During the second half of the twentieth century, historians of science have shown a considerable interest in ‘presentism’, a term first applied to the kind of history of science in which past knowledge is judged to celebrate and legitimize modern science. Taking Herbert Butterfield’s The Whig interpretation of history as a point of reference, ‘presentism’ has been usually associated with ‘Whig history’ or ‘Whiggish history’. Nevertheless, Butterfield’s essay is one of many approaches to this question. In this article, I examine (...) Hélène Metzger’s La méthode philosophique dans l’histoire des sciences, a major theoretical contribution of ‘presentism’. I argue that the papers she published in the 1930s are among the most important critical reflections on ‘presentism’ written by a historian of science before 1950. Through this examination, I demonstrate that Hélène Metzger‘s ideas can provide historians of science with a useful set of tools to reflect upon ‘presentism’, beyond the narrow definition of the latter as ‘Whig history’. (shrink)

This article examines how Hans G. Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics can contribute to contemporary debates on the concept of ‘presentism’. In the field of the history of science, this term is usually employed in two ways. First, ‘presentism’ refers to the kind of historiography which judges the past to legitimate the present. Second, this concept designates the inevitable influence of the present in the interpretation of the past. In this paper, I argue that both dimensions of the relationship between the present (...) and the past are explored by Hans G. Gadamer in Truth and Method and other texts. In the first place, Gadamer’s critique of historicism calls into question the anti-presentist ideal of studying the past for ‘its own sake’. In the second place, Gadamer’s thesis that all understanding inevitably involves some prejudice poses the question of the inherent “present-centredness” of historical interpretations. By examining Gadamer’s hermeneutics, I seek to provide historians with new arguments and perspectives on the question of ‘presentism’.Keywords: Presentism; Whig history; Philosophical hermeneutics; Gadamer. (shrink)

Today, Larry Laudan is known predominantly for his work on the pessimistic metainduction and for his discussion of science and values. This essay examines a less familiar part of Laudan’s work, his typology of historical methodologies from the late 1970s. My aim is to elucidate Laudan’s typology and to examine one of the types in more depth, namely, the “pragmatic, symbiotic” model of historical methodology. Laudan expounded the model in the essays that eventually became his 1981 book Science and Hypothesis. (...) Laudan himself characterized this approach to methodology as “history of philosophy of science” and described a number of historiographical guidelines for this history. Several of Laudan’s questions about past scientific methodologies are still worth pursuing, although—and in part because—the concept of scientific methodology changed dramatically as philosophers turned to experimentation in the late twentieth century. Moreover, the study of Laudan’s work in the historical context in which it was devised can shed light on the historical turn in philosophy of science. (shrink)

Understanding the semantics of theoretical terms from past science involves determining what, if anything, they referred to. Some ways of assigning referents to such terms are Whiggish, in the sense that they introduce anachronisms that distort the past, while others are not. My aim in this paper is to develop a non-Whiggish semantic theory, one that avoids Whiggish reference assignments. In order to do so, I make use of the example of 'phlogiston.' I argue that it would be Whiggish to (...) maintain that 'phlogiston' sometimes referred to free electrons, but not Whiggish to maintain that it sometimes referred to hydrogen. And I argue that we can avoid Whiggish reference assignments by focusing on the operations that scientists perform. On the theory I defend, theoretical terms refer by means of the operations scientists use to identity their putative referents. (shrink)

This paper considers the legacy of Kuhn and his Structure with regard to the current history and philosophy of science. Kuhn can be seen as a myth breaker, whose contribution is the way he connected historical and philosophical studies of science, questioning the cumulativist image and demanding historical responsibility of the views of science. I build on Kuhn’s legacy and outline a suggestion for theoretical and philosophical study of history (of science), which can be subdivided into three categories. The first (...) is the philosophical analysis of historical interpretation and its relation to the historical record. The second is ‘theoretical history’ in which one tries to infer philosophically relevant interpretations on the nature of science on the basis of historical evidence. The third is the conceptual reflection of the assumptions and implications of the contemporary historiography of science. At the end I suggest that theoretical and philosophical study of history offers a fresh way to make history and philosophy relevant to each other. (shrink)

Algorithmically driven online dating platforms today promise the ability to sort through relevant data and identify one’s ideal amorous matches effectively. Yet the appeal of technological and scientific solutions to the messy problem of finding partners is hardly new. This introduction to the Focus section “It’s a Match!” argues that the history of amorous matching has long been part and parcel of the history of science, in particular the social sciences. Taking matching as an “applied science of social harmony,” the (...) authors argue that concern over more reliable techniques for determining the suitability of partners has formed an essential part of both the maintenance of social order and the shaping of subjectivities, enabling discourses of informed choice and the rational management of the passions, while also reinforcing and subverting structures of age, gender, race, and sexuality. (shrink)

Despite a growing body of literature that attempts to draw a line between legitimate and illegitimate forms of presentism in academic history, ‘avoid presentism’ is still often preached as the first rule of historiography. Distinct from other forms of presentism is selective presentism – the practice of taking some present-day activity, event, idea, or problem as a starting point in our selection of historical facts. Throughout the paper I examine the relation of some of the most popular selection criteria – (...) selection by actor intentionality, selection by later effect, and selection by problem – to presentist practices and draw three conclusions. First, each of these selection criteria can produce presentist or non-presentist histories depending on the past of which specific activity, idea, or problem the historian is interested in. Second, the historiographic legitimacy of these selection criteria is independent from their presentist or non-presentist applications; importantly, selective presentism is not among the ‘bad’ forms of presentism and is not to be avoided. Finally, various selection criteria are best understood as complementary; pluralist history invites a variety of selection criteria that help shed light on different aspects of the past, and thus – collectively – enrich our understanding of it. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend causal presentism in the historiography of science. In causal presentism, historiography of science studies events, processes and practices that were causally relevant to the development of present science. I argue that causal presentism has three main virtues: First, causal presentism avoids the conceptual problems the historiography of science has recognized in its core. Secondly, causal presentism provides a clear account of what counts as historical explanatory understanding about science. Thirdly, causal presentism enables novel ways to (...) address several conceptual and methodological problems in the historiography of science. The conclusion is that causal presentism is distinctively strong position with respect to the historiography of science. (shrink)

While historians of the microscope currently consider that no programme of microscopy took place during the Enlightenment, the thesis challenges this view and aims at showing when and where microscopes were used as research tools. The focus of the inquiry is the research on microscopic animalcules and the relationship of European microscope making and practices of microscopy with topical trends of the industrial revolution, such as quantification. Three waves of research are characterised for the research on animalcules in the Enlightenment: (...) 1. seventeenth-century observations on animalcules crowned by Louis Joblot's 1718 works in the milieu of Paris Académie royale des sciences, 2. mid eighteenth-century observations and experiments on polyps and animalcules (Trembley, Baker and Hill) and, 3. between 1760 and 1790, OF Müller's establishment of the systematics of infusoria in Denmark and Germany. (shrink)

Abstract…observations of skylfull pylotts is the onlye waye to bring it in rule; for it passeth the reach of naturall philosophy. – Michael Gabriel, 1576 (Collinson, 1867, p. 30)Abstract The tension between empirical data and formal theory pervades the entire history of geomagnetism, from the Middle Ages up to the present day. This paper explores its early-modern history (1500–1800), using a hybrid approach: it applies a methodological framework used in modern geophysics to interpret early-modern developments, exploring to what extent formal (...) conjectures shaped observation and vice versa. A range of pertinent case studies supports classification of this entire period as proto-scientific, characterised by the initial formation of theories being largely disconnected from observational constraints, and their subsequent evolution being advanced primarily by their empirical falsification, and not necessarily associated with the introduction of an alternative. The few exceptional instances of purely data-driven discovery were essentially due to an improved signal-to-noise ratio. (shrink)