Thomas Kuhn’s “pre-Structure” Affinities with Arthur Lovejoy’s Critical Realism

In this paper I argue that at the heart of the genesis of Thomas S. Kuhn’s landmark ideas in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) lies a complex interplay between two strands of early twentiethcentury philosophy at Harvard: the critical realism of Arthur O. Lovejoy (including its European antecedents) and the neo-realism associated with Bertrand Russell. By drawing on unpublished archival materials at MIT—lectures, syllabi, examination questions, and correspondence—I trace Kuhn’s intellectual trajectory from his adoption of Lovejoy’s historiographic method to rejection of Russell’s purely logical methodology to reconstruct a previously neglected lineage in Thomas Kuhn’s philosophical development. My central claim is that Structure represents the culmination of Kuhn’s Harvard background, his intensive engagement with Lovejoy’s Great Chain of Being and his resolute critique of Russell’s logical schema. I further argue that Kuhn’s pre-Structure views—in addition to their adherence to Lovejoy’s historical methods—displays strong similarities with Lovejoy’s philosophy and his critical realism’s commonsense naturalism. In conclusion, I will try to show that Kuhn’s pre-Structure affinities with Harvard critical realism anticipate important issues such as the notions of paradigm, theory-ladenness, underdetermination, incommensurability, scientific communities and normal science, that arise from a fertile “Harvard Hub”.