Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty ─ Reflections on a Science Classic

Thomas S. Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR) is one of the most important books published in the last hundred years. His language and concepts have permeated contemporary thought, and his arguments and positions are still alive and of real importance. Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty is a collection of essays by leading social scientists and philosophers that explores the origins of Kuhn’s masterwork and its legacy a half-century on. The authors exhume important historical context for Kuhn’s work, critically analyzing its foundations in twentieth-century science, politics, and more. They situateSSR within Kuhn’s own intellectual biography, too: his experiences as a physics graduate student doing quintessential “normal science,” his close relationships with psychologists both before and after the publication ofSSR , and the Cold War framework of concepts such as “world view” and “paradigm.” The book’s citation history is even used to revealSSR’s shifting audiences – and changes in scholarly reading habits. And, of course, the contributors explore the central features ofSSR by addressing the import of key Kuhnian concepts, both then and now, including “revolution,” “scientific community,” and – inevitably – the elusive yet still enticing “paradigm.” Anyone interested in Kuhn’s ideas will profit from reading this book.

Robert J. Richards is the Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Science and Medicine; professor in the Departments of History, Philosophy, and Psychology and in the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science; and director of the Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine, all at the University of Chicago.Lorraine Daston is director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and is visiting professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.