Ludwik Fleck is a pioneer of the contemporary social constructionist trend in scientific theory, where his central concept of thinking style has become standard fare. Yet the concept is too often misunderstood and simplified with serious consequences not only for Fleck studies. My essay situates Fleck’s concept of thinking style in the historical context of the 1920s and ‘30s, when the notion of style was first applied to the natural sciences, in order to illustrate the uniqueness of Fleck’s concept among (...) the uses of style by his contemporaries and, finally, to examine the epistemological, methodological, and political consequences of this distinction. (shrink)

Summary Daniel N. Stern’s research on the first years of life offers the view of an active newborn, developing in a continuous dialogue with the Other. The mother places the infant feelings at the center of her attention. The infant gets in tune with the mother, and learns that she welcomes and understands his inner states. Such attunement is a primary holistic experience, taking place because of the infant innate ability to perceive the “interpersonal happenings” as a unitary Gestalt, emerging (...) “from the theoretically separate experiences of movement, force, time, space and intention”. Large convergence exists between Daniel Stern’s developmental psychology and Gestalt theory: both view the infant development occurring within an inter-subjective matrix, not as a process with phases or stages, but rather as a progressive organization of structures. (shrink)