Historiography of science

The historiography of science is the historical study of the history of science (which often overlaps the history of technology, the history of medicine, and the history of mathematics). It is generally found in an academic context as part of the discipline of the history of science and technology (HST), history and philosophy of science (HPS), science studies, and other allied disciplines. The historiography of science is a meta-level analysis of the history of science itself — whereas the history of science is concerned with scientific events, the historiography of science is concerned with the descriptions of scientific events over time.

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 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" was not 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.

Related Topics:
Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Paradigm shift - Environmentalism

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