"Notice that there is no sociology in the book. Scientific communities and their practices are, however, at its core, entering with paradigms, as we saw, at page 10 and continuing to the final page of the book. There had been sociology of scientific knowledge before Kuhn, but after Structure it burgeoned, leading to what is now called science studies. This is a self-generating field (with, of course, its own journals and societies) that includes some work in the history and the philosophy of sciences and technology, but whose emphasis is on sociological approaches of various kinds, some observational, some theoretical. Much, and perhaps most, of the really original thinking about the sciences after Kuhn has had a sociological bent. Kuhn was hostile to these developments. In the opinion of many younger workers, that is regrettable. Let us put it down to dissatisfaction with growing pains of the field, rather than venturing into tedious metaphors about fathers and sons. One of Kuhn’s marvelous legacies is science studies as we know it today."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesJews from the United StatesPhysicists from the United StatesHistorians of science
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ian Hacking (2012), Introductory Essay, in 50th anniversary edition of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolution
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn (July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American physicist, historian, and philosopher of science and who wrote extensively on the history of science and developed several important notions in the philosophy of science.
74 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Kuhn →
Related Quotes
"Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers."
"I suggest that scientific knowledge, though logically more articulate and far more complex, is of this sort. The book…"
"To my complete surprise, that exposure to out-of-date scientific theory and practice radically undermined some of my …"
"Somehow, the practice of astronomy, physics, chemistry or biology normally fails to evoke the controversies over fund…"
"History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in t…"
"Out-of-date theories are not in principle unscientific because they have been discarded. That choice, however, makes …"
"Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicated on the as…"
""Normal science" means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some pa…"
"Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice…"
"If a demarcation criterion exists (we must not, I think, seek a sharp or decisive one), it may lie just in that part …"