Review by Choice Review
Most know Thomas Kuhn (1922-96) best for The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), in which he introduced the concept of the paradigm shift, which marked fundamental changes in the concepts and practices of science. Read in this context, Kuhn helps one think broadly about the history of ideas as they have shaped science and scientific enquiry. Few, however, have read Kuhn's body of work as it developed over his lifetime. To overlook this is to miss how Kuhn's views were shaped at first by a potentially oversimplified reading of Karl Popper and the logical positivists, and later as Kuhn was reacting to misunderstandings of his work, in part due to his own homogenization of the "received view" in the philosophy of science, as Kuhn perceived it. Mladenovic's project is to put these two camps in their proper context, to separate the failings of the empiricists to whom Kuhn was responding from Kuhn's own individual, more sophisticated reaction from it. At the same time, in focusing on the broader legacy Mladenovic hopes to rescue Kuhn from the epistemic relativism developed by contemporary sociologists of science. Clear and thorough, Mladenovic's arguments are certain to advance Kuhn's ideas beyond the canon, influencing the next generation of philosophers and historians of science. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. --Robert C Robinson, Georgia State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
