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Published November 2012 | Published
Journal Article Open

Kuhn's Structure Four and a Half Decades Later

Abstract

I first read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in the fall of '67 at Princeton as a freshman during a yearlong course on the history of science taught by Tom Kuhn, with teaching assistants Mike Mahoney and Ted Brown. We were required to write a long essay at the end of the year. Though it's now nearly half a century, making details rather vague, I recall being taken by Kuhn's novel view of science, novel to me at least. It must have made quite an impression because my essay was titled "The Decline of the Mechanical Ether: A Study in Paradigmatic Progression." At the time just what a paradigm was remained somewhat fuzzy to me, a fact brought home rather strongly by Kuhn's favorable but tough remarks on my essay. We had the opportunity to discuss that and other issues over the next four years as I took other courses with him and became his and Mahoney's research assistant.

Additional Information

© 2012 by the Regents of the University of California. I thank Michael Gordin for comments on a draft of this article.

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