Thomas Kuhn in the context of "Ludwik Fleck"

In the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a major shift in the understanding of the cycle of the heavenly spheres. Driven by a desire for a more perfect (i.e. circular) description of the cosmos than the prevailing Ptolemaic model - which posited that the Sun circled a stationary Earth - Copernicus instead advanced a heliostatic system where a stationary Sun was located near, though not precisely at, the mathematical center of the heavens. In the 20th century, the science historian Thomas Kuhn characterized the "Copernican Revolution" as the first historical example of a paradigm shift in human knowledge. Both Arthur Koestler and David Wootton, on the other hand, have disagreed with Kuhn about how revolutionary Copernicus' work should be considered.

Commensurability is a concept in the philosophy of science whereby scientific theories are said to be "commensurable" if scientists can discuss the theories using a shared nomenclature that allows direct comparison of them to determine which one is more valid or useful. On the other hand, theories are incommensurable if they are embedded in starkly contrasting conceptual frameworks whose languages do not overlap sufficiently to permit scientists to directly compare the theories or to cite empirical evidence favoring one theory over the other. Discussed by Ludwik Fleck in the 1930s, and popularized by Thomas Kuhn in the 1960s, the problem of incommensurability results in scientists talking past each other, as it were, while comparison of theories is muddled by confusions about terms, contexts and consequences.

In the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a major shift in the understanding of the cycle of the heavenly spheres. Driven by a desire for a more perfect (i.e. circular) description of the cosmos than the prevailing Ptolemaic model - which posited that the Sun circled a stationary Earth - Copernicus instead advanced a heliostatic system where a stationary Sun was located near, though not precisely at, the mathematical center of the heavens. In the 20th century, the science historian Thomas Kuhn characterized the "Copernican Revolution" as the first historical example of a paradigm shift in human knowledge,. Both Arthur Koestler and David Wootton, on the other hand, have disagreed with Kuhn about how revolutionary Copernicus' work should be considered.

In philosophy of science, an observation is said to be "theory-laden" when shaped by the investigator's theoretical presuppositions. According to this perspective, observers have a perspective that presupposes a theory, they inevitably make judgments about the observed information at the moment of observation. The thesis is chiefly associated with the late 1950s–early 1960s work of Norwood Russell Hanson, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend, though it was likely first put forth some 50 years earlier, at least implicitly, by Pierre Duhem.

Semantic theory-ladenness refers to the impact of theoretical assumptions on the meaning of observational terms, while perceptual theory-ladenness refers to their impact on the perceptual experience itself. Theory-ladenness is also relevant for measurement outcomes: the data thus acquired may be said to be theory-laden since it is meaningless by itself unless interpreted as the outcome of the measurement processes involved.

The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intellectual growth. Junior fellows are appointed by senior fellows based upon previous academic accomplishments and receive generous financial support for three years while they conduct independent research at Harvard University in any discipline, without being required to meet formal degree requirements or to be graded in any way. The only stipulation is that they maintain primary residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the duration of their fellowship. Membership in the society is for life.

The society has contributed numerous scholars to the Harvard faculty and thus significantly influenced the tenor of discourse at the university. Among its best-known members are philosopher W. V. O. Quine, Jf '36; behaviorist B. F. Skinner, Jf '36; double Nobel laureate John Bardeen, Jf '38; economist Paul Samuelson, Jf '40; historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Jf '43; presidential advisor McGeorge Bundy, Jf '48; historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, Jf '51; linguist and activist Noam Chomsky, Jf '55; biologist E. O. Wilson, Jf '56; cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky, Jf '57; former dean of the Harvard faculty, economist Henry Rosovsky, Jf '57; economist and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Jf '59; philosopher Saul Kripke, Jf '66; ethnographer and photographer Bruce Jackson, Jf '67; Fields Medal-winning theoretical physicist Ed Witten, Jf '81; and writer, critic, and editor Leon Wieseltier, Jf '82.

Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich OM CBE FBA (/ˈɡɒmbrɪk/; German: [ˈgɔmbʁɪç]; 30 March 1909 – 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born art historian who, after settling in England in 1936, became a naturalised British citizen in 1947 and spent most of his working life in the United Kingdom.

Ernst Gombrich was the author of many works of cultural history and art history, most notably The Story of Art, a book widely regarded as one of the most accessible introductions to the visual arts, and Art and Illusion, a major work in the psychology of perception that influenced thinkers as diverse as Carlo Ginzburg, Nelson Goodman, Umberto Eco, and Thomas Kuhn.

A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Even though Kuhn restricted the use of the term to the natural sciences, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events.

Kuhn presented his notion of a paradigm shift in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).