity and Utility of the Mathematical Sciences, N. M. Swerdlow. Design for Experimenting, Jed Z. Buchwald. Mediations: Enlightenment Balancing Acts, or the Technologies of Rationalism, M. Norton Wise. How We Relate Theory to Observation, Nancy Cartwright. Working in a New World. The Taxonomic Solution, Ian Hacking. Afterwords, Thomas Kuhn.
A Bradford Book
Book Description
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 B. Conont in his Foreword: "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."
Customer Reviews:
Case Study of a Scientific Revolution.......2007-02-16
"The Copernican Revolution" tells the epochal story of how the earth-centered cosmology of Ptolemy was replaced by the sun-centered cosmology of Copernicus and Kepler. The book is a classic. Kuhn understood how ideas influence each other and hang together in a system. He could write with equal erudition about observational astronomy, medieval theology, astrology, and Aristotelian physics.
"The Copernican Revolution" is a trove of historical and intellectual insights. Perhaps the main lesson is that scientific progress is not a simple matter of theory being adapted to observation. Multiple theories can account for the same observations, theories have complex non-observational bases of support, and extra-theoretical assumptions provided by "common sense" (such as the immobility of the earth) can be highly contingent products of a culture. Scientific progress is never guaranteed. Erroneous theories -- such as the theory placing the earth at the center of the universe -- can hold sway for centuries and generate a vast body of supporting evidence, only to fall out of sync with new observations and a new climate of opinion -- at which point they can hang on tenaciously, or collapse "suddenly" over the course of a generation or two. It all comes down to history.
Kuhn's great contribution to thought was to situate the history of science within the history of ideas -- he treated scientific theories as the products of cultures, institutions, and sheer accidents, not as deliverances of pure logic. "The Copernican Revolution" is fantastic and should be ready by anyone who enjoyed and learned from "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." It's become fashionable to bash Kuhn lately but his books have a secure place in the canon of history and philosophy of science. Six stars!
How a world-view changed.......2005-04-02
The Sun and the planets and all the stars revolve around the Earth, which is itself at the center of the universe. Beyond the sphere of the fixed stars is nothing; there is no void or matter or anything, as voids cannot exist in nature. All these celestial bodies that do exist revolve in nice perfect circles. All these statements were once common knowledge to anyone with a smattering of education, even though astronomers were known to make slight variations on the concepts of circular motion. But today every single one of these concepts is demolished, and only fools believe in the Earth centered universe. Why was there a change? It certainly wasn't because of a mass of new information. The old geocentric universe was rejected long before anyone put up satellites and space probes to go zipping around the solar system. Even the invention of the telescope only provided the final blow to the old system. It was a fundamental change in thinking that made up the subject of The Copernican Revolution, Thomas Kuhn's look at the break between ancient and modern thinking on the subject.
Copernicus himself made no observations. He worked only with acquired data and ancient texts. What system did he start out with? This is important, as we can't understand what changed without knowing what was. Kuhn traces the nature of the Ptolemaic system with diagrams but virtually no equations (until the technical appendix at the end) to give the reader an understanding of what sorts of phenomena caught the eyes of ancient astronomers. The Sun and Moon and stars move in their own peculiar manners, and the planets, the wandering stars, behaved in the most peculiar manner of all. The ancients developed rather sophisticated methods to track and predict these movements using their own location as a reasonable starting point. Yet Copernicus had the idea that this starting point was not properly speaking the actual center of the universe. He developed a Sun centered system that qualitatively explained many phenomena (such as retrograde motion of the planets, a notable improvement) without some of the mathematical oddities of the old system, but required so many of its own modifications for accuracy that the final system was no neater than the original.
Yet some astronomers preferred the new to the old. This was, all myth busting aside, still a dangerous idea to advocate in the midst of the Reformation. There was a subtle distinction between advocating a mathematical model and advocating a statement of physical reality. There were many reasons to reject Copernicus, and Kuhn covers them here. There are two main themes: the first is that ancient astronomy was bound up with ancient physics and with theology, and rejecting one introduced many awkward questions about the rest that intellectually honest scholars couldn't ignore. The second is political. Most people know something of the story of Galileo and his confrontations with the Inquisition. It didn't help him that he was arrogant, that he mocked powerful people he called friends, and that politically it was a bad time to make waves. This is also touched upon briefly in Kuhn, but the focus remains on the intellectual revolution, and there Galileo had much to contribute in his new observations. Ultimately, the revolution was as much about insight and vision as about calculations and observations.
Readers more familiar with Kuhn from his later The Structure of Scientific Revolutions will find some of his discussion taking a familiar tone. Indeed, the Copernican revolution fits well with that model; it was a revolutionary idea that marked a turning point in Western science, straddling both the ancient and modern viewpoints. For the reader who is willing to visualize the issues and absorb the history, Kuhn has provided the most succinct and clear explanation of Copernicus's contribution to the Western world likely to be found anywhere.
Outstanding Elucidation.......2003-09-30
This book, written before his Structures, is condensed, well written and, for me at any rate, highly entertaining. No one with a casual understanding of the history of astronomy can read this and not be surprised. Of special interest is the illumination of the fact that at the time Copernicus offered his Helio-centric cosmology there was no good, scientific reason for accepting it - it being a geometric inversion of the Ptolemaic system and thus inheriting exactly all of the Ptolemaic deficiencies. Kuhn explores the reason for the gradual shift to Copernicanism and the effects a moving earth had on other sciences.
Excellent discussion and detail.......2003-08-05
The author gives thorough discussion about what Copernican revolution really is, who were the key players and how each contributed to the overall progress. In addition, it provides many technical details about many systems that affect the revolution in one way or the other. However, I do not think that any necessary astronomical experience is necessary to read the book, but in order to understand the full picture it is necessary to understand the technical details. Overall, the book develops the idea very clearly and gives insights that give a good understanding of how scientific thought developed.
A fascinating book.......2001-01-04
This book is an excellent and entertaining book for a scientific reader and/or for a general reader who doesn't mind being challenged a bit by logical arguments. Don't let this discourage you, though, since the logical arguments are not too difficult and really need to be discussed for completeness sake. The historical background adds to the book in a way comparable to Carl Sagan's 'COSMOS' series or to 'The Mechanical Universe' series. This book should be required reading for all enlightened westerners. It's THAT good.
Amazon.com
It is possible that no book written in the last 50 years has had an influence as profound and far-reaching as Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn's argument that scientific knowledge does not develop cumulatively, but rather proceeds by a series of "paradigm shifts," captivated not only philosophers of science, but scholars in a wide range of academic disciplines. The Road Since Structure is a follow-up to his landmark work and a look at Kuhn's theory since the book's original publication in 1962.
In keeping with Kuhn's wishes (he died in 1996), editors James Conant and John Haugeland organized The Road Since Structure to include 11 philosophical essays written since 1970. In the first part of the book, Kuhn spells out his theory as it developed in the 1980s and 1990s; in the second part, he replies to a number of criticisms and misreadings. The third section is a fascinating interview with Kuhn conducted less than a year before he died. For general interest readers, the lengthy interview--in which Kuhn candidly and engagingly discusses the trials and tribulations of his life and philosophical career--will probably be the most interesting part of the book. For those attuned to Kuhn's controversial work, The Road Since Structure is an indispensable aid for understanding his theory as it developed and for appreciating the full force of his replies to a host of critical objections. As always, Kuhn's clarity and fluid prose render accessible a field fraught with opaque writing. --Eric de Place
Book Description
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 and revealing autobiographical interview.
Customer Reviews:
Kuhn's missing link.......2006-01-12
This posthumously published book is a collection of papers published between 1970 and 1993 together with a transcript of an autobiographical interview given by Kuhn in 1995, a year before his death. The book also contains a complete bibliography of his works.
Most of the important contributing philosophers of science in the twentieth century formed their views by reflection on the great scientific revolutions in modern physics, notably relativity theory and quantum theory. But in the first paper in this book, "What are Scientific Revolutions?" (1987), Kuhn reports that his most formative intellectual experience was his attempt in 1947 to understand the physics of Aristotle - what in his autobiography he calls his "Aristotle experience."
What distinguishes the contrast between the physics of Aristotle and Newton is the vast gulf in time, which makes their contrast quite radical in comparison to the contrast between, say, Einstein's theory and Newton's immediately preceding theory. Also the ascendancy of Newton's theory was not due to a decisive empirical test, like the eclipse experiment that decided for Einstein's theory over Newton's. It is this radical contrast between Aristotle's and Newton's physics that occasioned Kuhn's comparably radical thesis of scientific revolutions, that they are nonempirical conversions from one "paradigm" to another incommensurably different one.
When Kuhn set forth his thesis of scientific revolutions in 1962 in his famous book titled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the book was not welcomed by philosophers of science, who expected and demanded a coherent philosophy of language and a linguistic analysis for the Kuhnian thesis. The papers in Road Since Structure are in large part the fossil record of Kuhn's successive and unsuccessful attempts to evolve his missing link between history of science and philosophy of science. The papers show his groping, eclectic, and somewhat naive efforts at philosophy of language by a scholar who was firstly a historian of science.
Readers interested on my further comments on Kuhn are invited to read my book titled History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science or Google my web site philsci for free downloads of my book by chapter - and also to read my other book reviews in this Amazon web site.
Thomas J. Hickey
Good Collection.......2003-09-30
Unless you're a research scientist or have found yourself wrapped up in the miniscule debates over Kuhn's writings ( eg. "What exactly IS a paradigm, perfesser?"), this book is delightful! Of particular interest are the two essays "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" and "The Trouble With The Historical Philosophy of Science." Some of this can be found in "The Essential Tension" as he was always repeating himself to different audiences.
Did Kuhn ever recover from 'Structure'?.......2003-02-08
As with (to a lesser extent) Feyerabend, Kuhn wrote his contreversial opus in the mid 60's. I think it's safe to say that anything hinting at anti-authoritarianism, as it seemed to do on the surface, was begging to be misunderstood. Honestly, after 'paradigm shift' became a bastardized slogan for everything from class-struggle to new-age revelations through meditation, I'm not sure Thomas Kuhn ever recovered from this world-wide misunderstanding. What I read in "The Road Since Structure" corroborates that as we find an author that constantly needs to clarify, "This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm not saying. Now that we're clear, let me repeat myself!"
First, as anyone who's read "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" knows, Kuhn has no talent for clear writing. Nothing's changed since. These essays, although more concise and to the point (perhaps that's Kuhn having learned his lesson) are still difficult reads. The first section, I think, is the book's 'payoff'. It is here that he reiterates, clarifies and expands on what is and is not scientific revolution, incommensurability and paradigm. Two essays in particular, "What are Scientific Revolutions?" and "The Road Since Structure" are worth the price of the book alone.
The second section consists of replies to Kuhns many and in an ideological sense, far ranging critics. Most of these papers were written for symposia and are difficult in the sense of listening to only one end of a phone dialogue. As he is generally responding to papers of others, without access to those papers, it is akward reading to say the least. Still, for those of us scientific philosophy nuts, the essays "Reflections on My Critics" (part of a symposium featuring Lakatos, Popper and Feyerabend amongst others) and "The Natural and the Human Sciences" are excellent illucidations of Kuhns thought.
Honestly, the interview, I didn't like. Much of it is Thomas Kuhns history and as for the reviewer below that bemoans a self-absorbed Kuhn talking about himself and his "intellectual project", I'm not sure what else you should expect from an interview of a philosopher. Interviewers like to ask about the interviewee and philosopher's like to talk about what they work on. Honestly though, if you are at all familiar with Kuhns life, this interview offers little that you didn't already know.
An interesting look at a self-absorbed life.......2001-07-26
Having just finished Steve Fuller's decimation of Kuhn's significance, I come away much less impressed with this book. I immediately noticed that Fuller's claim that Kuhn was beholden to Harvard President James Bryant Conant seems to continue after the grave, since the editor of this set of papers and interviews is none other than Conant's grandson! But putting that aside (sheer coincidence perhaps?), the final interview shows just how self-absorbed Kuhn was. Considering what was going on in the larger world around him, he seemed forever preoccupied by a very private intellectual project that never attracted the attention that buzzwords like "paradigm" did. Fuller read this interview in the original obscure Greek philosophy journal where it appeared, and makes some sharp observations about Kuhn's tendency to deny all influences -- including highly publicized ones like Ludwik Fleck. This is not to say that Kuhn's intellectual project wasn't interesting, but it's amazing just how unwilling he remained to deal with the way his work was used. Lucky for him, he was professionally ensconced in the Ivy League and so never really had to bother much with what the sub-Ivy intellectuals thought.
What made Kuhn tick, and more.......2001-03-09
There are three parts to this book: essays Kuhn wrote to respond to the most substantial criticisms of THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS, essays that extend and elaborate on his thinking since STRUCTURE, and, most remarkable, a very long and revealing interview or discussion with three Greek philosophers of science less than a year before his death.
To me, the interview is the most interesting part of the book, mainly because it's autobiographical. I am told by people who knew him that, after the hullabaloo over STRUCTURE, Kuhn became quite reticent, at least in public, and certainly about himself. Well, reticent is the last thing he is in this interview. He speaks quite openly about his parents, his early education, his attraction to physics, his time at Harvard, his decision to move from physics to philosophy and history of science, the issues in history and philosophy of science that moved him most deeply, his opinions of colleagues. In this interview, Thomas Kuhn becomes a person, not merely an icon. It's surprising, moving, and instructive, and anyone who's ever wondered about the man who wrote THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS will find the interview, as well as the essays in this book, well worth the read. Enjoy! And wonder!
Book Description
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996), the author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is probably the best-known and most influential historian and philosopher of science of the last 25 years, and has become something of a cultural icon. His concepts of paradigm, paradigm change and incommensurability have changed our thinking about science. This volume offers an introduction to Kuhn's life and work and considers the implications of his work for philosophy, cognitive psychology, social studies of science and feminism. More than a retrospective on Kuhn, the book explores future developments of cognitive and information services along Kuhnian lines. Outside of philosophy the volume is of interest to professionals and students in cognitive science, history of science, science studies and cultural studies. Thomas Nickles is Professor of Philosophy and Chair at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is editor of Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality and Scientific Discovery: Case Studies (both Reidel, 1980). Nickles is co-editor of PSA 1982 (The Philosophy of Science Association Proceedings).
Download Description
Contemporary Philosophy in Focus offers a series of introductory volumes to many of the dominant philosophical thinkers of the current age. Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996), the author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is probably the best-known and most influential historian and philosopher of science of the last 25 years, and has become something of a cultural icon. His concepts of paradigm, paradigm change and incommensurability have changed the way we think about science. This volume offers an introduction to Kuhn's life and work and then considers the implications of Kuhn's work for philosophy, cognitive psychology, social studies of science and feminism. The volume is more than a retrospective on Kuhn, exploring future developments of cognitive and information services along Kuhnian lines. Outside of philosophy the volume will be of particular interest to professionals and students in cognitive science, history of science, science studies and cultural studies.
Customer Reviews:
Some comments on Kuhn's & also Polanyi's ideas.......2005-12-04
Writers like Kuhn and Polanyi's subjectivistic approach to science are still popular in some circles, mostly because of the west's fascination with individual consciousness and the existential and phenomenological approaches to reality that grew out of that. While this is understandable historically I believe that this approach is still invalid, so I thought I'd say a little about that. But that will involve my discussing some basic philosophical history, so I hope you don't mind if I wax a little nerdy there.
Basically, the most important concept in epistemology is the split between the philosophies of idealism and empiricism. Idealists believe that ideas about the external world are innate. Kant was the last major philosopher to articulate the classical position on this, and his influence is still being felt by contemporary neo-Kantian theories and philosophers. For example, Kant mantained that the ideas of space and time were so fundamental that they had to be built-in, innate ideas. He argued that the test of this is that if one can't imagine a universe without a certain idea, then that idea couldn't have come from external reality. While this is an interesting contention, and there is some support for it (perceptual psychologist Eleanor Gibson showed that even at 1 year of age babies can perceive depth and space very well, in her famous "visual cliff" experiments), it is unlikely that there are truly innate ideas, although there are probably innate abilities like Kant suggested, since as he pointed out, in order for the mind to be actively involved in organizing and structuring the data of the senses, this could not occur unless there were corresponding mental capabilities and constucts to match.
But getting back to the philosophy definitions, as many people know, Locke, Hume, and most of the British philosophers were empiricists; they believed that ideas come from sense data and from external reality. This philosophical split between idealism and empiricism in thinking goes all the way back to Aristotle and Plato, so if you understand what it was about, you basically understand what most of western philosophy was about since then. The one exception here is the British philosopher Berkeley, who was an extreme subjectivist, and his philosophy is known as solipsism. He actually thought that the external world only existed because we perceived it, making it an extreme form of idealism. He did this by arguing that since we ultimately only know our own minds and its consciousness and internal perceptions, that there is no real way to prove that an objective, external reality even exists. While there is some truth to this, it's obviously an extreme position, and as result of recent research over the last 30 years in the neurophysiology and biophysics of sensation and perception, as in the case of David Marr's mathematical and theoretical work and his followers, we know now just how rigorous and analytical the process of perceiving external reality actually is.
Hence, there is very little reason anymore to insist on the fundamental subjectivity of perception in the Kantian sense. It is true that there are visual illusions at the higher levels of sensory perception, but those are now regarded as special cases, and they are being shown to be explainable in terms of mathematical visual field- distortion theories of these mechanisms that can be quantified just like the basic sensory processes.
But getting back to what I was saying before, Kant's view is still popular in some circles, and actually, he was right about certain things, such as the mind having certain built-in capabilities to understand reality, as I mentioned above in the case of idealism. The linguist, Noam Chomsky, and his ideas about an innate language capability are an example of this neo-Kantian approach, actually, which has been supported by developmental studies and by studies of feral children in regard to a critical period between 6 and 8 years of age, which is required for language developement.
However, most scientists and philosophers since the early 20th century are probably either Logical Positivists or Critical Naturalists rather than Idealists or neo-Kantians in the strict sense. The problem with neo-Kantianism is that a systematic ghost of an illusion pervades even the finest specimens of this theory, since there is no strong connection to external reality anymore. Both Critical Naturalism and Logical Positivism were strongly influenced by scientific theories about reality, and Logical Positivism is really just the philosophy and analysis of scientific method and of the logic of scientific hypothesis and theories rather than traditional philosophy in the usual sense. Some of the famous Logical Positivists were people like Rudolf Carnap, A.J. Ayer, and Reichenbach, whose names many people know. Critical Naturalism does get more into traditional philosophical topics like metaphysics and ontology but again, they tend to take their ideas about reality from what science has discovered in quantum theory and cosmology and what that implies as far as figuring out the metaphysics and ontology of the real world.
Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell were two famous 20th century philosophers who were examples of the Critical Naturalism school, and both of them were mathematicians as well as philosophers. Whitehead was Russell's math professor, and in fact, they both wrote a famous work on mathematical logic, The Principia Mathematica, in which they show that the basic mathematical operations can be derived from logic.
Since we're on the subject, I thought I'd make several comments specifically on Kuhn's theory as set forth in his famous book, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn's idea qualifies as a psychohistorical explanation of the nature of scientific progress, because scientists must have already made a cognitive shift to a new mindset before acceptance of the new theory can occur.
Other people have commented on similar ideas in the works of Feyerabend, Popper, and Polanyi, so I won't repeat any of that here. What I will say, however, is that this theory, while interesting, makes as little, or as much sense, itself, as the irrational science it purports to explain.
First, Kuhn's explanation of the process seems plausible psychologically but in fact is not supported by the psychological literature itself. People change deeply held convictions and ideas not because of an external paradigm shift, but because they become convinced internally that the new idea is superior to the old. Why? Because it explains the facts better, makes more powerful predictions, or is simpler. In other words, it is a fairly logical, reasonable process. This should surprise no-one but Kuhn.
Second, Kuhn's theory ignores the innumerable scientific hypotheses, theories, and advances that displaced earlier explanations with very little or no resistance.
Third, Kuhn misinterprets the initial resistance to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The real problem with the acceptance of this theory is that when it made its debut (especially in the case of Einstein's General Theory), few physicists themselves could even understand the mathematics and physics involved. Ignorance should not be confused with scientific irrationalism or just stubborn refusal to accept the truth.
Well, I hope you didn't mind my little philosophy digression, but I thought I'd make a few comments about the evolution of these ideas since Kuhn and Polanyi's ideas are best understood in the context of the development of philosophical ideas over the last several centuries.
Book Description
"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
Customer Reviews:
A comment on Magellan's comments.......2006-06-07
In the last few lines of Magellan's "A few comments on the evolution of the philosophy", Thomas Kuhn was strongly criticized. This criticism perhaps originates from the same misunderstanding of human nature that produced Confusianism and Maxism.
What is brave about Kuhn is that he dared to point out the weakness of mankind. Indeed scientists eventually accept new ideas and theories because they are closer to truth as revealed by the new experimental observations and findings. But this paradigm shift can indeed be painfully long as people first try to exhaust all the means to rescue the old paradigm. Scientists should be trained to have the ethnics of merely pursuing truth and only truth. However, as human beings (shame on them), some scientists care more about their reputation and survival than about what is true. When the majority of a community is like so, the paradigm shift indeed begins as an external process, i.e., the shift is forced upon and not voluntary.
Another beautiful mind.......2005-06-30
Kuhn's ideas are almost always insightful, sometimes brilliant, though he can be challenging and somewhat dense to read. The last point is an observation rather than a criticism. Unlike some academic writers who use a lot of jargon and unnecessarily big words to sound authoritative, Kuhn is "scholarly" in the best sense -- meticulous about detail and extremely thoughtful in his explanations. There's a lot of great stuff here, just not light reading.
A collection of essays like this is especially nice because Kuhn's writings on a variety of topics can be sampled in manageable chunks of about 10 to 30 pages each. His consistent theme is how communities of scientists come to understand, test, and advance the state of knowledge in their fields of study. What makes the essays so fascinating for me is Kuhn's deft exploration of the inherent social nature of how science is done and how it moves forward. And though Kuhn is writing specifically about SCIENCE as a social endeavor, a number of the insights can be readily applied to other areas.
Finally, Kuhn's analyses, insights, and critiques carry added weight because he's not writing about science as an outsider. He started out as a scientist/practitioner and it shows in the crisp way he explains and weaves scientific examples into his writing. Well worth the effort to read!
A few comments on the evolution of the philosophy.......2004-09-23
This is a nice collection of Kuhn's essays on various topics in the history and philosophy of science, which should be of value to anyone interested in Kuhn's thought and specifically in the important theory he put forth in his famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In some ways, his approach is similar to Michael Polanyi's, so I thought I'd discuss both of them a bit here.
Writers like Kuhn and Polanyi's subjectivistic approach to science are still popular in some circles, mostly because of the west's fascination with the individual consciousness and ego and with the existential and phenomenological approaches to reality that grew out of that. While this is understandable historically I believe that this approach is still invalid, so I thought I'd say a little more about that. But that will involve my discussing some basic philosophy, so I hope you don't mind if I wax a little nerdy here. I apologize in advance as this is a long review and perhaps a little technical philosophically, but perhaps you'll find my comments on the subject informative or at least useful.
Basically, the most important concept in epistemology is the split between the philosophies of idealism and empiricism. Idealists believe that ideas about the external world are innate. Kant was the last major philosopher to articulate the classical position on this, and his influence is still being felt by contemporary neo-Kantian theories and philosophers. For example, Kant mantained that the ideas of space and time were so fundamental that they had to be built-in, innate ideas. He argued that the test of this is that if one can't imagine a universe without a certain idea, then that idea couldn't have come from external reality. While this is an interesting contention, and there is some support for it (perceptual psychologist Eleanor Gibson showed that even at 1 year of age babies can perceive depth and space very well, in her famous "visual cliff" experiments), it is unlikely that there are truly innate ideas, although there are probably innate abilities like Kant suggested, since as he pointed out, in order for the mind to be actively involved in organizing and structuring the data of the senses, this could not occur unless there were corresponding mental capabilities and constucts to match.
But getting back to the philosophy definitions, as many people know, Locke, Hume, and most of the British philosophers were empiricists; they believed that ideas come from sense data and from external reality. This philosophical split between idealism and empiricism in thinking goes all the way back to Aristotle and Plato, so if you understand what it was about, you basically understand what most of western philosophy was about since then. The one exception here is the British philosopher Berkeley, who was an extreme subjectivist, and his philosophy is known as solipsism. He actually thought that the external world only existed because we perceived it, making it an extreme form of idealism. He did this by arguing that since we ultimately only know our own minds and its consciousness and internal perceptions, that there is no real way to prove that an objective, external reality even exists. While there is some truth to this, it's obviously an extreme position, and as result of recent research over the last 30 years in the neurophysiology and biophysics of sensation and perception, as in the case of David Marr's mathematical and theoretical work and his followers, we know now just how rigorous and analytical the process of perceiving external reality actually is.
Although his work was in the area of mathematical and theoretical neurobiology, it has important implications for the entire field of mind and brain, since Marr's computational and mathematical approach to vision revolutionized the entire area of vision research, after which it was never the same. There are strong hints of this approach in the earlier work of quantitatively oriented perceptual psychologists such as Julesz and Gibson, but Marr's work takes the whole field a quantum leap further, giving it a rigorousness and mathematical elegance never before seen.
For example, to mention just a few of his important ideas, and to give you some idea of how rigorous they were, Marr's demonstrations that retinal receptive field geometry could be derived by Fourier transformation of spatial frequency sensitivity data, that edges and contours could be detected by finding zero crossings in the light gradient by taking the Laplacian or second directional derivative, that excitatory and inhibitory receptive fields could be constructed from "DOG" functions (the difference of two Gaussians), and that the visual system used a two-dimensional convolution integral with a Gaussian prefilter as an operator for bandwidth optimation on the retinal light distribution, were more powerful than anything that had been seen up to that time.
Hence, there is very little reason anymore to insist on the fundamental subjectivity of perception in the Kantian sense. It is true that there are visual illusions at the higher levels of sensory perception, but those are now regarded as special cases, and they are being shown to be explainable in terms of mathematical visual field-distortion theories of these mechanisms that can be quantified just like the basic sensory processes.
But getting back to what I was saying before, Kant's view is still popular in some circles, and actually, he was right about certain things, such as the mind having certain built-in capabilities to understand reality, as I mentioned above in the case of idealism. The linguist, Noam Chomsky, and his ideas about an innate language capability are an example of this neo-Kantian approach, actually, which has been supported by developmental studies and by studies of feral children in regard to a critical period between 6 and 8 years of age, which is required for language developement.
However, most scientists and philosophers since the early 20th century are probably either Logical Positivists or Critical Naturalists rather than Idealists or neo-Kantians in the strict sense. The problem with neo-Kantianism is that a systematic ghost of an illusion pervades even the finest specimens of this theory, since there is no strong connection to external reality anymore. Both Critical Naturalism and Logical Positivism were strongly influenced by scientific theories about reality, and Logical Positivism is really just the philosophy and analysis of scientific method and of the logic of scientific hypothesis and theories rather than traditional philosophy in the usual sense. Some of the famous Logical Positivists were people like Rudolf Carnap, A.J. Ayer, and Reichenbach, whose names many people know. Critical Naturalism does get more into traditional philosophical topics like metaphysics and ontology but again, they tend to take their ideas about reality from what science has discovered in quantum theory and cosmology and what that implies as far as figuring out the metaphysics and ontology of the real world.
Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell were two famous 20th century philosophers who were examples of the Critical Naturalism school, and both of them were mathematicians as well as philosophers. Whitehead was Russell's math professor, and in fact, they both wrote a famous work on mathematical logic, The Principia Mathematica, in which they show that the basic mathematical operations can be derived from logic.
Since we're on the subject, I thought I'd make several comments specifically on Kuhn's theory as set forth in his famous book, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn's idea qualifies as a psychohistorical explanation of the nature of scientific progress, because scientists must have already made a cognitive shift to a new mindset before acceptance of the new theory can occur.
Other people have commented on similar ideas in the works of Feyerabend, Popper, and Polanyi, so I won't repeat any of that here. What I will say, however, is that this theory, while interesting, makes as little, or as much sense, itself, as the irrational science it purports to explain.
First, Kuhn's explanation of the process seems plausible psychologically but in fact is not supported by the psychological literature itself. People change deeply held convictions and ideas not because of an external paradigm shift, but because they become convinced internally that the new idea is superior to the old. Why? Because it explains the facts better, makes more powerful predictions, or is simpler. In other words, it is a fairly logical, reasonable process. This should surprise no-one but Kuhn.
Second, Kuhn's theory ignores the innumerable scientific hypotheses, theories, and advances that displaced earlier explanations with very little or no resistance.
Third, Kuhn misinterprets the initial resistance to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The real problem with the acceptance of this theory is that when it made its debut (especially in the case of Einstein's General Theory), few physicists themselves could even understand the mathematics and physics involved. Ignorance should not be confused with scientific irrationalism or just stubborn refusal to accept the truth.
Well, I hope you didn't mind my little philosophy digression, but I thought I'd make a few comments about the evolution of these ideas since Kuhn and Polanyi's theories are best understood in the context of the development of philosophical ideas over the last several centuries.
More puzzles, please..........2000-05-06
These collected essays provide a nice framework for further investigations into Kuhn's groundbreaking 'The Structures of Scientific Revolutions.' At the forefront are the issues of writing the history of scientific disciplines. This is to be contrasted with the philosophy of science, and, to be sure, Kuhn differentiates the writing of a history from the philosophy. What this book provides are more empirical and contextual essays that serve as details to the theoretical framework of "Structures." Kuhn is and will always be a frustrating but rewarding thinker. This book is no exception.
Book Description
Thomas Kuhn's shadow hangs over almost every field of intellectual inquiry. His book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has become a modern classic. His influence on philosophy, social science, historiography, feminism, theology, and (of course) the natural sciences themselves is unparalleled. His epoch-making concepts of 'new paradigm ' and 'scientific revolution ' make him probably the most influential scholar of the twentieth century.Sharrock and Read take the reader through Kuhn's work in a careful and accessible way, emphasizing Kuhn's detailed studies of the history of science, which often assist the understanding of his more abstract philosophical work. These historical studies provide vital insight into what Kuhn was actually trying to achieve in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: an endeavour far less extreme than either his 'foes ' or his 'fans ' claim. In the book's second half, Sharrock and Read provide excellent explications, defences and, where appropriate, criticisms of Kuhn's central concept of 'incommensurability ', and tackle head on the crucial issue of whether Kuhn's insights concerning the natural sciences can be extrapolated to other disciplines, such as the social sciences.This is the first comprehensive introduction to the work of Kuhn and it will be of particular interest to students and scholars in philosophy, theory of science, management science and anthropology.
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