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| | ==Bibliography== | | ==Bibliography== |
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| − | ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was first published as a [[monograph]] in the ''[[International Encyclopedia of Unified Science]]'', then as a book by [[University of Chicago Press]] in 1962. In 1969, Kuhn added a postscript to the book in which he replied to critical responses to the first edition. A 50th Anniversary Edition (with an introductory essay by [[Ian Hacking]]) was published by the [[University of Chicago Press]] in April 2012.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Structure of Scientific Revolutions|last1=Kuhn|first1=Thomas S.|last2=Hacking|first2=Ian|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-226-45812-0|location=Chicago|page=iv}}</ref>
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| − | Kuhn dated the genesis of his 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 a focus on historical [[case study|case studies]]. Kuhn later commented 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 wrote "... as I was reading him, Aristotle appeared not only ignorant of mechanics, but a dreadfully bad physical scientist as well. About motion, in particular, his writings seemed to me full of egregious errors, both of logic and of observation." This was in an apparent contradiction with the fact that Aristotle was a brilliant mind. While perusing Aristotle's ''Physics'', Kuhn formed the view that in order to properly appreciate Aristotle's reasoning, one must be aware of the scientific conventions of the time. Kuhn concluded that Aristotle's concepts were not "bad Newton," just different.<ref>[http://www.units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/kuhn.htm] Thomas Kuhn, "What Are Scientific Revolutions?", an excerpt from The Probabilistic Revolution, Volume I: Ideas in History, eds. Lorenz Kruger, Lorraine, J. Daston, and Michael Heidelberger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), pp. 7-22.</ref> This insight was the foundation of ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions''.<ref name=naughton2012>{{Citation | last = Naughton | first = John | author-link = John Naughton | date = 18 August 2012 | title = Thomas Kuhn: the man who changed the way the world looked at science | newspaper = The Guardian | url = https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/aug/19/thomas-kuhn-structure-scientific-revolutions | access-date = 24 August 2016 }}</ref>
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| − | Prior to the publication of Kuhn's book, a number of ideas regarding the process of scientific investigation and discovery had already been proposed. [[Ludwik Fleck]] developed the first system of the [[sociology of scientific knowledge]] in his book ''The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact'' (1935). He claimed that the exchange of ideas led to the establishment of a thought collective, which, when developed sufficiently, served to separate the field into esoteric (professional) and exoteric (laymen) circles.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv|last=Fleck|first=Ludwik|publisher=Schwabe und Co.|year=1935|location=Verlagsbuchhandlung, Basel|language=de}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Genesis and development of a scientific fact|last=Fleck|first=Ludwik|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1979|location=Chicago, IL|pages=viii}}</ref> Kuhn wrote the foreword to the 1979 edition of Fleck's book, noting that he read it in 1950 and was reassured that someone "saw in the history of science what I myself was finding there."<ref name=":1" />
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| − | Kuhn was not confident about how his book would be received. Harvard University had denied his tenure a few years prior. However, by the mid-1980s, his book had achieved blockbuster status.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kaiser|first1=David|title=In retrospect: the structure of scientific revolutions|journal=Nature|date=2012|volume=484|issue=7393|pages=164–166|doi=10.1038/484164a|bibcode=2012Natur.484..164K|doi-access=free}}</ref> When Kuhn's book came out in the early 1960s, "[[Structuralism|structure]]" was an intellectually popular word in many fields in the humanities and social sciences, including linguistics and anthropology, appealing in its idea that complex phenomena could reveal or be studied through basic, simpler structures. Kuhn's book contributed to that idea.<ref>Lorraine Daston. “Structure.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, vol. 42, no. 5, 2012, pp. 496–499. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/hsns.2012.42.5.496. Accessed 18 Jan. 2021.</ref>
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| − | One theory to which Kuhn replies directly is [[Karl Popper|Karl Popper's]] “falsificationism,” which stresses [[falsifiability]] as the most important criterion for distinguishing between that which is scientific and that which is unscientific. Kuhn also addresses [[verificationism]], a philosophical movement that emerged in the 1920s among [[Logical positivism|logical positivists.]] The verifiability principle claims that meaningful statements must be supported by [[empirical evidence]] or logical requirements.
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| | ==Synopsis== | | ==Synopsis== |