Stepping into the 60s: Tomas Kuhn’s intellectual turn towards the Philosophy of Science

Abstract

espanolEn 1957 Kuhn publica The Coper-nican Revolution, y en 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. La mayoria de los comen-taristas considera ambas obras como expresion de un mismo proyecto filosofico. Contra esta interpretacion, defendemos que existe una discontinuidad entre los dos libros. Esto responde a que entre 1957 y 1958 Kuhn entra en contacto con los trabajos de Hanson, Wittgenstein y Feyerabend, cuya influencia marca una ruptura con su trabajo previo. Proponemos tambien que en 1957 Kuhn maneja una historiografia casuistica, y en 1962 una historiografia estructural. Concluimos que no es posible pensar en terminos de continuidad la relacion entre las dos primeras obras de Kuhn. EnglishIn 1975 Kuhn publishes The Copernican Revolution, and in 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Most commentators believe both works to be an expression of the same philosophical project. Against this interpretation, we argue that there is a lack of continuity between both books, arising from the fact that between 1957 and 1958 Kuhn comes into contact with the works of Hanson, Wittgenstein and Feyerabend, whose influence marks a break from his previous work. We also suggest that in 1957 Kuhn applies a casuistical historiography, and, in 1962, a structural historiography. We conclude that there is no relationship of continuity between Kuhn’s first two works.