Historiography of science
Encyclopedia
Historiography
is the study of the history and methodology of the discipline of history. The historiography of science is thus the study of the history and methodology of the sub-discipline of history, known as the history of science
, including its disciplinary aspects and practices (methods, theories, schools) and to the study of its own historical development ("History of History of Science", i.e., the history of the discipline called History of Science).
Since historiographical debates regarding the proper method for the study of the history of science are sometimes difficult to demarcate from historical controversies regarding the very course of science, it is often (and rightly) the case that the early controversies of the latter kind are considered the inception of the sub-discipline. For example, such discussions permeate the historical writings of the great historian and philosopher of science William Whewell
. He is thus often (and rightly) viewed as the grandfather of this discipline; other such distinguished grandfathers are Pierre Duhem
and Alexandre Koyré
.
As to the explicit presentation of the Historiography of Science it is usually dated in the early Sixties of the 20th century. Thus for example, in 1965 we find Gerd Buchdahl
reporting "A Revolution in Historiography of Science" referring to the innovative studies of Thomas Kuhn
and Joseph Agassi
. He suggested that these two writers had inaugurated the sub discipline by distinguishing clearly between the history and the historiography of science, as they argued that historiographical views greatly influence the writing of the history of science
's History of the Inductive Sciences from 1837, and the popular and historical accounts which accompanied the scientific revolution
of the 17th century), the development of the distinct academic
discipline of the history of science and technology did not occur until the early 20th century, and was intimately bound to the changing role of science during the same time period. The history of science was once exclusively the domain of retired researchers — former scientists whose days in the laboratory
had expired but still with a hearty interest in the field — and the rare specialist. However in the decades since the end of World War II the field has evolved into a full academic discipline, with graduate school
s, research institutes, public and private patronage, peer-reviewed journals
, and professional societies.
Outsiders are often amazed that such a seemingly specialized discipline exists (though just how specialized the subject is depends on how broadly a definition of science and technology one uses). However the study of the history of science has had great effects on the philosophy of science
, conceptions of the role of science in society, and scientific policy.
The founding figure of the discipline in the United States
was George Sarton
, later the founding editor of the journal Isis
. Sarton and his family fled Belgium
after the German
invasion in World War I, and after a brief stay in England
, he arrived in the United States penniless and unemployed. Sarton began lecturing part-time at several academic institutions, and in 1916 began a two year appointment at Harvard University
. When his appointment did not look like it would be renewed, he appealed to Robert S. Woodward, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, for patronage. Woodward gave Sarton a two year position and in 1920 extended it to a permanent tenured appointment as a Research Associate in the Institution's Department of History.
Though modern scholars do not usually share Sarton's motivations — Sarton saw the history of science as the only genuine example of human progress — the tools he left to the field, the journal Isis and the annual volume Osiris
(both still in print today), provided the foundation of the discipline in the United States.
of science as well. While Sarton taught the first American doctoral students in the discipline, in Europe some of the most influential historians and philosophers of science were first coming into the picture, and the setting of the philosophical battle which is now known as "the Science Wars
" was being set.
In 1931, the Second International Congress of the History of Science was convened in London. The papers delivered by the Soviet
delegation, led by N.I. Bukharin, quickly invigorated the discipline. Boris Hessen
in particular delivered a paper entitled "The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's Principia," in which he asserted that Isaac Newton
's most famous work was created to cater to the goals and desires of 17th century industry and economy
. Hessen asserted that Newton's work was inspired by his economic status and context, that the Principia
was little more than the solution of technical problems of the bourgeoisie
.
Present scholarship has revealed that Hessen's motives were not completely academic. At that time in the Soviet Union, the work of Albert Einstein
was under attack by Communist Party
philosophers; being supposedly motivated by bourgeois values, it was "bourgeois science" , and should henceforth be banned. (In many ways this attack was similar to the Deutsche Physik
movement in Germany which occurred only a few years later.) Hessen's paper was a lobbying tactic: Party philosophers would not challenge the accuracy of Newton's theories, and to show them as being motivated by bourgeois concerns would, in Hessen's eyes, show that scientific validity could exist whatever the motivations were for undertaking it. However, there is little evidence that his paper had any effect in the internal Soviet philosophical battles over Einstein's work.
Despite its lack of effect in his home country, Hessen's thesis had a wide effect in Western history of science. Though Hessen’s work is now easily dismissed as "vulgar Marxism
" , its focus on the relationship between society and science was, in its time, seen as novel and inspiring. It was a challenge to the notion that the history of science was the history of individual genius
in action, the dominant view at least since William Whewell
's History of the Inductive Sciences in 1837.
Few contemporary Western readers of Hessen took his paper at face value. His rigid connection between economy and knowledge
was not accepted by a majority of historians. However, his assertion that a connection existed between the growth of knowledge and the art of war, and that ballistics
played a central part of physics and Newton's world, was viewed with keen interest. In the shadow of the first war to employ chemical weapons, and as the war machines were again gearing up in preparation for another world war, the role between science, technology
, and warfare was becoming more interesting to scholars and scientists. Previous views of science as separate from the mundane or vulgar aspects of practical life — the disembodiment of the scientific mind from its context — were becoming less attractive than a view that science and scientists were increasingly embedded in the world in which they worked.
This became reflective in the scholarship of the time as well, with dissertations written on such subjects as "Science and War in the Old Regime," which examined the ways in which military engineering influenced pre-Revolution
French
scientists.
This method of doing the history of science became known as externalism
, looking at the manner in which science and scientists are affected, and guided by, their context and the world in which they exist. It is an approach which eschews the notion that the history of science is the development of pure thought over time, one idea leading to another in a contextual bubble which could exist at any place, at any time, if only given the right geniuses.
The contrast to this approach, the method of doing history of science which preceded externalism, became known as internalism. Internalist histories of science often focus on the rational reconstruction
of scientific ideas and consider the development of these ideas wholly within the scientific world. Although internalist histories of modern science tend to emphasize the norms of modern science, internalist histories can also consider the different systems of thought underlying the development of Babylonian astronomy or Medieval impetus
theory
In practice, the line between internalism and externalism
can be incredibly fuzzy. Few historians then, or now, would insist that either of these approaches in their extremes paint a wholly complete picture, nor would it necessarily be possible to practice one fully over the other. However, at their heart they contain a basic question about the nature of science: what is the relationship between the producers and consumers of scientific knowledge? The answer to this question must, in some form, inform the method in which the history of science and technology is conducted; conversely, how the history of science and technology is conducted, and what it concludes, can inform the answer to the question. The question itself contains an entire host of philosophical questions: what is the nature of scientific truth? What does objectivity
mean in a scientific context? How does change in scientific theories occur?
The historian/sociologist of science Robert K. Merton
produced many famous works following Hessen's thesis, which can be seen as reactions to and refinements of Hessen's argument. In his work on science, technology, and society in the 17th century England
, Merton sought to introduce an additional category — Puritan
ism — to explain the growth of science in this period. Merton worked to split Hessen's crude category of economics into smaller subcategories of influence, including transportation, mining, and military technique. Merton also tried to develop empirical
, quantitative
approaches to showing the influence of external factors on science. Despite these changes, Merton was quick to note his indebtedness to Hessen. Even with his emphasis on external factors, though, Merton differed from Hessen in his interpretation: Merton maintained that while researchers may be inspired and interested by problems which were suggested by extra-scientific factors, ultimately the researcher's interests were driven by "the internal history of the science in question." Merton attempted to delineate externalism and internalism along disciplinary boundaries, with context studied by the sociologist of science, and content by the historian.
, a Polish medical microbiologist published his Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact which used a case study in the field of medicine (of the development of the disease concept of Syphilis) to present a thesis about the social nature of knowledge, and in particular science and scientific 'thought styles' (Denkstil) which are the epistemological, conceptual and linguistic styles of scientific (but also non-scientific) 'thought collectives' (Denkkollektiv). This work's importance was not noticed, as [Thaddeus J. Trenn] editor of the English edition published in 1979 writes, 'Fleck's pioneering monograph was published at almost the same time as Karl Popper
's Logik der Forschung. But, developed in very different cognitive styles, the books met with contrasting response. In Popper's own words, his book "was surprisingly successful, far beyond Vienna. [...]" [...] It is perhaps most diagnostic that the book received no review notice at all in George Sarton's Isis, by then the leading international journal of the history of science.' [pp. xvii-xviii].
As evident from Fleck's book's title, it revolves around the notion that epistemologically, there is nothing stable or realistically true or false about any scientific fact. A fact has a 'genesis' which is grounded in certain theoretic grounds and many times other obscure and fuzzy notions, and it 'develops' as it is subject to dispute and additional research by other scientists. Fleck's work, unlike Hessen's focuses more on the epistemologic and language factors that affect scientific discovery, innovation and progress or development, while Hessen's work focuses on socio-political factors.
Fleck's work was one of the major influences noted by Thomas S. Kuhn which lead to the writing his Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn also wrote the foreword to Fleck's English translation.
after World War II. The influential bureaucrat Vannevar Bush
, and the president of Harvard, James Conant
, both encouraged the study of the history of science as a way of improving general knowledge about how science worked, and why it was essential to maintain a large scientific workforce.
's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
that this approach became seriously suspected as being misleading . Kuhn's argument that scientific revolutions worked by paradigm shift
s seemed to imply that truth was not the ultimate criterion for science, and the book was extremely influential outside of academia as well . Corresponding with the rise of the environmentalism
movement and a general loss of optimism of the power of science and technology unfettered to solve the problems of the world, this new history encouraged many critics to pronounce the preeminence of science to be overthrown .
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
is the study of the history and methodology of the discipline of history. The historiography of science is thus the study of the history and methodology of the sub-discipline of history, known as the history of science
History of science
The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....
, including its disciplinary aspects and practices (methods, theories, schools) and to the study of its own historical development ("History of History of Science", i.e., the history of the discipline called History of Science).
Since historiographical debates regarding the proper method for the study of the history of science are sometimes difficult to demarcate from historical controversies regarding the very course of science, it is often (and rightly) the case that the early controversies of the latter kind are considered the inception of the sub-discipline. For example, such discussions permeate the historical writings of the great historian and philosopher of science William Whewell
William Whewell
William Whewell was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.-Life and career:Whewell was born in Lancaster...
. He is thus often (and rightly) viewed as the grandfather of this discipline; other such distinguished grandfathers are Pierre Duhem
Pierre Duhem
Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem was a French physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science, best known for his writings on the indeterminacy of experimental criteria and on scientific development in the Middle Ages...
and Alexandre Koyré
Alexandre Koyré
Alexandre Koyré , sometimes anglicised as Alexander Koiré, was a French philosopher of Russian origin who wrote on the history and philosophy of science.-Life:...
.
As to the explicit presentation of the Historiography of Science it is usually dated in the early Sixties of the 20th century. Thus for example, in 1965 we find Gerd Buchdahl
Gerd Buchdahl
Gerd Buchdahl was a German-English philosopher of science, born to German-Jewish parents in Mainz.The developing natural sciences were the causal lens through which he viewed and from which he wrote about the consequences on epistemology and the history of metaphysics...
reporting "A Revolution in Historiography of Science" referring to the innovative studies of Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...
and Joseph Agassi
Joseph Agassi
Joseph Agassi is an Israeli academic with contributions in logic, scientific method, and philosophy. He studied under Karl Popper and taught at the London School of Economics. He later taught at the University of Hong Kong, the University of Illinois, Boston University, and York University in...
. He suggested that these two writers had inaugurated the sub discipline by distinguishing clearly between the history and the historiography of science, as they argued that historiographical views greatly influence the writing of the history of science
The origins of the discipline
Though scholars and scientists had been chronicling the results of scientific endeavors for centuries (such as William WhewellWilliam Whewell
William Whewell was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.-Life and career:Whewell was born in Lancaster...
's History of the Inductive Sciences from 1837, and the popular and historical accounts which accompanied the scientific revolution
Scientific revolution
The Scientific Revolution is an era associated primarily with the 16th and 17th centuries during which new ideas and knowledge in physics, astronomy, biology, medicine and chemistry transformed medieval and ancient views of nature and laid the foundations for modern science...
of the 17th century), the development of the distinct academic
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
discipline of the history of science and technology did not occur until the early 20th century, and was intimately bound to the changing role of science during the same time period. The history of science was once exclusively the domain of retired researchers — former scientists whose days in the laboratory
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
had expired but still with a hearty interest in the field — and the rare specialist. However in the decades since the end of World War II the field has evolved into a full academic discipline, with graduate school
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
s, research institutes, public and private patronage, peer-reviewed journals
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
, and professional societies.
Outsiders are often amazed that such a seemingly specialized discipline exists (though just how specialized the subject is depends on how broadly a definition of science and technology one uses). However the study of the history of science has had great effects on the philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
, conceptions of the role of science in society, and scientific policy.
The founding figure of the discipline in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
was George Sarton
George Sarton
George Sarton was a Belgian chemist and historian who is considered the founder of the discipline of history of science. He left Belgium because of the First World War and settled in the United States where he spent the rest of his life researching and writing about the history of science...
, later the founding editor of the journal Isis
Isis (journal)
Isis is an academic journal published by University of Chicago Press. It focuses on the history of science, history of medicine, and the history of technology, as well as their cultural influences, featuring both original research articles as well as extensive book reviews and review essays.It was...
. Sarton and his family fled Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
after the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
invasion in World War I, and after a brief stay in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, he arrived in the United States penniless and unemployed. Sarton began lecturing part-time at several academic institutions, and in 1916 began a two year appointment at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. When his appointment did not look like it would be renewed, he appealed to Robert S. Woodward, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, for patronage. Woodward gave Sarton a two year position and in 1920 extended it to a permanent tenured appointment as a Research Associate in the Institution's Department of History.
Though modern scholars do not usually share Sarton's motivations — Sarton saw the history of science as the only genuine example of human progress — the tools he left to the field, the journal Isis and the annual volume Osiris
Osiris (journal)
Osiris is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal covering research in the history of science. It is published by the University of Chicago Press and was established in 1936 by George Sarton....
(both still in print today), provided the foundation of the discipline in the United States.
The Hessen thesis and the birth of externalism
Just as the 1930s were a seminal decade for the development of our modern understanding of science, they were a seminal decade for the history and historiographyHistoriography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
of science as well. While Sarton taught the first American doctoral students in the discipline, in Europe some of the most influential historians and philosophers of science were first coming into the picture, and the setting of the philosophical battle which is now known as "the Science Wars
Science wars
The science wars were a series of intellectual exchanges, between scientific realists and postmodernist critics, about the nature of scientific theory which took place principally in the US in the 1990s...
" was being set.
In 1931, the Second International Congress of the History of Science was convened in London. The papers delivered by the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
delegation, led by N.I. Bukharin, quickly invigorated the discipline. Boris Hessen
Boris Hessen
Boris Mikhailovich Hessen , also Gessen was a Soviet physicist, philosopher and historian of science...
in particular delivered a paper entitled "The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's Principia," in which he asserted that Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
's most famous work was created to cater to the goals and desires of 17th century industry and economy
Economic system
An economic system is the combination of the various agencies, entities that provide the economic structure that defines the social community. These agencies are joined by lines of trade and exchange along which goods, money etc. are continuously flowing. An example of such a system for a closed...
. Hessen asserted that Newton's work was inspired by his economic status and context, that the Principia
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Latin for "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", often referred to as simply the Principia, is a work in three books by Sir Isaac Newton, first published 5 July 1687. Newton also published two further editions, in 1713 and 1726...
was little more than the solution of technical problems of the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
.
Present scholarship has revealed that Hessen's motives were not completely academic. At that time in the Soviet Union, the work of Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
was under attack by Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
philosophers; being supposedly motivated by bourgeois values, it was "bourgeois science" , and should henceforth be banned. (In many ways this attack was similar to the Deutsche Physik
Deutsche Physik
Deutsche Physik or Aryan Physics was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s against the work of Albert Einstein, labeled "Jewish Physics"...
movement in Germany which occurred only a few years later.) Hessen's paper was a lobbying tactic: Party philosophers would not challenge the accuracy of Newton's theories, and to show them as being motivated by bourgeois concerns would, in Hessen's eyes, show that scientific validity could exist whatever the motivations were for undertaking it. However, there is little evidence that his paper had any effect in the internal Soviet philosophical battles over Einstein's work.
Despite its lack of effect in his home country, Hessen's thesis had a wide effect in Western history of science. Though Hessen’s work is now easily dismissed as "vulgar Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
" , its focus on the relationship between society and science was, in its time, seen as novel and inspiring. It was a challenge to the notion that the history of science was the history of individual genius
Genius
Genius is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight....
in action, the dominant view at least since William Whewell
William Whewell
William Whewell was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.-Life and career:Whewell was born in Lancaster...
's History of the Inductive Sciences in 1837.
Few contemporary Western readers of Hessen took his paper at face value. His rigid connection between economy and knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
was not accepted by a majority of historians. However, his assertion that a connection existed between the growth of knowledge and the art of war, and that ballistics
Ballistics
Ballistics is the science of mechanics that deals with the flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.A ballistic body is a body which is...
played a central part of physics and Newton's world, was viewed with keen interest. In the shadow of the first war to employ chemical weapons, and as the war machines were again gearing up in preparation for another world war, the role between science, technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
, and warfare was becoming more interesting to scholars and scientists. Previous views of science as separate from the mundane or vulgar aspects of practical life — the disembodiment of the scientific mind from its context — were becoming less attractive than a view that science and scientists were increasingly embedded in the world in which they worked.
This became reflective in the scholarship of the time as well, with dissertations written on such subjects as "Science and War in the Old Regime," which examined the ways in which military engineering influenced pre-Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
scientists.
This method of doing the history of science became known as externalism
Externalism
Externalism is a group of positions in the philosophy of mind which hold that the mind is not only the result of what is going on inside the nervous system but also of what either occur or exist outside the subject. It is often contrasted with internalism which holds that the mind emerges out of...
, looking at the manner in which science and scientists are affected, and guided by, their context and the world in which they exist. It is an approach which eschews the notion that the history of science is the development of pure thought over time, one idea leading to another in a contextual bubble which could exist at any place, at any time, if only given the right geniuses.
The contrast to this approach, the method of doing history of science which preceded externalism, became known as internalism. Internalist histories of science often focus on the rational reconstruction
Rational reconstruction
Rational reconstruction is a philosophical term with several distinct meanings. It is found in the work of Jürgen Habermas and Imre Lakatos.- Habermas :...
of scientific ideas and consider the development of these ideas wholly within the scientific world. Although internalist histories of modern science tend to emphasize the norms of modern science, internalist histories can also consider the different systems of thought underlying the development of Babylonian astronomy or Medieval impetus
Theory of impetus
The theory of impetus was an auxiliary or secondary theory of Aristotelian dynamics, put forth initially to explain projectile motion against gravity...
theory
In practice, the line between internalism and externalism
Internalism and externalism
Internalism and externalism are two opposing ways of explaining various subjects in several areas of philosophy. These include human motivation, knowledge, justification, meaning and truth. The distinction arises in many areas of debate with similar but distinct meanings...
can be incredibly fuzzy. Few historians then, or now, would insist that either of these approaches in their extremes paint a wholly complete picture, nor would it necessarily be possible to practice one fully over the other. However, at their heart they contain a basic question about the nature of science: what is the relationship between the producers and consumers of scientific knowledge? The answer to this question must, in some form, inform the method in which the history of science and technology is conducted; conversely, how the history of science and technology is conducted, and what it concludes, can inform the answer to the question. The question itself contains an entire host of philosophical questions: what is the nature of scientific truth? What does objectivity
Objectivity (science)
Objectivity in science is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are created. It is the idea that scientists, in attempting to uncover truths about the natural world, must aspire to eliminate personal biases, a priori commitments, emotional involvement, etc...
mean in a scientific context? How does change in scientific theories occur?
The historian/sociologist of science Robert K. Merton
Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton was a distinguished American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor...
produced many famous works following Hessen's thesis, which can be seen as reactions to and refinements of Hessen's argument. In his work on science, technology, and society in the 17th century England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Merton sought to introduce an additional category — Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
ism — to explain the growth of science in this period. Merton worked to split Hessen's crude category of economics into smaller subcategories of influence, including transportation, mining, and military technique. Merton also tried to develop empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
, quantitative
Quantitative property
A quantitative property is one that exists in a range of magnitudes, and can therefore be measured with a number. Measurements of any particular quantitative property are expressed as a specific quantity, referred to as a unit, multiplied by a number. Examples of physical quantities are distance,...
approaches to showing the influence of external factors on science. Despite these changes, Merton was quick to note his indebtedness to Hessen. Even with his emphasis on external factors, though, Merton differed from Hessen in his interpretation: Merton maintained that while researchers may be inspired and interested by problems which were suggested by extra-scientific factors, ultimately the researcher's interests were driven by "the internal history of the science in question." Merton attempted to delineate externalism and internalism along disciplinary boundaries, with context studied by the sociologist of science, and content by the historian.
Ludwik Fleck
Around the same period, in 1935, Ludwik FleckLudwik Fleck
Ludwik Fleck was a Polish Israeli medical doctor and biologist who developed in the 1930s the concept of Denkkollektiv...
, a Polish medical microbiologist published his Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact which used a case study in the field of medicine (of the development of the disease concept of Syphilis) to present a thesis about the social nature of knowledge, and in particular science and scientific 'thought styles' (Denkstil) which are the epistemological, conceptual and linguistic styles of scientific (but also non-scientific) 'thought collectives' (Denkkollektiv). This work's importance was not noticed, as [Thaddeus J. Trenn] editor of the English edition published in 1979 writes, 'Fleck's pioneering monograph was published at almost the same time as Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
's Logik der Forschung. But, developed in very different cognitive styles, the books met with contrasting response. In Popper's own words, his book "was surprisingly successful, far beyond Vienna. [...]" [...] It is perhaps most diagnostic that the book received no review notice at all in George Sarton's Isis, by then the leading international journal of the history of science.' [pp. xvii-xviii].
As evident from Fleck's book's title, it revolves around the notion that epistemologically, there is nothing stable or realistically true or false about any scientific fact. A fact has a 'genesis' which is grounded in certain theoretic grounds and many times other obscure and fuzzy notions, and it 'develops' as it is subject to dispute and additional research by other scientists. Fleck's work, unlike Hessen's focuses more on the epistemologic and language factors that affect scientific discovery, innovation and progress or development, while Hessen's work focuses on socio-political factors.
Fleck's work was one of the major influences noted by Thomas S. Kuhn which lead to the writing his Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn also wrote the foreword to Fleck's English translation.
Vannevar Bush and World War II
The study of the history of science continued to be a small effort until the rise of Big ScienceBig Science
Big Science is a term used by scientists and historians of science to describe a series of changes in science which occurred in industrial nations during and after World War II, as scientific progress increasingly came to rely on large-scale projects usually funded by national governments or groups...
after World War II. The influential bureaucrat Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer...
, and the president of Harvard, James Conant
James Bryant Conant
James Bryant Conant was a chemist, educational administrator, and government official. As thePresident of Harvard University he reformed it as a research institution.-Biography :...
, both encouraged the study of the history of science as a way of improving general knowledge about how science worked, and why it was essential to maintain a large scientific workforce.
Thomas Kuhn and the 1960s
From the 1940s through the early 1960s, most histories of science were different forms of a "march of progress" , showing science as a triumphant movement towards truth. Many philosophers and historians did of course paint a more nuanced picture, but it was not until the publication of Thomas KuhnThomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...
's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , by Thomas Kuhn, is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of scientific knowledge and it triggered an ongoing worldwide assessment and reaction in — and beyond — those scholarly...
that this approach became seriously suspected as being misleading . Kuhn's argument that scientific revolutions worked by paradigm shift
Paradigm shift
A Paradigm shift is, according to Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science...
s seemed to imply that truth was not the ultimate criterion for science, and the book was extremely influential outside of academia as well . Corresponding with the rise of the environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
movement and a general loss of optimism of the power of science and technology unfettered to solve the problems of the world, this new history encouraged many critics to pronounce the preeminence of science to be overthrown .
The discipline today
The discipline today encompasses a wide variety of fields of academic study, ranging from the traditional ones of history, sociology, and philosophy, and a variety of others such as law, architecture, and literature.See also
- Conflict thesisConflict thesisThe conflict thesis proposes an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science. The original historical usage of the term denoted that the historical record indicates religion’s perpetual opposition to science. Later uses of the term denote religion’s epistemological opposition to...
- Military funding of scienceMilitary funding of scienceThe military funding of science has had a powerful transformative effect on the practice and products of scientific research since the early 20th century...
- Theories and sociology of the history of scienceTheories and sociology of the history of scienceThe sociology and philosophy of science, as well as the entire field of science studies, have in the 20th century been occupied with the question of large-scale patterns and trends in the development of science, and asking questions about how science "works" both in a philosophical and practical...
- Historians of science
- Philosophers of science
- Sociologists of science