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  1. Science, truth and history, part II. Metaphysical bolt-holes for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge?Nick Tosh - 2007 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 38 (1):185-209.
    Historians of science have frequently sought to exclude modern scientific knowledge from their narratives. Part I of this paper, published in the previous issue, cautioned against seeing more than a literary preference at work here. In particular, it was argued—contra advocates of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge —that a commitment to epistemological relativism should not be seen as having straightforward historiographical consequences. Part II considers further SSK-inspired attempts to entangle the currently fashionable historiography with particular positions in the philosophy of (...)
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  • Anachronism and retrospective explanation: in defence of a present-centred history of science.Nick Tosh - 2003 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 34 (3):647-659.
    This paper defends the right of historians to make use of their knowledge of the remote consequences of past actions. In particular, it is argued that the disciplinary cohesion of the history of science relies crucially upon our ability to target, for further investigation, those past activities ancestral to modern science. The history of science is not limited to the study of those activities but it is structured around them. In this sense, the discipline is inherently ‘present-centred’: its boundaries are (...)
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  • Science, truth and history, Part I. Historiography, relativism and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge.Nick Tosh - 2006 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (4):675-701.
    Recently, many historians of science have chosen to present their historical narratives from the ‘actors’-eye view’. Scientific knowledge not available within the actors’ culture is not permitted to do explanatory work. Proponents of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge purport to ground this historiography on epistemological relativism. I argue that they are making an unnecessary mistake: unnecessary because the historiographical genre in question can be defended on aesthetic and didactic grounds; and a mistake because the argument from relativism is in any (...)
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