Abstract

This article aims to reflect on the place of history in the history of science from the perspective of Brazilian historiography of science, mainly according to the thought of the Brazilian physicist and historian of science, Carlos Alvarez Maia. Since the 1990s, Maia (2013) began to question why the history of science became (and still largely remains) a “history of absent historians” in the face of the predominance of history of science in the Natural Science Departments and the absence in History Departments. The dynamic and changing historiography of science itself reaffirms the lack of historical analyses using history’s methodological and conceptual apparatus. Thus, epistemological aspects appear interrelated to political-institutional issues. Consequently, one has a political-epistemological perspective for discussing the place – or non-place – of history in the history of science. The thought of Maia (2013) acts as an essential starting point for reflection. It constitutes a possible opening in constructing a consolidation of discussions about the impacts (of the absence and the presence of the conceptual apparatus of history) in developing new historiography of science conceptually historical.

Highlights

  • Why “Absent Historians” When Referring to the History of Science? The Thought of Carlos Alvarez Maia

  • Why has the history of science become a history of absent historians? This disquieting question that irrupts the thin layer of regularity that cradles the history of science is the guiding thread of the thought of Brazilian physicist and historian of science Carlos Alvarez

  • The contact with thinkers of the Brazilian historiography of science such as Professor Hilton Japiassu (1934-2015), in whose classes he operated the effects of the “demolition of scientistic ideology” and the participation in the study group “Macumba of physics” under the guidance of Mario Bunge, whose goal was to “unravel [our] disturbances before the theoretical and epistemological innovations of twentieth-century physics” (Maia 2011, 12) and the historical and philosophical issues became an indispensable complement to scientific knowledge

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Summary

Andrea Mara Ribeiro da Silva Vieira

Maia (1945-2019) summarized in the epigraph of one of his major works: “What is the history of science? A history without history? What is it? Perhaps, a history of absent historians” (Maia 2013, 11). They wanted to highlight the negative aspects of the distance between history and the history of science, especially regarding the non-use of the conceptual and methodological apparatus of history This problem is present in the unfolding of the complex historical plot in which historians tout court, sociologists, philosophers and historians of science dialogue (Maia 2010; 2013), which without losing sight of the role of social history for the history of science. These two extremes are weakened in the face of current research that each day demonstrates the complex nature of science in which several dimensions, among them, the role of nature, the historical, social, economic, or political aspects, in dialogue or dispute, interact, intersect and interpenetrate

Trends Towards a Historical History of Science
The Place of History in the History of Science in Brazil
Findings
Conclusion
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