Thomas Kuhn: A Profile

by John Horgan

Look," says Thomas Kuhn. The word seems to signal that Kuhn thinks his listener has misunderstood him, or is in danger of doing so, and he, Kuhn, is going to try--probably in vain--to set the terribly complicated record straight. Kuhn utters the word often.

"Look," he says again. He leans his gangly frame and long face forward, and his big lower lip, which ordinarily curls up amiably at the corners, sags. "For Christ's sake, if I had my choice of having written the book or not having written it, I would choose to have written it. But there have certainly been aspects involving considerable upset about the response to it."

"The book" is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, commonly called the most influential treatise ever written on how science does (or does not) proceed. Since its publication in 1962, it has sold nearly a million copies in 16 languages, and it is still fundamental reading in courses on the history and philosophy of science...

read all