Thomas Kuhn's Revolutions - by James A Marcum (Paperback)

About the Book

50th anniversary of Thomas Kuhn's Structure of scientific revolutions.

Book Synopsis

This new edition of Thomas Kuhn's Revolution marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Kuhn's most influential work. Drawing on the rich archival sources at MIT, and engaging fully with current scholarship, James Marcum provides the historical background to the development of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Exploring the shift Kuhn makes from a historical to an evolutionary philosophy of science and examining Kuhn's legacy in depth, Marcum answers key questions: What exactly was Kuhn's historiographic revolution and how did it come about? Why did it have the impact it did? What will its future impact be for both academia and society? Marcum's answers build a new portrait of Kuhn: his personality, his pedagogical style and the intellectual and social context in which he practiced his trade.

Thomas Kuhn's Revolution shows how Kuhn transcends the boundaries of the philosophy of science, influencing sociologists, economists, theologians and even policy makers and politicians. This is a comprehensive historical and conceptual introduction to the man who changed our understanding of science.

Review Quotes

A valuable resource for Kuhn scholars and all those interested specifically in a contextualization of Structure of Scientific Revolutions or searching for a comprehensive overview of the secondary literature on Kuhn in philosophy and beyond.
Metascience

Marcum has masterfully captured Kuhn's contributions to philosophy and history of science with useful biographical information, insightful interpretations, and resourceful selection of the vast secondary literature on Kuhn and the wide impact of his thinking. Simply, Thomas Kuhn's Revolutionsis a noteworthy study and will serve as one of the key texts for placing Kuhn in his intellectual context.

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is the most important work in the philosophy of science in the twentieth century. James Marcum's is simply the best book that has ever been written on Kuhn's thinking, both in Structureand in writings before and after. It is fair-minded, clearly written, comprehensive, and with enough of a critical edge that you want to go on studying Kuhn and seeing how he still applies to issues that concern us. This is the book we have been waiting for.

About the Author

James Marcum teaches philosophy at Baylor University, USA. He has doctorates in philosophy and physiology, and was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, where he studied philosophy of science with Kuhn. He was also an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, USA.