Two Types of Natural Kind Discovery: Nobel Meets Kuhn

Abstract Philosophers have spilled much ink over the discovery of ideas in the classical “context of discovery.” However, there has been little engagement with the question of what constitutes a discovery of “things in the world.” A much-overlooked answer to this question is provided by T. S. Kuhn. In this article, I show that discoveries awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics over the past 53 years accord with a basic premise of Kuhn’s account and his distinction between two types of natural kind discoveries. I also draw normative conclusions for credit attribution in science.