Everything about Historiography Of Science totally explained
The
historiography of science usually refers to the study of
History of Science in its disciplinary aspects and practices (methods, theories, schools) and to the study of its own historical development ("history of History of Science", for example, the history of the academic discipline called History of Science). Alternatively, and confusingly enough, "historiography of science" may be used to refer to the very discipline of History of Science, in such a way as to differentiate the
actual history of scientific events (whatever
happened in the past, the so-called
res gestae) from what we
write about them (the
historia rerum gestarum). Thus, one may say that "the historiography of science has gone through major changes since the publication of this or that book" (meaning of course that it isn't the
actual history of science that has changed, but the discipline that concerns itself with studying that history - which, unfortunately, is also called History of Science).
Since the mid-
19th century, ideas about the history of science and technology have been tied to important philosophical and practical questions, such as whether scientific conclusions should be regarded as progressing towards
truth, and whether freedom is important for scientific research. Put broadly, the field as a whole examines the entire spectrum of human experience relating to science and technology, and how our understanding of that experience has changed over time. Historiography of science is a much more recent discipline than history of science, although they've exerted great mutual influence on each other, through the study of theories, changes in theories, disciplinary and institutional history, the
cultural,
economic, and
political impacts of science and technology, and the impact of society on scientific practice itself.
The origins of the discipline
Though scholars and scientists had been chronicling the results of scientific endeavors for centuries (such as
William Whewell'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 didn't 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 schools, 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 didn't 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 don't 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.
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
historiography 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 wouldn't 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's 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 wasn't 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 —
Puritanism — 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.
Vannevar Bush and World War II
The study of the history of science continued to be a small effort until the rise of
Big Science 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.
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 wasn't until the publication of
Thomas Kuhn's
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that this approach became seriously suspected as being misleading . Kuhn's argument that scientific revolutions worked by
paradigm shifts seemed to imply that truth wasn't the ultimate criterion for science, and was an extremely influential book 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 .
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.
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