Paradigm

Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born on 18 July 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1943 with a bachelor's degree in physics, and after some work in the government Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, he returned to Harvard for his master's and doctoral degrees in physics in 1946 and 1949. He remained at Harvard until 1956 teaching in the Department of the History of Science that had just been created by his mentor James Conant, who aided his transition from theoretical physics to the history and philosophy of science. Kuhn next joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, where he developed the idea for his most influential book. In 1964 he moved to Princeton, where he was the M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Philosophy and History of Science. Kuhn returned to Boston to complete his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as professor of philosophy and history of science from 1979 to 1983 and the Laurence S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy from 1983 until 1991. Kuhn was the author or coauthor of five books and scores of articles on the philosophy and history of science. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1954–1955, the winner of the George Sarton Medal in the History of Science in 1982, and the holder of honorary degrees from many institutions, among them the University of Notre Dame, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, the University of Padua, and the University of Athens. Kuhn suffered from cancer during the last years of his life and died in 1996.