Quotes by Thomas Kuhn

About Thomas Kuhn:

Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American physicist, historian, and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift", which has since become an English-language idiom.
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Crisis alone is not enough. There must also be a basis, though it need be neither rational nor ultimately correct, for faith in the particular candidate chosen.

Thomas Kuhn

Rather than being an interpreter, the scientist who embraces a new paradigm is like the man wearing inverting lenses.

Thomas Kuhn

Under normal conditions the research scientist is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those which he believes can be both stated and solved within the existing scientific tradition.

Thomas Kuhn

It is, I think, particularly in periods of acknowledged crisis that scientists have turned to philosophical analysis as a device for unlocking the riddles of their field. Scientists have not generally needed or wanted to be philosophers.

Thomas Kuhn

The historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them.

Thomas Kuhn

The crises of our time, it becomes increasingly clear, are the necessary impetus for the revolution now under way. And once we understand nature's transformative powers, we see that it is our powerful ally, not a force to feared our subdued.

Thomas Kuhn

Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none.

Thomas Kuhn

Author Bio

  • NameThomas Kuhn
  • DescriptionAmerican historian, physicist and philosopher
  • BornJuly 18, 1922
  • DiedJune 17, 1996
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Physicist; Historian; Scientist
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship