Book of Abstracts Page 1 PL Plenary Lectures Coordinated by the Conference program committe Chaired by [N/A] Conference Presentation Ceremony Ibn al-Zarqalluh's Astronomical Doctrines on Both Sides of the Mediterranean Julio Samsó University of Barcelona, SPAIN Science and the Eastern Orthodox Church during the 17th-19th Centuries Efthymios Nicolaidis National Hellenic Research Foundation, GREECE Scientific Objects and Scientific Identity of a City. Prague as a 'Chemical City' Sona Strbanova Academy of Sciences, Prague, CZECH REP. Page 2 S01 The Different Historiographies of Science. Their Advantages and Shortcomings Coordinated by Michal Kokowski (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) Raffaele Pisano (Université de Nantes, France) Hayo Siemsen (Ernst Mach Institute for Philosophy of Science, Germany) Chaired by Michal Kokowski (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) The history of science and related branches of knowledge, such as the philosophy of science and the sociology of scientific knowledge, have been developing dynamically in many countries throughout the world for many years. These branches interact with one another. As a consequence, there are various approaches to the history of science, different methods of researching the history of science and of writing about it, based on different combinations of internal and external factors. Finally, there is a wide spectrum of different interpretations of the history of science, which includes a number of different historiographies of science, such as: -the positivistic historiography of science, which we may define as the Whewellian, Tannerian, Machian, Sartonian, Conantian, Duhemian, Crombian, ..., historiography, -the historiography of science written from the point of view of the historiography of ideas, which we may define as the Lovejoyan, Koyrian, ..., -the philosophical historiography of science, which we may define as the Popperian, Kuhnian, Lakatosian, Feyerabendian, ..., -the external, social, sociological, or socio-political historiography of science, which we may define as the Marxian (Hessen’s, Bernal’s), Bloorian – Barnesian – Shapinian (The Strong Programme in Sociology of Scientific Knowledge), Collinian (The Empirical Programme of Relativism), Latourian – Woolgarian – Knorr-Cettinanian (Ethno-methodological Approach), Callonian – Latourian (Actor-Network Theory), -the cultural historiography of science or the socio-cultural historiography of science (which is the historiography of science written from the point of view of cultural studies of science) – see Dear (1995), -the whig and prig historiographies of science – see Russell (1984), Harrison (1987), Hughes (1997), -the modernist and contextual historiographies of science – see Brush (2007), -the postmodernist historiography of science (propagated by “Postmodernists”, but criticised severely by the “Friends of science” in the quarrel of the 1990s called the “Science wars”) – see: Sokal & Bricmont (1997), Sokal (2007), -the rhetorical historiography of science, which we may define as Prellian, Grossian, Dearian, Woolgarian, and Mossian – see: Haris (ed.) (1997), Fahnestock (2008), -the objective historiography of science (recorded in text-books as a list of data along with the corresponding mathematical laws, and taught through its techniques and objective concepts), the subjective historiography of science (that is the history of the thoughts and experiences of the scientists), and the effective historiography of science (that is the historiography (a) of epistemic concepts, (b) of the objects of scientific inquiry, and (c) of the dynamics of the scientific developments, as they can be extracted from an analysis of scientific texts or practices) – see: Hacking (1992), (2002), Sturm, Feest (2008), Pisano, Gaudielo (2009) fn. 22–23, Kusch (2009). The great diversity of approaches to the study of the history of science brings about both positive and negative consequences to research in this branch of knowledge – both profits and losses, so to speak. On the one hand, the plurality of attitudes can create new promising perspectives in research, when, for example, such approaches are complementary to each other. On the other hand, however, it can be very destructive to research, because it allows for instances of relativism, overspecialization, or for the ignorance of authors and propagators of falsely based assumptions (that, nevertheless, have great influence on the broad public). In this context, many questions arise regarding the fundamental issues in cultivating the history of science and teaching about this branch of knowledge today. It is worth discussing these issues in detail. The Different Strategies in the Historiography of Science. Tensions between Professional Research and Postmodern Ignorance Michal Kokowski Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences, POLAND The history of science, as a branch of knowledge, is a discipline of two countenances. On the one hand, as a kind of history, it is one of the humanistic disciplines. As this type of discipline it interacts with the other humanistic disciplines, such as general history, the methodology of history, philosophy (including epistemology, methodology, rhetorics, ...), sociology, the theory of literature, the theory of cognition, etc. Moreover, the history of science is one of the branches of knowledge called sciences studies or the science of science, which also include the philosophy of science (with epistemology, methodology, rhetorics, ontology, ethics, the theory of values), the sociology of scientific knowledge, and the politics of science. It develops in strict relationships with them. On the other hand, as a kind of reflection on science, the history of science interacts with science itself (or speaking precisely with particular sciences themselves) also. Such a dual nature of the history of science lays the groundwork for the various approaches to this branch of knowledge, the different methods of researching the history of science and of writing about it, based on different combinations of the so-called internal and external factors. As a consequence, we observe the existence of a wide spectrum of different interpretations of the history of science. The spectrum mentioned extends from a detailed, professional case study approach, to the ignorant postmodern approach. This paper will develop the issues sketched. Page 3 Towards a Classification of Approaches to the History of Science Bart Karstens Ma Institute of Philosophy, University of Leiden, THE NETHERLANDS Over the years a great abundance of approaches to the history of science has emerged. Historians have focused on a variety of subjects ranging from scientific ideas and their epistemological content, scientific practice, to socio-cultural contexts in which science operates or, upon another view, of which science is simply part. The many perspectives show how rich the field of inquiry is with each new view contributing to our understanding of science as a whole. Still we may wonder if all these perspectives are really complementary. Various debates in which the writing of ‘proper’ history of science was at stake show that there is no consensus on this matter among historians. In my paper I want to contribute to the discussion by offering a classification of the approaches to the history of science. The classification is based on two ideas. First it lists all the factors that have been said to play a role in past science. These include natural factors (or the world), cognitive factors, socio- cultural factors and personal factors. Second, borrowing an idea from Ian Hacking, with respect to each factor one or more ‘sticking points’ are formulated. Choices made with respect to these factors yield the respective historiographical approaches. With this model in hand I want to discuss three further topics. First, the enterprise started out as descriptive work. However we may wonder if the resulting classification is also prescriptive, i.e. if it generates all positions towards the history of science one can possibly hold. Second, one of the leading ideas behind the model is that, although claiming the right way to depicture science, each approach is nonetheless unstable and therefore ‘triggers’ a subsequent approach. Third, ‘the circulation of knowledge’, as one of the most recent approaches to the history of science, can also be seen in this light. It is a reply to problems experienced within the dominant localist approach to past science. However ‘the circulation of knowledge’ brings its own problems. These problems will be addressed in light of the proposed classification. Epistemological Aspects of the Historiography of Science in Greece Constantine Skordoulis National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, GREECE This paper examines the controversial epistemological aspects of the course of development of the discipline of History of science in Greece during the 20th century. Starting with the work of the first Professor of History of Science, Michael Stefanidis, appointed in the University of Athens in the beginning of the 20th century, this paper examines the transition from a discipline of History of Science dominated by the “admiration of the ancients” and the attempt to establish the continuity of Greek Science from the ancients onwards up to the last decades of the 20th century when a new generation of Historians of Science, which appears on the scene in the late 1970s, originating politically from the left prevailed in the cultural life of Greece. This new