Article ID: CBB069064814

Forms of Presentism in the History of Science. Rethinking the Project of Historical Epistemology (2016)

unapi

Since the late 1980s, presentism has seen a resurgence among some historians of science. Most of them draw a line between a good form of presentism and typical anachronism, but where the line should be drawn remains an open question. The present article aims at resolving this problem. In the first part I define the four main distinct forms of presentism at work in the history of science and the different purposes they serve. Based on this typology, the second part reconsiders what counts as anachronism, Whiggism and positivist history. This clarification is used as a basis to rethink the research program of historical epistemology in the third section. Throughout this article, I examine the conceptual core of historical epistemology more than its actual history, from Bachelard to Foucault or others. Its project should be defined – as Canguilhem suggested – as an attempt to account for both the contingency and the rationality of science. As such, historical epistemology is based on a complex fifth form of presentism, which I call critical presentism. The critical relation at stake not only works from the present to the past, because of the acknowledged rationality of science, but also from the past to the present because of the contingency and historicity of scientific knowledge.

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Authors & Contributors
Arabatzis, Theodore
Arrizabalaga, Jon
Barahona, Ana Echeverría
Barber, Peter
Brock, William H.
Bud, Robert
Journals
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Almagest
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences
Publishers
Routledge
Editora UFPR
Concepts
History of science, as a discipline
Historiography
Historians of science, modern
Historical method
Positivism
Social construction; constructivism
People
Barbour, Ian G.
Bocks, Paul
Carson, Rachel Louise
Gillispie, Charles Coulston
Kuhn, Thomas S.
Sarton, George
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century, early
17th century
Enlightenment
Places
Asia
Belgium
France
Argentina
Americas
Institutions
History of Science Society
Science History Institute (SHI)
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