Historiography Of Science Research Articles

Between Reception and Reflection

In this work, I propose some notes for a current epistemological evaluation around Whiggism and presentism in the historiographical proposal of Guillermo Boido (1941-2013). In the first place, I will locate the topic proposed in the shared framework from the “Colloquium of Historiography of Science in Latin America (Argentina – Brazil – Uruguay): Reception, Reflection and Production.” Second, I will refer to some aspects of Boido’s academic career and I will place him in what I identify as a “second stage” of the history of science in Argentina. Third, I will dwell on some of Boido’s writings, particularly on those in which he addresses the questions of Whiggism and presentism. Fourth, I will recover some elements on the treatment of these issues in recent works carried out from the perspective of historical epistemology. Finally, in conclusion, I will propose a current epistemological evaluation of Whiggism and presentism between reception and reflection; an evaluation oriented to sustain a “critical” (Loison 2016) and “pluralist” (Chang 2021) presentism, in the face of the epistemological, ethical and political challenges of our current days.

Medieval Scientific Policy in Medicine, Measuring Realism in Prophet Medicine

In dark days of Europe, which was a barren science, you saw the world through superstitions of alchemy and methods based on ignorance and speculation. A current of science emerged in medieval world that provided a new definition of science. In modern definition of science, it is knowledge of fixed truths of nature, man and society, which you have acquired with the tools of empirical intellect and by observation and induction, and which have been useful for ensuring the welfare and security of human beings. The background of this scientific current is call to reason, realism and philosophy. The intellect is source of knowledge of world, and the dimensions of the universe are based on principles of philosophy and method of realism. Sarton, leader of historiography of science in middle Ages, introduced Muslims as leaders of science in middle Ages. A collection of health, food, medicine and theoretical treatments is attributed to Muhammad, which has been published under the title of Prophetic Medicine. Ibn Khaldu criticized medicine of Prophet eight hundred years ago. he writes that Prophet was not a physician and a specialist in worldly affairs, and that use of Prophet's medicine does not require observance of status of prophethood The hypothesis of the present study is that despite Ibn Khaldun's criticism, the realism of the Prophet's medical works shows that Prophet's medicine needs new reflection and study, and a special type of medicine is based on trust in divine wisdom in creating an intelligent system between disease and medicine in nature. The present study has analyzed and explained realism in Prophet's medical words about fenugreek and has shown and proved it according to modern medical data. The Prophet issued a general decree regarding fenugreek and said; Hundreds of new laboratory and clinical research in medicine, veterinary medicine, agriculture, biology show general effectiveness of fenugreek in maintaining human health, livestock, nature and environment, and fenugreek is at heart of biology research, which Proves realism of comprehensive speech of Prophet.

The History of Historiography as a Form of Disciplinary Self-Reflection

This article addresses the theoretical and methodological conceptions of Georg G. Iggers (1926 –2017) in the context of his work on the history of historiography. In addition to the autobiography written by Wilma and George Iggers, the present study focuses on the main subjects of his research: the emergence and development of German historical scholarship (Geschichtswissenschaft ) from Leopold Ranke to the present, the role of the Enlightenment in the constitution of “scientific historiography,” different forms of New History in the twentieth century, the relationship between Marxism and historiography, and the challenge to historical writing posed by postmodernism and globalization. Moreover, special attention is given to Iggers’ ideas as one of the foremost engaged public intellectuals.

Hélène Metzger on Precursors: A Historian and Philosopher of Science Confronts Her Evil Demon

The historian and philosopher of science Helene Metzger (1889–1944) delivered “Le role des precurseurs dans l’evolution de la science” in 1939 as a lecture of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques of the University of Paris, later published in their journal Thales. In this talk, Metzger not only attacks the notion of “precursor” and a history of science focused on “great men” and their discoveries, but also makes a strong case for the philosophical value of the history of science. We here offer a translation of this witty and subtle essay in the historiography of science, followed by our commentary.

The 1931 London Congress: The Rise of British Marxism and the Interdependencies of Society, Nature and Technology

Abstract The Second International Conference of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, held in London in 1931, exerted a profound influence on the historiography of science, giving rise to a new research field in the anglophone world at the intersection of social and political studies and the history of science and technology. In particular, Boris Hessen’s presentation on the Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia successfully ushered in a new tradition in the historiography of science. This article introduces and discusses the London conference as a benchmark in the history of the social study of science within a Marxist and materialist tradition. In contemporary science and technology studies, political epistemology, and the study of society-nature interaction, it is no less relevant today than it was at the beginning of the fabulous 1930s. In reconstructing some important theses presented by the Soviet delegation in London, we aim to revive the conference’s legacy and the approach promoted on that occasion as a pretext to address current debates about society’s major transition toward a new agency and ways of existence in the Earth system. In particular, the London conference invited us to think of the growing metabolic rift between society, technology, and nature, and further reflects a historical moment of profound environmental and political crisis.

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion: An Exploration of Conflict and the Complexity Principle

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion: An Exploration of Conflict and the Complexity Principle

Historiography of politics of the Soviet state 1929–1939 regarding the Old Believers

Based on the analysis of the post-Soviet Russian scientific historiography, the system-forming directions of studying the confessional Soviet policy of the period 1929–1939 are determined, due to significant changes in confessional policy from the reorganisation of the Anti-Religious Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) (1929), the adoption of the resolution «On Religious Associations» (1929) and other transformations till the start of the Second World War, due to the expansion of the territory of the Soviet Union, where the previous stages of anti-religious policy had been not carried out. In view of the need to expand the field of historiographical sources, we carried out a thematic and synthesis analyses of the regional Russian studies of the history of the Old Believers, that do not have significant connections at the interregional level, despite the significant quantitative and qualitative growth of the thematic studies in the post-Soviet period. We have identified three general directions of historical development: the closure of Old Believer churches, repressions against clergymen, anti-religious agitation. The general tendencies within the framework of individual research subjects the most important problems and approaches to them are identified and characterised. The reasons are formulated allowing to consider the anti-religious policy towards the Old Believers as an independent phenomenon.

Taylor White's ‘paper museum’ (1725–1772): understanding the scientific work of an unpublished naturalist

From approximately his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1725 to his death in 1772, as the London barrister Taylor White (1701–1772) moved up the legal ladder, he commissioned, gathered, and organized a tremendous collection of zoological paintings now held in the Blacker Wood Collection of McGill University Rare Books and Archives. As White did not publish any major work during his lifetime, he has been substantially ignored in the historiography of science. By investigating the considerable painting compilation available in the collection, this article aims to understand White's scientific practice as a naturalist, working primarily from non-textual primary sources. The taxonomical work comprises the global arrangement of the plates, and the referencing practice, as well as the limited correspondence available on the English barrister, and these help to position the anonymous Taylor White within the world of naturalists at that time.

As teorias e experimentos em ensaio sobre o fogo

O estudo de fenômenos naturais de interesse social representa um dos objetivos da aprendizagem de ciências na Escola Básica. É de se estranhar, portanto, que o fogo, uma das mais úteis e fascinantes manifestações da Natureza, receba pouca atenção na ciência e quase nenhuma no ensino, como se percebe pela ausência de estudos aprofundados sobre este fenômeno nas coleções didáticas de química aprovadas pelo Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD 2015). O fogo, no entanto, já foi objeto de estudos da filosofia química no passado. Com o objetivo de resgatar a história do fogo enquanto objeto de estudo da química, neste trabalho propomos uma análise da obra An essay on fire, publicada em 1790 pelo celebrado filósofo de Genebra, Marc-Auguste Pictet. À luz da contemporânea historiografia da ciência, buscamos analisar de que forma as teorias do final do século XVIII explicavam tal fenômeno. Os resultados desta análise revelam aspectos de interesse sobre os modos de pensar dos químicos no contexto estudado. O texto de Pictet deixa claro, por exemplo, que a palavra fogo era empregada para designar não apenas a chama, mas um agente que seria responsável por diversos efeitos na estrutura dos corpos naturais, incluindo as dilatações, mudanças de estado e a própria decomposição química. Descrevendo séries de experimentos, o filósofo analisa o fogo sob quatro pontos de vista: Fogo liberado, calor específico, calor latente e fogo combinado. Todos os experimentos realizados pelo autor são precedidos por considerações teóricas e os resultados experimentais são usados como forma de aceitar ou recusar essas teorias que, muitas vezes, contrapõem concepções corpusculares e vibracionais na interpretação do fogo como o agente causal da sensação denominada calor. Concluímos que o estudo da obra de Pictet nos permite entender algumas características de como a ciência se desenvolve, destacando a importância da comunicação entre pesquisadores, a interdependência entre experimentos e teorias e o convívio com diferentes modelos para representar um fenômeno em estudo.

Fechner on a Walk

The Leipzig physicist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–88) is best known for his introduction of psychophysics, an exact, empirical science of the relations between mind and body and a crucial part of nineteenth-century sensory physiology and experimental psychology. Based on an extensive and close reading of Fechner’s diaries, this article considers psychophysics from the vantage of his everyday life, specifically the experience of taking a walk. This experience was not mere fodder for his scientific practice, as backdrop, object, or tool. Rather, on foot, Fechner pursued an investigation of the mind-body parallel to his natural-scientific one; in each domain, he strove to render the mind-body graspable, each in its own idiom, here everyday and there scientific. I give an account of Fechner’s walks as experiences that he both undertook and underwent, that shaped and were shaped by the surrounding everyday cacophony, and that carried a number of competing meanings for Fechner himself; the attendant analysis draws on his major scientific work, Elemente der Psychophysik (1860; Elements of Psychophysics), as the thick context that renders the walks legible as an everyday investigation. What results are three modes of walking—physiopsychical, interpersonal, and universal—each engaging the mind-body at a different level, as also engaged separately in Elemente’s three major sections, outer psychophysics, inner psychophysics, and general psychophysics beyond the human. This analysis ultimately leads to a new view of Fechner’s belief in a God who was “omnipresent and conscious in nature” and whom Fechner encountered daily on his walks in the budding of new blooms and rustling of the wind. More broadly, I aim to bring the analysis of everyday experiences as experiences into the historiography of science.

Relações entre ciência, literatura e mundo da vida social: a problemática do progresso técnico a partir de algumas noções iniciais de Jürgen Habermas

Este texto faz uma breve leitura crítica do artigo Progresso técnico e mundo da vida social (1965) de Jürgen Habermas, buscando explicitar as ideias do autor acerca dos limites existentes entre os conceitos “ciência” e “literatura”, dentro do processo de construção de sua tese sobre a racionalidade comunicativa [kommunikative Vernunft], com o objetivo de fazer refletir algumas de suas ideias de modo a colaborar com as discussões dos problemas caros à historiografia da ciência e, mais amplamente, aos estudos sociais de ciência e tecnologia na contemporaneidade. O texto examina, também de forma breve, as principais referências utilizadas por Habermas em seu ensaio para tratar da cisão das chamadas ciências empírico-analíticas e das ciências histórico-hermenêuticas, principalmente ao longo da segunda metade do século XX.
 Palavras-chave: História da Ciência, Progresso técnico e científico, Jürgen Habermas, Literatura, Modernidade.

Similarities, Differences, and Missed Connections between Thomas S. Kuhn, Gaston Bachelard and the Continental Historiography of Science

Abstract According to the American philosopher, Michael Friedman, while triggering the so-called “historical turn,” Kuhn reinstated the history of science as perhaps the most important object for the philosophy of science. In this paper, I show that this reinstatement is rather a rehabilitation of the philosophical and epistemological uses of the history of science, something already present in the continental historiography of science in the first half of the twentieth century, and especially in Gaston Bachelard’s work. In this sense, I undertake a review of the European history and philosophy of science during that period, paying special attention to Gaston Bachelard as one of the leading representatives of the French historical epistemology of the 1930s. I conclude with the late and quite problematic reception of Bachelard’s thought in the early work of Thomas S. Kuhn. My thesis is this strand may help to outline what is continental history and philosophy of science.

Nikolaj II, Sovet ministrov i pol'skij vopros letom 1916 g. (po novym dokumentam iz arhiva A. N. Yahontova)

The article based on an analysis of new sources from the archives of the assistant to the head of the Office of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire A.N. Yakhontova examines in details for the first time in scientific historiography the history of the preparation of the Manifesto on the granting of autonomy to Poland, dating back to the summer of 1916. The authors come to the conclusion that during this period the influence on the solution of the Polish question was exerted by Nicholas II and the Council of Ministers, as exponents of the political will of the bureaucratic elite, and not by the mythical “camarilla”.

Trayectorias y desafíos en la historiografía de la ciencia y de la medicina en América Latina

El objetivo de este artículo es contribuir a la historiografía de la ciencia y la medicina Latinoamericana analizando cuatro perspectivas utilizadas por los investigadores desde mediados del siglo XX hasta comienzos del siglo XXI. La primera perspectiva fue fuertemente influenciada por un supuesto eurocéntrico según el cual la ciencia era un producto intelectual moderno, una forma de conocimiento racional superior y deseable a todas las culturas. La segunda y tercera perspectivas consideraron a la ciencia como un emprendimiento social y cultural que tenía una dinámica propia en los países latinoamericanos. Estas dos perspectivas le dieron mucha importancia a las nociones de recepción, negociación e interacción. Asimismo, resaltaron la capacidad proactiva de actores locales y nacionales. La cuarta perspectiva –asociada a una corriente más amplia conocida como Historia Global– enfatiza la circulación transnacional del conocimiento entre culturas que a veces va más allá de la región latinoamericana, desafiando algunas de las bases de las perspectivas anteriores como la centralidad del Estado Nación.

Transformation of historical discourse and the problem of time

The article is devoted to the analysis of the transformation of historical discourse in modern writing of history and its relationship with the problem of historical time. The author shows that since the second half of the 20th century, the representation of the past has been gradually shifting from scientific historiography, as it was formed in the 19th century, to the memory studies. Unlike distancing from the past inherent in historical science, historical memory is characterized by emotional and existential tension, the involvement of the past in the present. This became possible not only as a result of the tragic events of the 20th century, but also due to changes in the temporal regime of modern society. The linear perception of time, peculiar to a modern man, is giving way to post-historical time characterized by non-linearity and reversibility, which makes it possible to actualize the past with the help of memorial policy. A change in the historical time perception gives rise to changes in the perception of the past and, as a result, leads to a transformation of historical discourse.

Local explanation in historiography of science

In this paper, I offer an explication of the notion of local explanation. In the literature, local explanations are considered as metaphysically and methodologically satisfactory: local explanations reveal the contingency of science and provide a methodologically sound historiography of science. However, the lack of explication of the notion of local explanation makes these claims difficult to assess. The explication provided in this paper connects the degree of locality of an explanans to the degree of contingency of the explanandum. Moreover, the explication is shown to be compatible with the methodological need for a general consideration in the historiography of science. In this way, the explication (i) satisfies the need to explicate an important notion, (ii) connects local explanations and contingency, and (iii) enables us to see how local explanations and general considerations can be connected. However, the explication also sheds critical light on many claims and expectations that are associated with local explanations and their satisfactoriness.

Cultural Exchange as an Expanded Field of Architecture : The Decentering Architectural Criticism of the Yugoslav Praxis Group

By exploring a context of networks, critiques, debates, dialogues, and collaborative practices, this article challenges common understandings of the ideological dimension of architectural discourses of the period of the 1960s and 1970s in Yugoslavia. It also considers the potential for rethinking theoretical issues involved in the critical dialogue with other currents of utopian urbanism and prospective thought that were influential at the time. The article investigates the reception of ideas and ideologies, from Lefebvre’s theoretical studies and Habermas’s thesis of modernity as an incomplete, i.e., unfinished project, to Fredric Jameson’s arguments in a historical context of cultural modernity simultaneous with these texts, but in different conditions. The concepts of architectural criticism are analysed through representative practices of the period, from the first attempts to write and rewrite the history of architecture, which coincided with architecture in the expanded field of experimental and conceptual practices, to postmodernist narratives redefining the questions of identity by appropriating the strategies of performing arts in the public space throughout the early 1980s. The thematic framework is constituted by case studies on cultural transfer in the fields of philosophy, theory, sociology, spatial research, and architectural discourse, which played a key role in the strengthening of border-crossing networks. The theoretical and methodological point of departure is the analysis of the Praxis circle, a group of critical Marxist philosophers and intellectuals who gathered around the journal Praxis (1964–1974) and the philosophical-political Summer School of Philosophy held on the Adriatic island of Korcula (1964–1974). The aim is to document and contextualize the role of these activities in disseminating the intense intellectual exchanges of “creative criticism” between East and West. Although recent scientific historiography has expressed greater interest in the inter disciplinary area of cultural transfer, there has never been a thorough critical perspective of the politically charged debates on the history of Eastern European intellectual critical engagement, or systematic study of the theoretical achievements in the architecture of late socialism.

Как предотвратили депортацию финно-угорских народов в 1944 г.

<p>В статье освещается уникальный и практически неизвестный исторический факт о предотвращении депортации финно-угорского населения СССР в 1944 г. на территории Ленинградской области и Карело-Финской ССР, освобожденной войсками Карельского фронта от оккупации. Упоминание о нем впервые появилось в средствах массовой информации Финляндии в конце 1980-х — начале 1990-х гг. Однако научной историографии по данной проблеме до сих пор нет.</p><p>Как свидетельствуют документы Российского государственного архива социально-политической истории (РГАСПИ), обнаруженные в результате целенаправленного исследовательского поиска автора, в ходе наступления Карельского фронта в июне — августе 1944 г. возникла реальная угроза возможного выселения ингерманландцев, карел, финнов, вепсов и других коренных северных народов, оказавшихся в годы Великой Отечественной войны на территории, оккупированной финляндскими и немецкими войсками.</p><p>Раскрывается содержание докладной записки военного корреспондента газеты «Правда» М. М. Шура в редколлегию главного партийного органа СССР, в которой в жесткой форме констатировалось наличие угрозы насильственных мероприятий в отношении финно-угорского населения. По определению военкора, обострение национального вопроса получило наименование «карельский вопрос». Освещаются коллизии, связанные с дальнейшим его обсуждением в ЦК ВКП(б), участием высшего партийного руководства страны — секретарей ЦК партии Г. М. Маленкова, А. А. Жданова, А. С. Щербакова, главного редактора газеты «Правда» П. Н. Поспелова.</p><p>По утверждению автора, предотвращение депортации на Севере в 1944 г. было осуществлено по указанию «высшей инстанции» — Верховного главнокомандующего И. В. Сталина. Принятие данного решения обосновано геополитической ситуацией, государственными интересами СССР и Финляндии, результатом чего стало заключение перемирия в Москве 19 сентября 1944 г. </p>

Historiography of Science in Pandemic Times

From the Editors

Kuhn, Condorcet, and Comte: On the Justification of the “Old” Historiography of Science

Despite the importance of the “historiographical revolution” in Kuhn’s work, he did not carry out a specific study about it. Without a systematic investigation into it, he even affirms that the “old” historiography of science (OHS) is unhistorical, suggesting its summary disqualification in the face of his “new historiography” of science (NHS). My wider project, of which this paper is a part, is to better discuss the issue of the justification of the NHS. In this paper, I discuss the justification (and the genesis) of the OHS, focusing on Condorcet and Comte and resorting especially to Koyré. This will allow us to understand that the relation between the OHS and the NHS is a new instance of inter-theoretical incommensurability. And, indeed, that the NHS is not stricto senso a new historiography. It is the same historiography used for other disciplines (art, philosophy), which in the twentieth century begins to be applied to science as well.