This book advocates a radical shift of concern in philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of the sciences, and explores the consequences of such a shift. The historically-oriented first part of the work deals with the ways in which ranges of questions become real and cease to be real for communities of inquirers. The more philosophically-oriented second part of the work introduces the notion of absolute reality of questions, and addresses doubt about the claims of the sciences to have accumulated absolutely (...) real questions. It is argued that recent studies in the sociology and social history of the science pose strong challenges to the sciences by revealing how appeals to authority, vested interests, and rhetorical and aesthetic sensibilities play substantial roles in the practices of the sciences. The final chapter defends the pragmatic stance of the work, and of its companion, The Fortunes of Inquiry, and draws morals about the roles of criticism and reflection in the philosophy of science and in the sciences themselves. (shrink)

Nicholas Jardine offers here an edition and the first translation into English of Johannes Kepler's A Defence of Tycho against Ursus. He accompanies this with essays on the provenance of the treatise - the circumstances which provoked Kepler to write it, an analysis of its strategy, style and historical sources and of the contents of Ursus' Treatise on Astronomical Hypotheses to which Kepler was replying. Dr Jardine also provides three extended interpretive essays on the intrinsic interest and historical significance of (...) the work. (shrink)

Introduction: the age of reflexion Part I. Romanticism: 1. Romanticism and the sciences David Knight 2. Schelling and the origins of his Naturphilosophie S. R. Morgan 3. Romantic philosophy and the organization of the disciplines: the founding of the Humboldt University of Berlin Elinor S. Shaffer 4. Historical consciousness in the German Romantic Naturforschung Dietrich Von Engelhardt 5. Theology and the sciences in the German Romantic period Frederick Gregory 6. Genius in Romantic natural philosophy Simon Shaffer Part II. Sciences of (...) the Organic: 7. Doctors contra clysters and feudalism: the consequences of a Romantic revolution Nelly Tsouyopoulos 8. Morphotypes and the historical-genetic method in Romantic biology Timothy Lenoir 9. ’Metaphorical mystifications’: the Romantic gestation of nature in British biology Evelleen Richards 10. Transcendental anatomy Philip F. Rehbock 11. Romantic thought and the origins of cell theory L. S. Jacyna 12. Alexander von Humbolt and the geography of vegetation Malcolm Nicholson Part III. Sciences of the Inorganic: 13. Goethe, colour, and the science of seeing Dennis L. Sepper 14. Johann Wilhelm Ritter: Romantic physics in Germany Walter D. Wetzels 15. The power and the glory: Humphrey Davy and Romanticism Christopher Lawrence 16. Oersted’s discovery of electromagnetism H. A. M. Snelders 17. Caves, fossils and the history of the earth Nicholas A. Rupke Part IV. Literature and the Sciences: 18. Goethe’s use of chemical theory in his Elective Affinities Jeremy Adler 19. Kleist’s bedlam: abnormal psychology and psychiatry in the works of Heinrich von Kleist Nigel Reeves 20. Coleridge and the sciences Trevor H. Levere 21. Nature’s book: the language of science in the American Renaissance David van Leer 22. The shattered whole: Georg Buchner and Naturphilosophie John Reddick. (shrink)

The Scenes of Inquiry advocates a radical shift of concern in philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of the sciences, from answers and doctrines to questions and problems, and explores the consequences of such a shift. Nicholas Jardine has expanded the book considerably for this paperback edition, adding a substantial preface, an extensive bibliography, and three new essays which develop the book's themes and pursue its aims further. 'Philosophers, historians, sociologists, and not least scientists, should read it' Times Higher Education Supplement.

This copiously illustrated volume is the first systematic general work to do justice to the fruits of recent scholarship in the history of natural history. Public interest in this lively field has been stimulated by environmental concerns and through links with the histories of art, collecting and gardening. The centrality of the development of natural history for other branches of history - medical, colonial, gender, economic, ecological - is increasingly recognized. Twenty-four specially commissioned essays cover the period from the sixteenth (...) century, when the first institutions of natural history were created, to its late nineteenth-century transformation by practitioners of the new biological sciences. An introduction discusses novel approaches that have made this a major focus for research in cultural history. The essays, which include suggestions for further reading, offer a coherent and accessible overview of a fascinating subject. An epilogue highlights the relevance of this wide-ranging survey for current debates on museum practice, the display of ecological diversity and concerns about the environment. (shrink)

The belief that science shows an accumulation of a body of objective knowledge has been widely challenged by philosophers and historians in the latter half of this century. In this treatise, Dr. Jardine defends this belief with a careful appreciation of the complexities involved, drawing on many controversial issues concerning truth in science, interpretation of past theories, and grounds of scientific method.

This article proposes that a general theory of assessment of historical testimony should do justice to the long tradition of adjudication in accordance with maxims of reliability and competence. I argue that an explanatory genealogical theory (along lines first adumbrated by Charles Seignobos) satisfies this condition, and that it has further notable virtues: respect for the strengths of rival theories, regard for the links between adjudication of testimony and other basic procedures of historical inquiry, and the promise of profitable lines (...) of investigation. (shrink)

Gerd Buchdahl’s international reputation rests on his masterly writings on Kant. In them he showed how Kant transformed the philosophical problems of his predecessors and he minutely investigated the ways in which Kant related his critical philosophy to the contents and methods of natural science. Less well known, if only because in large part unpublished, are the writings in which Buchdahl elaborated his own views on the methods and status of the sciences. In this paper I examine the roles of (...) hermeneutics in Buchdahl’s reconstruction of Kant’s philosophical system and in his own ‘transcendental methodological’ approach to the philosophy of science. The first section looks at Buchdahl’s views on the theory and practice of historical interpretation and at the Husserlian hermeneutic scheme of reduction and realisation that he used in his later accounts of the philosophies of science of Kant and himself. The second section concentrates on Buchdahl’s treatment of the grounds of science in Kant; and the third on the hermeneutic strategies Buchdahl employed in articulating and justifying his own views. The paper closes with reflections on the impact and importance of Buchdahl’s interpretation of Kant’s critical philosophy in relation to the sciences and of his own hermeneutically based philosophy of science.Author Keywords: Buchdahl; Kant; Hermeneutics; Methodology; Transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

The bulk of the significant recent scientific heritage of universities is not to be found in accredited science museums or collections employed in research. Rather it is located in a wide variety of more informal collections, assemblages and accumulations. The selection and documentation of such materials is very often unsystematic and many of them are vulnerable to changes of staff, relocation and, above all, shortage of space. Following a survey of views on the values of the recent material heritage of (...) the sciences, I consider the many advantages—for teaching, engagement with wider communities, enhancement of institutional identity and work experience, celebration of scientific achievements, study of the recent history of the practices and fruits of the sciences, etc.—of “multi-site museums” formed through the coordination of such varied and scattered collections. I go on to reflect on ways in which the preservation and display of scientific heritage in dispersed collections may be enhanced and protected through institutional recognition and through provision of guidance and assistance in selection, documentation and digitisation, preservation and conservation, and display. The importance of adequate documentation of the contexts of production and use of objects is stressed, as are the benefits that can result from involvement of student “taskforces” and heritage-concerned scientists. (shrink)

The historian and philosopher of science Hélène Metzger (1889–1944) delivered “Le rôle des précurseurs dans l’évolution de la science” in 1939 as a lecture of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques of the University of Paris, later published in their journal Thalès. In this talk, Metzger not only attacks the notion of “precursor” and a history of science focused on “great men” and their discoveries, but also makes a strong case for the philosophical value of the history of science. (...) We here offer a translation of this witty and subtle essay in the historiography of science, followed by our commentary. (shrink)

Gadamer's Truth and Method emphasises the priority of engagement with questions in the process of interpretation; however, there are passages which appear dismissive of concerns with 'dead' scientific and philosophical questions. Here I argue that Gadamer's work is nevertheless an important resource for the historical study of the genesis and dissolution of questions. This type of study can overcome the divide between internal history of contents and external history of contexts. In both philosophy and the sciences, reflection on the genealogy (...) of questions is, I suggest, crucial for our critical awareness of current methods and agendas. (shrink)

In Higher Superstition, published early in 1994, biologist Paul R. Gross and mathematician Norman Levitt denounced an `Academic Left' at once militant and ill-informed in its criticisms of science. Gross and Levitt showed sharp eyes for the pretentious and absurd in the works of American postmodernists, feminists, multiculturalists, radical environmentalists and, alas, exponents of science studies -- that is, historians, philosophers and sociologists of science. In the Autumn of 94, physicist Alan Sokal, inspired by Gross and Levitt's book, submitted a (...) spoof article portentously entitled `Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity' to Social Text, a leading journal in the expanding field of cultural studies. As he later told Janny Scott of the New York Times : I structured the article around the silliest quotations about mathematics and physics from the most prominent academics, and I invented an argument praising them and linking them together. All this was very easy to carry off, because my article wasn't obliged to respect any standards of evidence or logic. The editors of Social Text were hoodwinked. By an unhappy coincidence, shortly after receiving Sokal's article they decided to produce a special `Science Wars' collection, including the unrefereed article together with responses to Higher Superstition. `Transgressing the Boundaries' duly appeared in the Spring/Summer 96 double issue, accompanied by articles from a number of those denounced by Gross and Levitt and lampooned by Sokal -- the perfect setting! (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Critical Narratives Rival Reconstructions Philosophical Problems Bibliography.

An axiomatic treatment of the relation part of is shown to lead naturally to an account of the ways in which parts of things are matched. The determination of matchings by the properties of parts and by the relations between parts is discussed and shown to be relevant to certain classificatory problems in science. The connexions between matchings and symmetries of parts are explored, and a general account is given of the ways in which ambiguities in the matching of parts (...) may be resolved. (shrink)