Thomas Kuhn's revolution : an historical philosophy of science / James A. Marcum.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marcum, James A.

Contributor:

Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

Series:

Continuum studies in American philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kuhn, Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel), 1922-1996.

Kuhn, Thomas S.

Science--Philosophy--History.

Science.

Science--Philosophy.

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 182 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum, [2005]

Summary:

Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) has had a tremendous impact on the history and philosophy of science. In 1962 his famous work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions helped to inaugurate a revolution - the historiographic revolution - during the latter half of the twentieth century. That revolution provided a new understanding of science, in which 'paradigm shifts' (scientific revolutions) are punctuated with periods of stasis (normal science). Kuhn's revolution not only had a huge influence on the history and philosophy of science but on many other disciplines as well.

James A. Marcum's new book focuses on the following questions: Who was Kuhn? What exactly was his historiographic revolution? How did it come about? Why did it have the impact it did? What, if any, will its future influence be for both academia and society? At the heart of the answers to these questions is the person of Kuhn himself, i.e., his personality, his pedagogical style, his institutional and social commitments, and the intellectual and social context in which he practiced his trade. In a developmental approach to Kuhn's ideas, Marcum maps the unfolding of Kuhn's ideas over four decades. Drawing on the rich archival sources at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and engaging fully with current scholarship on Kuhn, Marcum's is the first book to show in detail how Kuhn's influence transcended the boundaries of the history and philosophy of science community to reach many others - sociologists, economists, theologians, political scientists, educators, and even policy-makers and politicians.

Contents:

Part I The path to Structure

1 Who is Thomas Kuhn? 3

2 How does Kuhn arrive at Structure? 30

Part II Structure and its bumpy path

3 What is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? 57

4 Why does Kuhn revise Structure? 79

Part III The path following Structure

5 What is Kuhn up to after Structure? 107

6 What is Kuhn's legacy? 134.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [171]-176) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

082648591X

OCLC:

60965332