History Of Science Studies Research Articles

Hongye Fan: A Pioneer in the Historical Studies of Science in Modern China

Professor Hongye Fan 樊洪业 (1942-2020) was a distinguished historian, scholar, and editor in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing who helped lay the foundation for the historical studies of science in modern China with his writings, editing work on primary sources, and organizational efforts. Trained in biology he published historical studies on a wide-range of topics, including Jesuit missionaries in China, the May Fourth movement, Science Society of China, Lysenkoism, and the CAS. His major editorial achievements included the journal Yuanshi ziliao yu yanjiu 院史资料与研究 (Materials and Studies on CAS History), the 24-volume Zhu Kezhen quanji 竺可桢全集 (The Complete Works of Coching Chu), a 54-volume Chinese scientists' oral histories book series, and a national project to document the lives and careers of senior Chinese scientists. He also mentored a new generation of historians of science in modern China.

China, India, and the social construction of technology in international society: The English School meets Science and Technology Studies

AbstractIn recent years, there has been a growing scholarly interest in how International Relations theory can contribute to our understanding of the impact of technology on global politics, underpinned mainly by an engagement with Science and Technology Studies (STS). However, less attention has been paid to the ways in which international society shapes technology. Building on sociological and historical studies of science and technology, this article outlines one way through which international society has constituted technology by developing a synthetic account of the emergence of technological advancement as a ‘standard of civilisation’ in the nineteenth century that differentiated the ‘society of civilised states’ from non-European societies, with a particular focus on China and India. In doing so, this article also highlights how this process has had a powerful and enduring influence on Chinese and Indian conceptions about science and technology. Thus, by shifting the focus from how technology shapes global politics to how international society shapes technology, this article provides new insights into the relationship between technology, power, and modernity in an interdisciplinary context. It also offers a new way of thinking about the complex dynamics of today's global politics of technology.

SETTING GOALS AND ADDRESSING THE QUESTION OF THE STAFFING OF DISTRICTS AND THEIR SUBORDINATE REGIONAL AUTHORITIES IN 1929 AND THE BEGINNING OF COLLECTIVIZATION (FOR EXAMPLE SUKHINICHI DISTRICT OF WESTERN REGION OF THE RSFSR)

Traditionally, historical science studies the administrative-territorial reform carried out by the Soviet leadership in 1929, and the collectivization processes of 1930 in parallel, without focusing on their intersection. The article reveals the connection of these two aspects. The author identifies that the main task, which put the Central leadership to County, the new administrative-territorial unit, in 1929-1930s was the collectivization. To implement this installation center, the County needed a prepared, politically correct staff. To address this issue, the Central leadership began in the 1920s, having launched a large-scale campaign to clean up party cadres. Young employees from the former Kaluga province, whose average age was 35, came to senior positions in Sukhinichi district. The value of these personnel was the ability, and most importantly, the desire to work under the leadership of the party. For successful implementation of the program of the center the management of Sukhinichi district Committee of VKP(b) needed qualified specialists in the areas which are a part of the district. Followed party purge neighborhoods. However, this did not solve the problem. On the contrary, the shortage of personnel capable of collectivizing on the ground has become an issue. The problem the party leadership Sukhinichi County is unable to decide until the summer of 1930. This was probably one of the reasons that gave rise to kinks and curvatures during collectivization.

Miri Shefer-Mossensohn, Science among the Ottomans: The Cultural Creation and Exchange of Knowledge

History of science witnessed a revolutionary change in the second half of the twentieth century with a heightened focus on the social, political, and cultural setting that shaped production and circulation of scientific knowledge. This approach, which also raised questions about the definition of science, had an effect on the historical studies of science in the Ottoman Empire since the mid-1980s.

Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority

Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits. Put simply, science has never been pure. To be human is to err, and we understand science better when we recognize it as the laborious achievement of fallible, imperfect, and historically situated human beings. Shapin's essays collected here include reflections on the historical relationships between science and common sense, between science and modernity, and between science and the moral order. They explore the relevance of physical and social settings in the making of scientific knowledge, the methods appropriate to understanding science historically, dietetics as a compelling site for historical inquiry, the identity of those who have made scientific knowledge, and the means by which science has acquired credibility and authority. This wide-ranging and intensely interdisciplinary collection by one of the most distinguished historians and sociologists of science represents some of the leading edges of change in the scholarly understanding of science over the past several decades.

Information production by scientists and the history of science: typological study of personal archives

This article addresses the study of document typology in the personal archives of scientists and its importance in the history of science studies and for the archivist's work. A brief history is presented of diplomatic to typological information, emphasizing that identifying document production activity as essential for its classification. The article illustrates personal archive characteristics as regards the diversity of documental types and, in particular, those belonging to physicists. Furthermore, it presents five examples of documental types found in the archives of physicists as examples of research in progress. It also highlights the elaboration of a glossary of different documental kinds and types found in the private archives of Museum of Astronomy and Related Sciences in Rio de Janeiro.

Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority.

Steven ShapinThe Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. 552 pgs

Depoliticization or Americanization of Japanese Science Studies

In this paper, I will describe the history of Japanese science studies (In the Japanese language, the term “science studies” [Kagaku-ron] is used to indicate a broad area, which covers the history, philosophy, and social studies of science and technology.) from the beginning of the twentieth century to around the mid-1980s, and will argue how depoliticization took place in its history. Japanese science studies was formed under the conspicuous influence of German philosophy before World War II (hereafter WW II), especially in its neo-Kantian tradition. During the military regime, science studies offered a hiding place for Marxists. However, after the end of the Asian-Pacific War, British influence became stronger in the history and sociology of science in two stages. First, logical positivism arrived, in this case, mainly from the USA under the name of “analytic philosophy.” Second, the American influence was furthered by the introduction of Kuhn’s theory of paradigm which unexpectedly depoliticized Japanese science studies. This trend seems to have reflected the course of the Cold War. After the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster, one of the most significant legacies of Cold War Science, we need to review the history of science studies in order to retrieve its “critical” function. Even though this paper focuses on Japan, comparable reflections should be made worldwide.

Virtue and the material culture of the nineteenth century: the debate over the mass marketplace in France in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution

This article treats the intellectual problem of revolution, agency, and the advent of liberal democracy from the standpoint of mid-nineteenth century France in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions. After a discussion of the theoretical and historiographical problem—in particular the relevance for this period in history of science studies—the article discusses the views of former Saint-Simonian and political economist, Michel Chevalier, eventually turning to the debate over the free market of goods and labor between the early French socialist Louis Blanc and Chevalier in Chevalier’s new role of liberal free trade activist who trumpeted the ideology of the mass marketplace. Chevalier’s engagement of the social question turned on a distinctively moral, ideological, and, ultimately, technocratic defense of the free market—this free market utopianism became both starker and more ideologically refined as a result of Chevalier’s engagement with Blanc, especially in regard to worker-education. Both referred to the new mass marketplace of cheap, retail goods created by the rapid advance of mass transport, modern logistics, as le bon marche. French political economists went so far as to invoke a new way of life: la vie a bon marche (literally, “life on the cheap”). This notion of work and life was opposed by Blanc on the grounds of fraternal social solidarity. Finally, and potently, the moral virtues of the free market were conceived by Chevalier as a direct answer to social revolution, a means for affording social stability.

The Scienti ic Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation; Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority

The Scienti ic Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation; Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority

A Naturalizer's Vision Never Pure Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority by Steven Shapin Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2010. 564 pp. $70. ISBN 9780801894206. Paper, $30. ISBN 9780801894213.

This collection of essays samples Shapin's explorations of where, how, and by whom science has been produced.

Historische Wissenschaftsforschung, heute. Überlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Wissensgesellschaft

AbstractHistorical Science Studies Today. Thoughts about a History of the Knowledge Society. The article explores theoretical and historiographical approaches in the field of historical science studies, while focusing on the history of the knowledge society. It argues that a straightforward transfer of the concept of knowledge society into the past has to be pursued with care, favorably with an extraction of some analytical key concepts. This extraction is termed ‘decontextualization’ while a second approach, ‘contextualization’, is applied to the study of the knowledge society in its own time, namely the second half of the twentieth century. The latter approach needs to be combined with a history of science studies, especially a history of the concepts explaining and constituting the knowledge society itself. Furthermore, it is proposed to study the operative concepts of innovation and regulation in order to analyze the coupling processes of science, economy, technology, and government.

Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. By Marc D. Hauser. New York: HarperCollins. $27.95. xxi + 489 p.; ill.; index. 0‐06‐078070‐3. 2006.

Previous articleNext article No AccessNew Biological BooksMoral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. By Marc D. Hauser. New York: HarperCollins. $27.95. xxi + 489 p.; ill.; index. 0‐06‐078070‐3. 2006.Robert J. RichardsRobert J. RichardsConceptual & Historical Studies of Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Search for more articles by this author Conceptual & Historical Studies of Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, IllinoisPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 83, Number 4December 2008 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/596238 Views: 9Total views on this site © 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Historical and other studies of science, technology and medicine in the University of Edinburgh

Considering Edinburgh's prominence in the historical development of the sciences, it might be expected that the formal study of the history of science would appear as a significant feature in its university. Alas, this is not so, although there are signs that things are beginning to improve. If there is a deficit in historical studies of science, however, it is surely outweighed by Edinburgh's remarkable contribution to the sociological study of science and technology, which has even given rise to the designation ‘Edinburgh School’ to refer to a characteristic approach to the study of science that was developed in Edinburgh University. In this report I briefly consider the history of these and other aspects of the study of science, technology and medicine in Edinburgh as well as presenting an outline of the current picture.

BOUNDARIES AND AUDIENCES OF NATIONAL HISTORIES OF SCIENCE: INSIGHTS FROM THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE NETHERLANDS

The present paper traces the evolution of writing national-oriented histories of science and technology of the Netherlands. Several episodes are distinguished. A first wave of national histories of science and technology was written during the first decades of the 19th century. These histories had a wide scope, which included science, technology, the humanities and the arts. A second wave, which lasted from about 1865 to 1900, was strongly connected to the rise of the scientific professions. Its focus was on the sciences perse, and on the Dutch "Golden Age" of the 17th century. A third wave occurred during and shortly after the Second World War. Its focus was mainly on the "Second Golden Age" of Dutch science (1870-1910), and its major audience were young boys that were to be recruited to the sciences. The second part of the paper discusses the growing influence of "contextualization" in both the history of science and the history of technology from about 1975 onwards. As a result, local factors often received more attention in historical studies of science and technology than national influences. In 1985, Klaas van Berkel undertook a bold attempt to write a new synthesis of the history of Dutch science, but his approach was too strongly influenced by the three previous waves of national histories. From 1989 to 2003 two projects on the national history of technology resulted in 13 volumes on Dutch technology between 1800 and 1970. New research was initiated, and the issue of "national styles" in the development of technology received ample attention. In his conclusions the author points to lessons to be learned from economic history and the history of art, and he concludes with a plea for more historiographical discussion in the history of science and technology.

PUBLIC SCIENCE IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Mi Gyung Kim, Affinity, That Elusive Dream: A Genealogy of the Chemical Revolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003)Guiliano Pancaldi, Volta: Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)To challenge the presumed isolation of the scientific method from social concerns and forces, to question the inevitability of progress, to explore the ideological and polemical aspects of science—all these are by now goals commonly stated in historical studies of science. In the quest for these desiderata over the past twenty years or so, historians of science have in many cases distanced themselves from intellectual history in its idealist, disembodied form. However, in spite of salutary moves to analyze instruments, laboratory practices, visual representations, instituions and politics, a great deal of the raw material for the history of science remains textual, very often in the form of print. And, as the existence of this journal attests, intellectual history has retooled to take seriously the contexts for ideas and intellectual movements. At the present moment, when intellectual historians and historians of science are allied in the game of contextualizing our subjects, it is worth considering how current scholarship is working to define multi-layered contexts for scientific ideas and the texts in which they appear.

Beyond the Species Barrier: The Health Council of The Netherlands, Legitimacy, and the Making of Objectivity

The Health Council of the Netherlands is an independent scientific advisory board to the Dutch government in matters of public health. In this article we argue that even for an independent body such as the Health Council there seems to be no escape from the increasing intertwinement of scientific and societal processes. In order to produce a serviceable truth for policymaking, the council needs to reflect on what goes on in its socio‐political surroundings. On the other hand, how could we ever come to understand the legitimacy of the council when notions of scientific objectivity dissolve in such a reflexive, inherently political stance? In a situation where science and society are thoroughly interrelated, the Health Council somehow succeeds in bringing about or re‐claiming some sense of objectivity. Our central question will be how to conceptualise this notion of ‘objectivity’ without having to rely on idealized notions of objectivity that are criticized in philosophical, sociological and historical studies of science and society. In order to do so, we will regard the objectivity of advisory reports of the Health Council as being constructed out of heterogeneous elements and under complex circumstances. The theoretical point will be empirically underpinned with case material drawn from activities of the Health Council in the period 1985–2002 in predominantly the subject areas healthcare and medical technology.

The place of people in our knowledge

The science system of Western civilization is facing irreversible transformations. These transformations will affect the relationship between the public image of science and the actual practice within the sciences. In a situation in which scientists are increasingly asked ‘what have you lately done for us’, the alleged purity and objectivity of the sciences have to be reconsidered and we have to rethink the place of people in the knowledge produced by the sciences. Bringing together insights from social and historical studies of science, this article argues for the awareness of a more local, historically and socially contingent knowledge production, which – due to this local embeddedness – can lead to a socially more robust science.

Feminist Epistemology: Implications for Philosophy of Science

This article examines the best contemporary arguments for a feminist epistemology of scientific knowledge as found in recent works by S. Harding. I argue that no feminist epistemology of science is worthy of the name, because such an epistemology fails to escape well-known vicissitudes of epistemic relativism. But feminist epistemology merits attention from philosophers of science because it is part of a larger relativist turn in the social sciences and humanities that now aims to extend its critique to science, and Harding's “standpoint feminism” is the best-developed case. She attempts to make new use of discredited philosophical ideas concerning underdetermination, Planck's Hypothesis, and the role of counterfactuals in historical studies of science.

How Do Scientists Have Disagreements about Experiments? Incommensurability in the Use of Goal-derived Categories

In this article I explain why scientists cannot always resolve their disagreements about experiments even if they do not hold conflicting theoretical assumptions, and how incommensurability in experiments can occur even if experiments are not deeply encumbered by theoretical assumptions. On the basis of recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and an extended analysis of a historical case, I explore a cognitive mechanism that may generate incommensurability in experiment appraisal. I find that, because of the involvement of goal-derived categories, incommensurability in experiments may result from the conflict of goals that scientists pursue in their researches, from the differences of goal-derived classification schemata that they employ in analyzing experiments, and from discrepancies between skills that they have developed in their practices. This account differs from the conventional interpretation of Kuhn’s thesis, which attributes the cause of incommensurability solely to theoretical differences. In the conclusion, I further discuss the implications of this new account of incommensurability for both philosophical and historical studies of science.