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| The Structure of Scientific Revolutions | 
 enlarge | Author: Thomas S. Kuhn
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
Buy New: $7.53
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (117 reviews)
Sales Rank: 406
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 226
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0226458083
Dewey Decimal Number: 501
EAN: 9780226458083
ASIN: 0226458083
Publication Date: December 15, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product 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.
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 112 more reviews...
Review of Kuhn July 30, 2008
I enjoy the reading. I have used Kuhn as a reference throughout grad school to justify my thoughts on leadership paradigm shifts. Kuhn's contribution had four positive elements: a) Mechanism of crisis: precipitation and resolution, b) Analogy of the historicity of science with evolution c) that science rewrites its own history, and d) psychology of paradigm shifts; that the paradigm is not completely defined by explicit prescription but also by a system of practices that are not fully articulated. In summary, Change is difficult. Human Beings resist change. However, the process has been set in motion long ago and we will continue to co-create our own experience. Kuhn (1996) states, "awareness is prerequisite to all acceptable changes of theory" (p. 67). It all begins in the mind of the person. What we perceive, whether normal or metanormal, conscious or unconscious, are subject to the limitations and distortions produced by our inherited and socially conditional nature.
 Not Just for Those Interested in Science June 22, 2008
Essential reading in understanding why the Enlightenment ideal of rationality is dead or at least doesn't count in ways that matter. In particular, Kuhn calls into question the idea of science as a rational enterprise, and since science is epistemologically privileged and thought to be the essence of rationality, to call into question the rationality of science is to call into question rationality itself. This is different, I submit, than the anti-rationality of the deconstructionists (e.g., Derrida), which seems to lack immediate real world consequences (aside form contributing to a sense of alienation in some). I find Hegel to be a precursor of Kuhn. Hegel attempted to describe how we come to believe what we believe, and Kuhn attempts to do this in the field of science, and, it should be added, with much more accessibly.
There are some who will find Kuhn lacking all coherence (sophisticated BS, as one person put it), and that is another way of saying "irrational". For those who associate irrationality with things like religious fundamentalism, irrationalism is a fearful thing. Yet, it is rationality itself that has been called into question by the events of the 20th century, beginning with the carnage of WWI. The answer is not more rationalism. Rationalism, the primacy of reason and the center of modernism, is itself a belief, and the crisis of modernity is the recognition that reason has no more claim to a privileged position than religion. The answer may be, as Rorty has pointed out, deciding what we want to believe without being forced to justify the basis of those beliefs: we believe because our beliefs support what we hold to be good things(neo-pragmatism) That may be a fearful thing for those who don't find complete correspondence between their beliefs and Rorty's privileged beliefs. What, though, it does show, is that irrationality is not sufficient grounds for being dismissive. In doing so one may be taking a stance on the wrong side of the arrow of history.
The arrow, though, is not that of the Whig theory of history, where things constantly improve driven by reason. Historians of this view (as well as much of popular culture) denigrate older views by degrading them to myth or religious belief status. This gives a privileged position to our own, contemporary beliefs and gives us a sense of comfort. Kuhn disturbs this comfortable view by showing, for example, that Ptolemaic astronomy gave plausible answers to questions of the day. So too, one could argue that the contemporary dismissive view of Scholastic philosophy is more the result of Enlightenment propaganda than of merit. At the least, Kuhn is a good (partial) antidote for contemporary smugness --- a challenge to bourgeois sentiment. Kuhn, though, is much more than a cultural caution; he is an important voice in the contemporary philosophical debate.
Who would like "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"? Those who like ideas with profound consequences easily presented. Kuhn is a Nietzsche, and like Nietzsche is at the very least a fun read. He is much more if taken seriously.
 Important, but Over-rated June 20, 2008
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an important book, because it helped people view scientific progress in a new light, and introduced us to the important concept of paradigm shift. Unfortunately, however, the book is poorly written, with a dense and overly academic style, and quite frankly, is very, very, boring. Good concept, poor execution.
Exciting, elevated, and encouraging (to would be researchers) June 9, 2008
I read SSR as part of preparation to begin work on a paper and received a very different dose of smart than I expected.
Kuhn has shown how meaningful, and I daresay fun, the prospect of a career as a researcher in any field could be. In this classic work he also guts a lot of intuitive thoughts on science, discovery, and broader knowledge itself - after a thorough reading you'll really see these processes almost totally redefined.
As a non-science major I found all the scientific antecedents to which he frequently and swiftly referred (i.e., Leyden jar, relativity, photoelectric effect) coupled with the dense, elevated writing quite difficult to get through. Still, with slow and focused reading, and a little bit of note taking, which I would suggest to anyone without a PhD, I feel like the main ideas are quite digestible.
An academic essay but not for the casual reader May 14, 2008
Although this is one of the most important books I've read, it is also one of the least fulfilling. Let me start out by saying that I am a casual reader of the history and philosophy of science. This book, described as being one of the most important in its area, is not for the casual reader. It is a scholarly work and it presumes a great deal of scientific knowledge. When discussing a specific revolution, Thomas Kuhn does not go into the details of the science behind the revolution; he just assumes that the reader knows it. And befitting its stature, the book was written in a very scholarly tone. Unfortunately this meant that I had to do a lot of digging to reach the kernel of the point that Kuhn was trying to make. However, Kuhn's revelations about how scientific revolutions come about and the role of normal science answered a lot of my questions. His discussions of paradigms were also very enlightening and he certainly explained why old ideas are so difficult to overthrow. Indeed, now that I've read this book, I recognize when other authors refer to his thinking. Overall though, I do not recommend this book to other casual readers.
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