tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7752626037671660516.post6796444475697860612..comments2021-01-20T09:22:07.084+00:00Comments on Astrolabes and Stuff: Hasok Chang and the disgruntled internalistsSeb Falkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12749635113622688649noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7752626037671660516.post-76681068314088567282014-04-14T20:20:57.520+01:002014-04-14T20:20:57.520+01:00I agree that both internal and external history of...I agree that both internal and external history of science are needed. As someone who has come into history of science form science, what baffles me is that so much of the science is missing, and that historians who lack the scientific training do not seek to make good the deficit by collaborating with scientists.<br /><br />Interesting to hear about your research on the early history of magnetism. (How early is "early"?) Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7752626037671660516.post-82567629821965780802013-12-13T21:37:18.418+00:002013-12-13T21:37:18.418+00:00Some belated comments on this useful post:
Seb...Some belated comments on this useful post:<br /><br />Seb's three-point summary of my view is spot-on. I would just add, with respect to the second critique on Seb's list, that the key is not so much to avoid arguing for the superiority of internal history than to avoid confounding the two criteria I had in mind--ie. being a good work of history, and being about science. Once we make that distinction, we will no longer be tempted to argue for the superiority of internal history as history. If we don't make the distinction, we often end up talking at cross-purposes.<br /><br />What if we use the "being about science" criterion to argue for the necessity, but not the superiority, of internal history? From Seb's summary, under point 3, it looks like much of seminar was devoted to this line of argument. Is this a fruitless line of argument? I don't think so. But nor do I think that that argument is a good defense of internal history, because we could include lots of technical content in our histories by writing many hybrid histories and no internal histories.<br /><br />I think the puzzle about rationality (Seb's theme 1) can be largely solved by noting a) that the rationality of a belief depends on the state of the evidence, and b) that the state of the evidence changes over time. People believed some pretty strange things in the past, but we can often make sense of their beliefs by noting that their evidence--the experiments they had done, the events they had witnessed, the places they had travelled--was different from the evidence we have now.<br /><br />I see the tension between being critical and avoiding Whiggism, but I don't think this problem is peculiar to internal history of science. It is a problem for any historian, whether they write about race, economics, the family, politics…<br /><br />Roland: I disagree with your comment, at least on one reading of it. My point is precisely that good history of science is *not* a matter of balance! It doesn't matter which balance of content and context we settle upon. No-one would say that every book and article in history of science should achieve a "balance" between 17th-century work and 18th-century work, or between French science and German science. Likewise, there's no need for individual historians to aim for a balance between content and context (although perhaps the discipline as a whole should aim for such a balance). At least, that's the view I want to defend.<br /><br />Interesting that some people suggested at the seminar that theoretical discussion about history of science is driven by the discipline's ideological mission. This seems plausible to me, although some of the reformers are more inclined to theorise than others. I'm not sure, though, that it is a good sign that the mission requires heavy-going theory to sustain it. I hope it is possible to defend the mission without using lots of opaque jargon.<br /><br />Another point about "theory": I like to think of my view on the internal/external distinction as an atheoretical one, at least in this sense: if we are unable to see the value of internal history of science, qua history, this is because we are blinded by bad theory. The way to defend internal history is not to come up with new theory but to show that the old theory is clunky and incoherent. But that's what I *would* say, I guess.<br /><br />Anyway, thanks again to Seb for putting up this summary.Michael Bycrofthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11357752389960585219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7752626037671660516.post-30725577574663247602013-11-28T21:46:18.892+00:002013-11-28T21:46:18.892+00:00That all seems eminently sensible! I suppose whet...That all seems eminently sensible! I suppose whether you define yourself as an internalist or hybridist (if that's a word) will depend on what you mean by "science in the context of its time". Is the context a tool to a complete understanding of the science - the contingent factors that led to its production and reception? Or is the science just something you're writing about while always aware that you're focusing on a small corner of a large canvas?<br /><br />I suppose the real question you're asking is - does it matter how you define yourself? But if you say "no, I despise theory", that's probably itself a theoretical position, so there's no way around it...Seb Falkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12749635113622688649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7752626037671660516.post-19186185943064879512013-11-28T16:15:28.921+00:002013-11-28T16:15:28.921+00:00As a novice historian of science (who has just had...As a novice historian of science (who has just had his first peer-reviewed paper in the discipline accepted) and a biochemist by background who heard Hasok Chang's address in Manchester, I've found this debate intriguing. I do think there's too much navel-gazing though. As in many things in life it's a question of balance, and the balance may differ in different circumstances. It's rarely a complete either/or. I'm currently researching the early history of magnetism. I don't think I could make sense of it as a historian if I couldn't work my way into trying to understand the science in the context of its time (and I'm not a physicist, so that's not easy for me). How it relates to later (and current) understandings is also interesting, not least in terms of people's subsequent reputations. So it's both/and, not either/or, with the emphasis depending on where the focus is.Roland Jacksonhttps://twitter.com/Roland_Jacksonnoreply@blogger.com