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

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-111
Author(s):  
Alberto Fragio
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
European History ◽  
Gaston Bachelard ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
Michael Friedman ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Object

AbstractAccording 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.

Gender and the historiography of science

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludmilla Jordanova
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
Logical Reason ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
Intellectual Maturity

The production of big pictures is arguably the most significant sign of the intellectual maturity of a field. It suggests both that the field's broad contours, refined over several generations of scholarship, enjoy the approval of practitioners, and that audiences exist with an interest in or need for overviews. The situation is somewhat more complicated in the history of science, since the existence of big historical pictures precedes that of a well-defined scholarly field by about two centuries. Broadly conceived histories of science and medicine were being written in the eighteenth century, when such an all-encompassing vision was central to the claims about the progress of knowledge upon which Enlightenment ideologues set such store. The Plato to Nato style histories, characteristic of the earlier twentieth century, were written largely by isolated pioneers, and while these were used in teaching as the field was becoming professionalized, recent scholars have preferred to concentrate on a monographic style of research. Despite the existence of the series started by Wiley, and now published by Cambridge University Press, it is only in the last ten years or so that more conscious attempts have been made to generate a big-picture literature informed by new scholarship. It is noteworthy that most of this is addressed to students and general readers, although there is no logical reason why it should not tackle major theoretical issues of concern to scholars. My point about maturity still holds, then, since as a designated discipline the history of science is rather new; it is still feeling out its relationship with cognate disciplines. Big-picture histories have an important role to play in these explorations since they make findings and ideas widely available and thereby offer material through which ambitious interpretations can be debated, modified and transformed.

On History in Southwest Archaeology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Severin Fowles ◽  
Barbara Mills
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Southwest Archaeology ◽  
American Military ◽  
Archaeological Practice ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
History Of

As an introduction to the Handbook, this chapter examines the question of history in Southwest archaeology in two senses. First, it traces the intellectual history of research in the region: from the nineteenth-century inauguration of Southwest archaeology as an extension of American military conquest, to the museum-oriented expeditions of the turn of the century, to the scientific advances and the growth of culture resource management during the twentieth century, to the impacts of Indigenous critiques and the development of collaborative approaches most recently. Second, the chapter explores the shifting status of “history” as a central goal of archaeological practice. How have archaeologists constructed—or resisted—narratives to account for the contingent unfolding of Indigenous and colonial societies in the region? What bodies of method and theory have guided these efforts? In addressing these questions, the chapter marks and participates in a growing historical turn in Southwest archaeology.

Going West

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 785-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Zahra
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
European History ◽  
East European ◽  
European Context ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

“Going West” explores the potential of integrating East European History into broader histories of Europe and the world. Placing the history of Eastern Europe in a European context, I argue, may enable us to challenge the tropes of backwardness, pathology, and violence that still dominate the field. I also suggest that historians explore the extent to which conceptions of minority rights, development, and humanitarianism first developed in Eastern Europe radiated beyond the region in the twentieth century.

What is a scientific instrument, now?

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liba Taub
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Smithsonian Institution ◽  
Scientific Instrument ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Classic Article ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

Abstract In 1990, Deborah Jean Warner, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution, published her now-classic article ‘What is a scientific instrument, when did it become one, and why?’. These questions were prompted by practical curatorial considerations: what was she supposed to collect for her museum? Today, we are still considering questions of what we collect for the future, why, and how. These questions have elicited some new and perhaps surprising answers since the publication of Warner’s article, sometimes – but not only – as a reflection of changing technologies and laboratory practices, and also as a result of changes in those disciplines that study science, including history of science and philosophy of science. In focusing attention on meanings associated with scientific instrument collections, and thinking about what objects are identified as scientific instruments, I consider how definitions of instruments influence what is collected and preserved.

scholarly journals The Origins of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Enros
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Programs Of Study ◽  
The University ◽  
Phd Programs

An effort to establish programs of study in the history of science took place at the University of Toronto in the 1960s. Initial discussions began in 1963. Four years later, the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology was created. By the end of 1969 the Institute was enrolling students in new MA and PhD programs. This activity involved the interaction of the newly emerging discipline of the history of science, the practices of the University, and the perspectives of Toronto’s faculty. The story of its origins adds to our understanding of how the discipline of the history of science was institutionalized in the 1960s, as well as how new programs were formed at that time at the University of Toronto.

scholarly journals Using History as Evidence in Philosophy of Science: A Methodological Critique

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. McAllister
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article offers a critical review of past attempts and possible methods to test philosophical models of science against evidence from history of science. Drawing on methodological debates in social science, I distinguish between quantitative and qualitative approaches. I show that both have their uses in history and philosophy of science, but that many writers in this domain have misunderstood and misapplied these approaches, and especially the method of case studies. To test scientific realism, for example, quantitative methods are more effective than case studies. I suggest that greater methodological clarity would enable the project of integrated history and philosophy of science to make renewed progress.

scholarly journals SCIENCE IN HISTORY

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-242
Author(s):  
JAMES POSKETT
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
The Future ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglophone World

AbstractWhat is the history of science? How has it changed over the course of the twentieth century? And what does the future hold for the discipline? This ‘Retrospect’ provides an introduction to the historiography of science as it developed in the Anglophone world. It begins with the foundation of the Cambridge History of Science Committee in the 1940s and ends with the growth of cultural history in the 2000s. At the broadest level, it emphasizes the need to consider the close relationship between history and the history of science. All too often the historiography of science is treated separately from history at large. But as this essay shows, these seemingly distinct fields often developed in relation to one another. This essay also reveals the ways in which Cold War politics shaped the history of science as a discipline. It then concludes by considering the future, suggesting that the history of science and the history of political thought would benefit from greater engagement with one another.

Scientific Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anouk Barberousse
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Scientific Change ◽  
General Question ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dynamics Of Science

How should we think of the dynamics of science? What are the relationships between an earlier theory and the theory that has superseded it? This chapter introduces the heated debates on the nature of scientific change, at the intersection of philosophy of science and history of science, and their bearing on the more general question of the rationality of the scientific enterprise. It focuses on the issue of the continuity or discontinuity of scientific change and the various versions of the incommensurability thesis one may uphold. Historicist views are balanced against nagging questions regarding scientific progress (Is there such a thing? If so, how should it be defined?), the causes of scientific change (Are they to be found within scientific method itself?), and its necessity (Is the history of scientific developments an argument in favor of realism, or could we have had entirely different sciences?).

scholarly journals Linguistics Then and Now: Some Personal Reflections

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Chomsky
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Online Publication ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Theory Of Computation ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Explanatory Depth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Reflections

By mid-twentieth century, a working consensus had been reached in the linguistics community, based on the great achievements of preceding years. Synchronic linguistics had been established as a science, a “taxonomic” science, with sophisticated procedures of analysis of data. Taxonomic science has limits. It does not ask “why?” The time was ripe to seek explanatory theories, using insights provided by the theory of computation and studies of explanatory depth. That effort became the generative enterprise within the biolinguistics framework. Tensions quickly arose: The elements of explanatory theories (generative grammars) were far beyond the reach of taxonomic procedures. The structuralist principle that language is a matter of training and habit, extended by analogy, was unsustainable. More generally, the mood of “virtually everything is known” became “almost nothing is understood,” a familiar phenomenon in the history of science, opening a new and exciting era for a flourishing discipline. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 7 is January 14, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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