In the present paper I sketch three genres of sociology of knowledge and trace their roots to Marx and Marxist literature while reconstructing two causal and one hermeneutic strand in this context. While so doing the main focus is set on György Lukács and György Márkus and their interpretation of Marx’s contribution to sociologically minded theories of knowledge. As a conclusion I point out that Marx-inspired sociologies of knowledge are more sensitive to the relation of larger-scale social and historical processes (...) than to the actual practices of knowledge production, and that recent developments in science studies tend to integrate larger- and smaller-scale sociological sensitivities. (shrink)

This article addresses the ideological context of twentieth-century history of science as it emerged and was discussed at the threshold of the Cold War. It is claimed that the bifurcation of the discipline into a socio-economic strand and a technical-intellectual one should be traced back to the 1930s. In fact, the proposal of a Marxist-oriented historiography by the Soviet delegates at the International Congress of History of Science and Technology led by Nikolai Bukharin, set off the ideological and methodological opposition (...) that characterised the later years. Bukharin’s views on science are closely considered, as well as those of his Marxist critics, György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci. It is argued that, despite the fluidity of the positions of the 1920s and 1930s, these theories soon crystallized as demonstrated by the leftist reception of Bukharin’s and his associates’ perspective in the history of science, especially in Great Britain, as well as by the anti-communist reactions. Intellectualist approaches renouncing socio-economic factors, typically those by Alexandre Koyré and Thomas Kuhn, are reconsidered in the light of the ideological confrontation of the Cold War era. Reflection on the political-cultural embedding of the history of science has often been overshadowed by claims about the objectivity and neutrality of science and its historiography. Thus, the seminal discussion of the 1930s remains one of the most lucid moments of reflection about the role of science and history of science as cultural phenomena shaped by political struggles. (shrink)

The issue of internalism and externalism in historiography of science was intensely debated two decades ago. The conclusions of such debate on the ‘context of science’ appear to be a reinstatement of the positivist view of the ‘content of science’ as comprising only ideas and concepts uninfluenced by extra-scientific factors. The description of the roles of politics, economy, and socio-cultural factors in science was limited only within the ‘context of science’. This article seeks to resituate the ‘content of science’ debate (...) within the historical accounts of the Scientific Revolution to illustrate that their resort to historicism indicates that such content does not emerge from the void. It argues that, though some historicist accounts like Alexandre Koyré’s reinstate the positivist argument on the nature of the ‘content of science’, such historicist internalism greatly differs from positivist internalism, largely due to its acceptance of metaphysics in science. Therefore, as long as historicism is relied on to describe the content of science, a clear-cut distinction of the historicist internalism and externalism will be difficult to establish. (shrink)