Sign-In
Cart
How Knowledge Breaks and Remakes Itself: Thomas Kuhn and the Secret Life of Scientific Change
Paperback
PhilosophyHistory & Philosophy of Science
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN13: 9798181944732
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jun 17 2026
Pages: 332
Weight: 0.98
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jun 17 2026
Pages: 332
Weight: 0.98
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
For three hundred years we told ourselves a comforting story about science. Knowledge, we said, grows the way a coral reef grows: patiently, one true fact cemented onto the last, the whole edifice rising steadily toward a complete and final picture of the world. Then in 1962 a soft-spoken physicist who had wandered into history handed us a different story, and the comfortable version never fully recovered.
Thomas Kuhn argued that science does not crawl forward in a straight line at all. It works quietly inside a shared framework he called a paradigm, ignores the cracks for as long as it can, and then, when the cracks become impossible to ignore, it convulses. An old world is abandoned, a new one is adopted, and afterward the textbooks are rewritten so smoothly that no one remembers there was ever a fight. He gave us the phrase paradigm shift, and then watched in dismay as the world used it to sell everything from software to breakfast cereal.
This book tells the secret life of that idea. It follows a reluctant revolutionary from a stunned afternoon reading Aristotle through the most cited book in the history of the social sciences, into the great quarrels it provoked with Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, and Michael Polanyi, and onward to the strange war over truth that erupted at the close of the twentieth century. It explains, without a single equation, what a paradigm really is, why rival scientists can seem to live in different worlds, what science quietly forgets every time it advances, and whether any of this means that knowledge is merely a matter of fashion. It closes by watching a brand-new scientific idea fight for its life in our own moment, so that the reader can see Kuhn's machinery turning in real time rather than safely embalmed in the past.
Keywords: Thomas Kuhn, paradigm shift, philosophy of science, scientific revolutions, history of science, how knowledge changes, incommensurability
This book tells the secret life of that idea. It follows a reluctant revolutionary from a stunned afternoon reading Aristotle through the most cited book in the history of the social sciences, into the great quarrels it provoked with Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, and Michael Polanyi, and onward to the strange war over truth that erupted at the close of the twentieth century. It explains, without a single equation, what a paradigm really is, why rival scientists can seem to live in different worlds, what science quietly forgets every time it advances, and whether any of this means that knowledge is merely a matter of fashion. It closes by watching a brand-new scientific idea fight for its life in our own moment, so that the reader can see Kuhn's machinery turning in real time rather than safely embalmed in the past.
Keywords: Thomas Kuhn, paradigm shift, philosophy of science, scientific revolutions, history of science, how knowledge changes, incommensurability
Also from
Kriger, Boris
Freedom from Taxes: Introduction of Automated Payment Transaction Tax and Universal Basic Income
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$9.60
Why We Don't Fly Like Birds: Gravity, Anatomy, and the Metaphysics of Freedom
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$28.80
The Morality Trap: How Humanity's Noblest Idea Became Its Most Dangerous Weapon
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$26.40
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: How Accusation Became the World's Favorite Pastime
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$28.80
A Theory of the Cinematic Masterpiece in the Generative Era: Temporal Sovereignty, the Carriers of Density, and Why Technical Progress Makes Art Deare
Kriger, Peter
Halushko, Denys
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$13.20
Absurd Faith for an Absurd World: The Tertullian Paradox in the Age of Unreason
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$17.20
The Law of Imperative Uncertainty: Why Any Complex World Requires Uncertainty
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$23.88
Foundations of Intellectual Substrate Mining: A Methodology for Extracting Formal Laws from Raw Wisdom
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$28.80
Spinoza, Evolution, and the Model Trap: Why We Cannot Perceive Reality Directly
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$26.40
Irrational Reason and Rational Faith: Pascal and the Structural Limits of Rationality
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$22.56
The Dawn of Shared Intelligence: How Autonomous Technology Will Reshape Civilization
Kriger, Boris
Paperback
$28.80
Also in
History & Philosophy of Science
The Formative Years of Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's Princeton Lectures
Gutfreund, Hanoch
Renn, Jürgen
Hardcover
$66.00
Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
Kaku, Michio
Hardcover
$9.99
The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms That Sustain Life
Eklöf, Johan
Hardcover
$12.99
The Mystery of Life Energy: Biofield Healing, Phantom Limbs, Group Energetics, and Gaia Consciousness
Leskowitz, Eric
Paperback
From $11.99
The Day It Finally Happens: Alien Contact, Dinosaur Parks, Immortal Humans--And Other Possible Phenomena
Pearl, Mike
Paperback
$19.00
The Self-Actualizing Cosmos: The Akasha Revolution in Science and Human Consciousness
Laszlo, Ervin
Paperback
From $9.99
The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie
Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda
Hardcover
$28.80
I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right
Kaplan, Matt
Hardcover
$28.50
The Agi Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence
Roose, Kevin
Hardcover
$31.35
Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites
Martins, Dino
Hardcover
$27.00
The Earth Said Remember Me: How to Revive Our Memories and Restore the Planet
Mark, Jason Dove
Hardcover
$22.49
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
$19.00
Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI
Veliz, Carissa
Hardcover
From $19.99
Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe
Meyer, Stephen C.
Paperback
$23.74
When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life
Pinker, Steven
Hardcover
From $14.99
Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher
Sands, Matthew
Feynman, Richard P.
Leighton, Robert B.
Paperback
$15.29
Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness
Harden, Kathryn Paige
Hardcover
$27.00
What Sheep Think about the Weather: How to Listen to What Animals Are Trying to Say
Thomas, Amelia
Paperback
$16.19
Why We Ask Why: The Science of Explanation and the Human Drive to Understand
Lombrozo, Tania
Hardcover
$28.50
What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Munroe, Randall
Hardcover
$28.50
The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred
Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda
Paperback
$18.99
2084 and the AI Revolution, Updated and Expanded Edition: How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future
Lennox, John C.
Paperback
$26.59
Do Aliens Speak Physics?: And Other Questions about Science and the Nature of Reality
Whiteson, Daniel
Warner, Andy
Hardcover
$26.99
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
Feynman, Richard P.
Paperback
$18.04
Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being
Theise, Neil
Paperback
$18.00
Everything All at Once: How to Think Like a Science Guy, Solve Any Problem, and Make a Better World
Nye, Bill
Paperback
From $9.99
Technology and Barbarism: Or: How Billionaires Will Save Us from the End of the World
Nieva, Michel
Paperback
$18.00
Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America
Kieffer, Kira Ganga
Hardcover
$44.93
Magnifica Humanitas: Encyclical on Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence
Prevost, Robert
Paperback
$18.99
The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health
Kennedy, Robert F., Jr.
Hardcover
$30.88
Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science
Feser, Edward
Paperback
$47.88
The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience
Frank, Adam
Gleiser, Marcelo
Thompson, Evan
Paperback
$20.66
A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)
Oakley, Barbara
Paperback
$19.00
Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
From $11.99
Scientific Facts in the Bible: 100 Reasons to Believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin
Comfort, Ray
Paperback
$8.54
Misguided: Where Misinformation Starts, How It Spreads, and What to Do about It
Facciani, Matthew
Paperback
$60.00
The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--And Its Implications
Deutsch, David
Paperback
$17.10
Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
Miller, Kenneth R.
Paperback
$18.04
There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World
Rovelli, Carlo
Paperback
From $11.99
Everyday Extraordinary: A Scientist Ponders a Lifetime of Magical, Bizarre, and Paranormal Experiences
Markovsky, Barry
Hardcover
$28.45
The Science of Last Things: Essays on Deep Time and the Boundaries of the Self
Wayland-Smith, Ellen
Paperback
$16.20
For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World
Sagan, Sasha
Paperback
$20.90
Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe
Meyer, Stephen C.
Hardcover
$30.88
The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God
Strobel, Lee
Paperback
$18.99
The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science
Schneider, Michael S.
Paperback
$18.99
The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms That Sustain Life
Eklöf, Johan
Paperback
From $11.99
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake
Novella, Steven
Paperback
From $9.99
How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
Smil, Vaclav
Paperback
$17.10
Ignorance: What We Do Not Know, Cannot Know, Must Not Know, and Refuse to Know
Szpiro, George G.
Hardcover
$42.00
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change
Oreskes, Naomi
Conway, Erik M.
Paperback
$18.99
War on Ivermectin: The Medicine That Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the Pandemic
Kory, Pierre
McCarthy, Jenna
Hardcover
$30.88
The Passing of the Great Race: The Racial Basis of European History (With Original 1916 Illustrations in Full Color)
Grant, Madison
Hardcover
$28.11
The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos
Jaffe, Andrew H.
Hardcover
$30.88
Moral AI: And How We Get There
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter
Conitzer, Vincent
Borg, Jana Schaich
Paperback
$18.99
Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World
Metzl, Jamie
Paperback
$20.89
Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe
Greene, Brian
Paperback
From $11.99
The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology
Farahany, Nita A.
Paperback
$19.00
Forgotten Landscapes: How Native Americans Created Pre-Columbian North America and What We Can Learn from It
Rice, Stanley A.
Hardcover
$28.45
Beyond the Quantum: A Quest for the Origin and Hidden Meaning of Quantum Mechanics
Valentini, Antony
Hardcover
$50.75
(Super) Natural Science: The Real Science of Superheroes, Mythic Creatures, and the (Sci-Fi) Universe
Liu, Charles
Paperback
$23.70
Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Second Edition
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
$52.43
Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning
Barad, Karen
Paperback
$48.93
This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking
Brockman, John
Paperback
From $11.99
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Newton, Isaac
Paperback
$20.34
Science and Spiritual Practices: Transformative Experiences and Their Effects on Our Bodies, Brains, and Health
Sheldrake, Rupert
Paperback
$16.10
God According to God: A Scientist Discovers We've Been Wrong about God All Along
Schroeder, Gerald
Paperback
$18.99