Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [1962]
Details
[Postponed to July from June 2022], we delve into the philosophy of science with Thomas Kuhn's 1962 landmark The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Kuhn's work changed how the History of Science is taught, but it had ramifications well beyond science and history. One of our organizers first read it as the introductory work in an English class about structuralism and literary theory.
For our July 17, 2022 Meetup, please read the entire work as well as the Postscript included in every edition from the 2nd (1969) on, in which Kuhn addresses his critics.
From Wikipedia: "Kuhn challenged the... prevailing view of progress in science in which scientific progress was viewed as 'development-by-accumulation' of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of conceptual continuity where there is cumulative progress, which Kuhn referred to as periods of 'normal science', were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. The discovery of 'anomalies' during revolutions in science leads to new paradigms. New paradigms then ask new questions of old data, move beyond the mere 'puzzle-solving' of the previous paradigm, change the rules of the game and the 'map' directing new research."
RSVP and join us online via Zoom.
Contents
Preface, Chapters I-XIII, Postscript.
Edition [4th] (available from your library or online):
Thomas S. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions [1962] 50th Anniversary Edition. Chicago, IL: Univ of Chicago Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780226458120
Available used from $7+
Ebook ISBN: 9780226458144
Any attendees who have not read the text will be invited to pose questions via the Zoom Chat.
Videos on Structure of Scientific Revolutions: TBD -by you!
Our 2022 Schedule (subject to change):
Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions [1962] (Chicago, 2012)
Derrida, Writing and Difference [1967] (Chicago, 2017)
Rawls, Justice as Fairness: a Restatement [2001] (Harvard, 2001)
Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia [1974] (Basic, 2013)
Foucault, Discipline and Punish [1975] (Penguin, 2020)
Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1979] (Princeton, 2017)
MacIntyre, After Virtue [1981] (3rd Ed. Notre Dame, 2007)
Follow this link for a draft syllabus from Columbia U that forms the basis for our course of study.