KUHN AND PHILOSOPHY
Initially trained as a physicist, Kuhn became a leading and extraordinarily influential figure in the history of science. He saw his work in the history of science as contributing to a novel philosophical conception of the nature of science. At the outset of Structure, for example, Kuhn announces his intention to replace the “development-by-accumulation” model he associates with the philosophical tradition before him—including, in particular, what he calls “early logical positivism”—with a new model of radical conceptual discontinuity or incommensurability. Structure was written during Kuhn's tenure teaching philosophy and history of science at Berkeley, and, shortly after its publication, he took up a new post as professor of philosophy and history of science at Princeton. From 1983 until his death in 1996 Kuhn was professor of philosophy at MIT, where he attempted further to articulate his conception of incommensurability, taking account of developments in linguistics and philosophy of language.