The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Foundations of the Unity of Science, Vol. 2, No. 2)

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a landmark in intellectual history which has attracted attention far beyond its own immediate field. It is written with a combination of depth and clarity that make it an almost unbroken series of aphorisms. Its author, Thomas S. Kuhn, wastes little time on demolishing the logical empiricist view of science as an objective progression toward the truth. Instead he erects from ground up a structure in which science is seen to be heavily influenced by nonrational procedures, and in which new theories are viewed as being more complex than those they usurp but not as standing any closer to the truth. Science is not the steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge that is portrayed in the textbooks. Rather, it is a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions . . . in each of which one conceptual world view is replaced by another.