I met this book two times in my life, once when I was about 17-18 and never actually bothered reading it. Even the idea and possibility of a non-cumulative science destroyed my hopes about any advancement in general in these fields. I felt betrayed by science and weak, vulnerable to subjective ideas and mere personalities of scientists. I think this is the first step on the path of getting rid of scientism.

Then second time I actually read this book, 6 years later, though I should have done so much earlier, because there is advancament, and Kuhn's paradigm view (or "interdisciplinary matrix" view) makes so much sense and the author has so many great examples from history of science that it hurts not to see the stages of some non-cumulative, but real development. You don't always need a set goal to arrive at, this book is an absolutely must read to anyone interested in scientific ideas and their place in human history.