Much of my reading and thinking over the past few months of my MSc has been about historiography in general and the history of science in particular. Historiography has gone through quite a number of major themes and theoretical changes over the past century. It is not a subject that I have read much about until recently. History of science is just one part of this general historiography but has also felt the same changes.
Most recent theory has been aimed at demolishing many of the claims that historians have typically sought to make. History of science has also been hit by this. Yet I, for one, have little problem asserting that the history of science should be whiggish and does tell a story of increasing understanding and progress - in contrast to, say, political history. There seems to me to be so much good history around at the moment - perhaps this is just the way it looks in respect of "popular history", rather than "academic". How are these two fields really related?
One thought that has stuck in my mind as a result of my recent reading the biography of Frances Yates is that her field of history - broadly hermeticism - is a really good test case for an examination of the internal/external questions of history of science. For instance, Kepler disputed with Robert Fludd at one point. Kepler is clearly the most perfect case study for internal/external history and questions such as the rationality of science, or otherwise. And Robert Fludd is a good example of someone whose main ideas did not survive. So despite Kepler's many unusal beliefs, there is a perfectly good sense in which a whiggish history of science can be written about him and Fludd. In fact, I would argue that any "good" history would have to explicitly work on the basis of an internal history (rather than purely external)
So my developing ideas for either my MSc dissertation or a PhD thesis relate to the exploration of the historiogrpahy of science in the past 100-150 years related to the changing view of Kepler and the reasons why an internal, whiggish history can be written about history of science - despite the claims of most current theorists - a sort of "defence of internal history of science".
Among other things, this would enable me to engage in a huge amount of reading on the "history of ideas" - perhaps this is the main unifying interest for me. Some of the books that I have most admired are histories of ideas - Popkin's History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being, etc. Yet such books are decidedly out of fashion. A PhD thesis that involved studying the historiography of such works would be ideal for me.
Most recent theory has been aimed at demolishing many of the claims that historians have typically sought to make. History of science has also been hit by this. Yet I, for one, have little problem asserting that the history of science should be whiggish and does tell a story of increasing understanding and progress - in contrast to, say, political history. There seems to me to be so much good history around at the moment - perhaps this is just the way it looks in respect of "popular history", rather than "academic". How are these two fields really related?
One thought that has stuck in my mind as a result of my recent reading the biography of Frances Yates is that her field of history - broadly hermeticism - is a really good test case for an examination of the internal/external questions of history of science. For instance, Kepler disputed with Robert Fludd at one point. Kepler is clearly the most perfect case study for internal/external history and questions such as the rationality of science, or otherwise. And Robert Fludd is a good example of someone whose main ideas did not survive. So despite Kepler's many unusal beliefs, there is a perfectly good sense in which a whiggish history of science can be written about him and Fludd. In fact, I would argue that any "good" history would have to explicitly work on the basis of an internal history (rather than purely external)
So my developing ideas for either my MSc dissertation or a PhD thesis relate to the exploration of the historiogrpahy of science in the past 100-150 years related to the changing view of Kepler and the reasons why an internal, whiggish history can be written about history of science - despite the claims of most current theorists - a sort of "defence of internal history of science".
Among other things, this would enable me to engage in a huge amount of reading on the "history of ideas" - perhaps this is the main unifying interest for me. Some of the books that I have most admired are histories of ideas - Popkin's History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being, etc. Yet such books are decidedly out of fashion. A PhD thesis that involved studying the historiography of such works would be ideal for me.
Possibly my two favourite philosophy books
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