Place of History in the History of Science

This article aims to reflect on the place of history in the history of science from the perspective of Brazilian historiography of science, mainly according to the thought of the Brazilian physicist and historian of science, Carlos Alvarez Maia. Since the 1990s, Maia (2013) began to question why the history of science became (and still largely remains) a “history of absent historians” in the face of the predominance of history of science in the Natural Science Departments and the absence in History Departments. The dynamic and changing historiography of science itself reaffirms the lack of historical analyses using history’s methodological and conceptual apparatus. Thus, epistemological aspects appear interrelated to political-institutional issues. Consequently, one has a political-epistemological perspective for discussing the place – or non-place – of history in the history of science. The thought of Maia (2013) acts as an essential starting point for reflection. It constitutes a possible opening in constructing a consolidation of discussions about the impacts (of the absence and the presence of the conceptual apparatus of history) in developing new historiography of science conceptually historical.

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.

Historiography of Science in South America

From the Editor

Hybrid Knowledge and the Historiography of Science

Originating in the field of biology, the concept of the hybrid has proved to be influential and effective in historical studies, too. Until now, however, the idea of hybrid knowledge has not been fully explored in the historiography of pre-modern science. This article examines the history of pre-Copernican astronomy and focuses on three case studies—Alexandria in the second century CE; Baghdad in the ninth century; and Constantinople in the fourteenth century—in which hybridization played a crucial role in the development of astronomical knowledge and in philosophical controversies about the status of astronomy and astrology in scholarly and/or institutional settings. By establishing a comparative framework, this analysis of hybrid knowledge highlights different facets of hybridization and shows how processes of hybridization shaped scientific controversies.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Baconian Background of Hogben’s Scientific Humanism

This essay examines the impact of Baconian utilitarianism on Lancelot Thomas Hogben (1895–1975), a biologist whose view of science was heavily intertwined with his support of socialist planning. Like Bacon and Marx, Hogben considered science to be a collective tool of utmost importance for empowering people and improving life conditions through a conscious and methodical intervention on our surroundings. Convinced by the fundamentally applied nature of science, Hogben successfully used the principles of the emerging Marxist historiography of science in his popular science books to teach abstract ideas through their origins in practical life. Furthermore, he extended the view of science as planning from biology and economics to linguistics by designing the international language Interglossa that would also serve to enhance scientific literacy in the lay public.

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

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.