مجله تاریخ علم
سال چهاردهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 20، بهار و تابستان 1395)

The transfer of science was accelerated with the spread of European colonialism and its efforts to conquer and rule other parts of the world. Until the eighties of the twentieth century the historiography of science was focused on the spearhead of scientific activity and too little research was done on social and economic factors influencing the production of science. Since then, however, historians of science have turned their attention to social, political, institutional and economic factors, thereby bringing to light important aspects of this branch of human activity. Two factors, more than others, are responsible for this turn: Thomas Kuhn’s model of science and Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism. In the first part of this paper the transfer of science will be looked at and the models by George Basalla and Joseph Needham will be discussed. In part two Kuhn’s observations and Said’s Orientalism critique together with Chakrabarty’s contribution to the historiography of science transfer will be discussed. Finally some aspects of the historiography of science transfer and its methodology will be presented along with an appraisal of a critique pertaining to the historiography of modern science in Iran

The Historiography of Mathematics has undergone a radical change in recent years, and the previous approach, which already has led to the writing of influential books in History of Mathematics is no longer considered as appropriate by a new generation of historians of mathematics, or at least some of them. The new perspective on History of Mathematics is completely different from the previous point of view, and considers as important historical facts which, in the eye of old historians, seemed to be inessential. The difference between these two views, which is based on different epistemological assumptions, leads to two completely distinct positions in Historiography of Mathematics. This situation sets the two traditions against each other. In this article, each one of these two different tradition, their features, assumptions, and results will be introduced, then the roots of the opposition between them will be discussed, and finally I will try to introduce a new approach in Historiography of Mathematics that tends to reduce the tension between them.

After Kuhn and his remarks on the point that some social factors play important role in paradigm selections, it was a concern for many historians and philosophers of science that accepting such a claim would lead to anti-rationalism in the historiography of science. By proposing the concept of Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes Lakatos tried to provide a rational interpretation of history of science. However, it has been claimed that such an approach does not take into account motivations and epistemic reasons of scientists. On the other hand, proponents of the Strong Programme in the Sociology of Knowledge tried to encourage historians to take into account social factors in their histories of science. Again it is claimed that motivations and epistemic reasons of scientists are not reflected here and therefore this approach is ahistorical too. Our main concern is to consider the point that whether in the social approach epistemic reasons of scientists are somehow epiphenomena of more genuine things. By elaborating different kinds of relationships between the social and the rational it will be argued that at least in the case of the social approach the charge of being ahistorical is not too damaging.

The findings of cognitive science increasingly show that analogies and metaphors play an essential role in human cognition. Scientists are no exception to this rule, and so analogies and metaphors play a fundamental role in science. Although the philosophers of science have been studying the role of analogies and metaphors in science for decades, historians of science have ignored this role- with a few exceptions in the last few years. The claim of this paper is putting emphasis on this role opens up a new look in historiography of science. After referring to the work of one of the present historians who uses this method of historiography as an example, a small part of young Darwin's work will be reconstructed. Then, on this basis, it will be defended that understanding of the past is possible only with the contemporary look, and the fear of committing Whigish historiography is only a barrier to understanding the past. In the end, it is defended that this kind of historiography can help the scientist in offering new hypotheses in current scientific debates.

Revolution is an essential element of Kuhn's analysis of the evolution of science. Inspired by Koyré and his contemporary philosophers and historians, Kuhn depicts history of science as epochs of different paradigms separated by big revolutions. In the light of new historiography of science, Historians themselves voice substantial grounds for unease about the coherence and historical validity of the notion of a Scientific Revolution and thereby casting doubts on revolutions in science generally. They note how local and specialized studies of the sciences in the period have led to "impatience" with the grand narrative of Thomas Kuhn. Contrary to what Kuhn believes, recent studies undermine notions of a unitary revolution conceived in terms of transformation of methodology and metaphysical presupposition or of massive advance in knowledge achieved on many disciplinary fronts. Despite this grand skepticism, I will argue that revolution remains to be an appropriate metaphor specially in the historical narrative of the seventeenth century.

Different historiographies, such as presentist, historio-philosophic, Corbinian and Jungian, have been applied in order to reconstruct the history of alchemy in Islamic societies in the Middle Ages. One technique which can be used, in one way or another, in each of these historiographies, is the etymology. We see that the alchemists themselves and also biobibliographers (Jaldakī, Eznīqī, Safadī, Khawrazmī, Jawharī, ibn Nadīm, for example) have presented different etymologies for the word “al-kīmīyā”. Here, some of these etymologies have been illustrated and analyzed, both from the historic and from the phenomenological points of view.

In the last few decades, philosophers of science have paid much more attention to the question of the role of values in scientific theories. Before that, the prevailing view drew a sharp distinction between the scopes of science and value. Specifically, in the second part of 20th century, allegiance to the value-free ideal of science was common, which admitts only epistemic values a role in epistemic evaluation of scientific theories. In this paper, sketching a brief history of the development of the literature of “science and value”, we propose that one of the important factors contributing to raising awareness to the roles of values in science is the developments in the historiography of science, in particular, flourishing of externalist attitudes to history of science, emphasis on using accurate empirical data, and avoiding anachronistic fallacies in historical narratives. Finally, we will focus on the fact that better understanding of the role of values in science puts some new questions before the historian of science, and the concepts developed in discussion of the relationship between science and value can provide a new framework to the historian of science and, in this way, may affect theories and methods of historiography of science.

While internalists, drawing on cognitive features, try to distinguish pure from applied science, externalists do it by contextual or non-cognitive ones. In this article, I will argue that neither externalism nor internalism is adequate to represent the distinction between pure/applied science and their relationship. In the following, after introducing the unifying framework of Nanay, I will argue that the distinction is adequately represented by Nanay’s model.