Talk:Historiography of science

comments

The answer to this question must, in some form, inform the method in which the history of science and technology is conducted, and, in reverse, how the history of science and technology is conducted, and what it concludes, can inform the answer to the question.

Kind of an awkward sentence, I don't really know what it's trying to convey by the end.

The question itself contains an entire host of philosophical questions

Questions, questions... un-selfconscious word repetition is a drag.

Lucidish 00:25, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The basic point of the first sentence is trying to say that the historiography of science is bound up in models of how science works. Hence this is why the historiography of science ends up influencing things like the philosophy of science (i.e. Kuhn, whose most famous work is historiography, not philosophy), and vice versa. I'll try to tighten it up a bit, but I was trying to avoid using the word "historiography" as it is a foreign term to most non-academics (even Microsoft Word thinks it is a mispelling). --Fastfission 21:36, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if its foreign or not — the distinction is too important. Kuhn was a historian of science, not a historiographer of science. At least as far as my understanding goes, and what I read of Scientific Revolutions years ago, he was concerned with describing and explaining scientific events and patterns of historical behaviour. I do not remember him actually discussing and examining specific previous historical works, analyzing their authors, audiences, writing techniques, social biases, etc., except perhaps in an attempt to demonstrate how his new history of science was different from theirs. At least, this is my understanding. Revolver 17:02, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

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Glad to see this. I don't have much if anything to contribute to the substance, but I'm doing a bit of farbling with some sentences that I think can be made to read more smoothly. Dandrake 22:56, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)

"Connection between economy and knowledge" in the comments on Heesen: shouldn't that be economics? Or economic systems (or the economy)? "Economy" is defensible, but it mainly makes one think of money-saving.

I think I mean something more like "economic systems." My problem with "economics" is I want to disentangle it from "Economics" as a discipline and a field -- the scholarly study of economy. Hessen/Merton are speaking about economy in the way a Marxist would (social pressures, power, etc.). --Fastfission 01:07, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

On the problematic sentence that Lucidish noted: I've made a little edit to reduce the reliance on commas, but on re-reading a few times I think it needs more work. Gratuitous advice, worth every penny: It looks like one of those things in which one has got too deeply involved in polishing a succinct statement, and it has to be torn up and re-done. My own approach would be to stand up, ask myself "Just what am I trying to say here?" and pace around constructing a few disjointed simple declarative sentences; then try to paste that back together in actual prose. It ends up longer, which one was trying to avoid—but one was wrong. But I don't know if this suits your working style at all. (Looks as if my opinion is that it needs loosening, not tightening.) Dandrake 23:21, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)

Tightening is, of course, always my problem with writing (and, actually, in speaking, too -- I a mishmash of words, and a "Big Talker" as we say around here). I've put off working on this for a little while longer than I meant to, just because of work and other things, but I'll be playing with it a little more likely in the next week... I do very much appreciate both of your comments and work. --Fastfission 01:07, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Moved into the main article namespace

I moved this from my user page to the main article namespace, retitling it "Historiography of science", at the suggestion of another editor. There are still uncompleted sections, clearly. If anyone wants a copy of the Dennis article I cited in order to work on this in an informed manner, use the "E-mail this user" function and I'll forward it to you. --Fastfission 17:50, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Discussion about terminology

I think a discussion about various terminology may be useful. The confusion seems to appear not only here, but at various websites (the last link at the bottom of this article itself quotes a scholar who uses a different definition than the one at the article), among books, articles, and dictionaries. The problem is that there are layers upon layers of study and processes going on. Here is a schematic table showing my own understanding of the relationships:

TYPE OF EVENT	SUBJECT MATTER	FIRST OCCURENCE	PRODUCT
Natural events	N/A	Creation of universe	N/A
Science	Natural events	Human prehistory	Ancient understanding of universe
Modern science	Natural events	Scientific revolution	Scientific laws/theories
History of science	Science/modern science	17th century	Historical (auto-)biographies
Modern history of science	Science/modern science	Early 20th century	Historical descriptions of science; analysis of the development of scientific methods and theories
Historiography of science	History of science	Circa 1960s/1970s	Historical descriptions of the history of science as a discipline; analysis of how historical circumstances affected descriptions of science

Note that the last 2 entries are not the same. The problem is that many authors use the term "historiography" to denote the process of writing history, as well as the study of the process. Also, in the article, what does the frequent term "the study of the history of science" mean? Does it refer to "history of science" or "historiography of science" as described above? It makes a big difference. Revolver 19:02, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

On Kuhn

I've put facts on most of the stuff on Kuhn. It's worded relatively NPOV but it sounds weasely without the sources.

E.G.

From the 1940s through the early 1960s, most histories of science were different forms of a "march of progress" [citation needed], showing science as a triumphant movement towards truth

Who used the phrase "march of progress?"

and

and was an extremely influential book outside of academia as well [citation needed].

How? And isn't Kuhn's book's influence outside of academia off-topic anyways?

and

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 [citation needed].

Who were the critics?

Thanks, --M a s 01:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Remove Lists?

I suggest we remove the section Disciplinary Figures and the associated lists. These lists can easily be handled (and kept curent) by putting links to the existing lists in the See Also section. --SteveMcCluskey 16:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

A suggestion for reform of the entry

The entry does not make the trivial distinction between the history of science and the historiography of science. In fact it conflates them, perhaps deliberatly, in the opening sentence. I will mend that, and see, with your permission, where it takes the entry. I shall conentrate on the opening paragraphs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shandorsan (talk • contribs) 06:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The whole opening section needs a rewrite - it's just not serious. The writing is far too self-conscious. The article should instruct lucidly rather than try to sound witty. As it is, it fails at both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.243.224.123 (talk) 18:17, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know where this comment is coming from; it doesn't seem to relate at all to the article. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)