The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

By: Thomas S. Kuhn

Narrated by: Dennis Holland

Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were - and still are. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach.

With The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don't arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of "normal science", as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age.

Note: This new edition of Kuhn's essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn's ideas to the science of today.

©1996 The University of Chicago (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A landmark in intellectual history which has attracted attention far beyond its own immediate field." ( Science)

"Perhaps the best explanation of [the] process of discovery." ( New York Times Book Review)

Discovery filtered through paradigms

We filter discovery through paradigms. The recognized patterns of our world are its structure. We Observe all from this perspective.
Then, we break the pattern. The model grows, expands encompassing multiple patterns. Add a thousand multi-syllabic adjectives and you have a book. An important work.

This a history of events, events of scientific endeavors. All the same Where else will you encounter Aristarchus of Samos and phlogiston in a paragraph ?

Un fascinante manera de ver la evolución de la ciencia y tecnología.

Me gusta la capacidad del autor de explicar las etapas de una evolución cientifica: ciencia normal, crisis y finalmente revolución.

Better than prior reviews led me to believe

I'm not quite sure what the others are talking about.

The reader was adequate. He certainly wasn't superbly engaging, but neither was he so horrible as to make the book unlistenable.

I was quite able to at least get the idea after a single listening, and so I don't think this is a bad format for less strenuous digestion of "Structure." Indeed, if you listen to it many times it might serve to totally replace the book.

Perhaps it is right to say that academic books usually reward slow readings and re-readings while stopping occasionally to consider what's being said or what has been said. The pause and reverse buttons can facilitate some of this with an audio book, but obviously this type of digestion of a work is more suited to reading than to listening. However, for a first time read-through this audio book will more than serve.

The Idea of Progress

This is a very insightful book. Thomas Kuhn delivered an intelligent account about how the sciences develop. More precisely, development by disruption and not by acumulation. Listening to this essay, one can reflect about the idea of progress. It seems that the sciences advance with rejection of old paradigms and creation of new ones, the last don't necessarily linked with the formers. Can we say the same thing about the development of humanities? The narration is fair and the audiobook is from a book edition that have a foreword by the author, in which he answers some criticism the original version received.

Maybe not for me

This was an important book in 1963 when it was first published. I thought it sounded interesting. Unfortunately, I found it to be a very scholarly work, which overworked it's thesis again and again in fine detail. The author seems to insert a paranthetical comment or subclause into every sentence. I could have gotten everything I needed to know on this subject in a ten-page article.

I suppose that I should have read reviews beforehand to understand better whether the work would hold my interest.

At least the narrator makes it easy to follow the author's dense terminology and phrasing.

Philosophy and history of science

Kuhn's work is the classic text on the philosophy and history of science. No contemporary education in the sciences is complete without reading this.

Overly Long

I really felt this was overly long and should have been edited down by about half. It was hard to stay engaged, and I was questioning whether it was the quality of the reader, or the writing. This is unfortunate, as this is an influential book, and I think Kuhn's claims are very compelling.

excellent

an excellent reading of an excellent book. wow. the information is timeless because the way humans think and process information are constant. Kuhn has captured the essence of the (complex) process by which we think, test, and alter what we think we know.

Bad Narrator. Tried & tried. Couldn't Finish

The narrator pauses in inappropriate places. Not just occasionally, or after commas. He pauses in almost every sentence. He pauses in [...] between words where there shouldn't be a pause.
Many pauses are so long you think the audio has stopped or a new chapter will begin.
It's bad enough to impair comprehension.
I've listened to 170 books on audible. Bad narrators happen from time to time, but you're usually still able to comprehend the text. Not here.

The introductory essay reads like an undergraduate opinion paper. Where the author had none and compensated by submitting double the assigned page count. Don't know why it's in the book.

Thomas Kuhn's ideas seemed interesting. Will pick up the e-book and finish there.

good history, little long winded

very interesting premise in how Paradigm Shift overtime however it's a little verbals, overall good