ABSTRACT
Thomas Kuhn largely abandoned traditional confirmation theory as practiced by Rudolf Carnap and most other philosophers of science. Kuhn was among the first philosophers to attempt to characterize the research scientist's point of view, working forward with the kind of feeling described by Hans-Jorg Rheinberger. This is a prospective point of view—looking and working toward the future full of anticipation but also uncertainty. Kuhn's quasi-cyclic normal-science/revolutionary science model implied that there would be no end to scientific revolutions even in the mature sciences, as long as serious research continued. According to Kuhn, when Galileo came to see a pendulum bob striving to reach its original height as opposed to Aristotle's seeing a heavy object striving to reach the centre of the earth, their perceptual differences went all the way down. In attempting to understand Aristotle we need to understand his goals and the problems that they helped to generate, and the modes of inquiry at his disposal.
