On Historicizing Epistemology: An Essay

by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, David Fernbach (Translator)

Epistemology, as generally understood by philosophers of science, is rather remote from the history of science and from historical concerns in general. Rheinberger shows that, from the late nineteenth through the late twentieth century, a parallel, alternative discourse sought to come to terms with the rather fundamental experience of the thoroughgoing scientific changes brought on by the revolution in physics. Philosophers of science and historians of science alike contributed their share to what this essay describes as an ongoing quest to historicize epistemology. Historical epistemology, in this sense, is not so concerned with the knowing subject and its mental capacities. Rather, it envisages science as an ongoing cultural endeavor and tries to assess the conditions under which the sciences in all their diversity take shape and change over time.

Genres: Philosophy, History Of Science, History

126 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2010

Reviews

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously an excellent overview, but it’s sad that a book whose content is so rich should not also apply such depth in form. The book ends up feeling like a good literature review instead of a reflection upon the changing relationship between science and epistemology. Likewise, why in the world does Derrida fit into this work but not Bergson and Deleuze? I highly recommend this work it just seems like it has some unfortunate limitations though they’re not bad enough to say that one could not get a lot out of this work.

[versarbre]

The book showed how the very perspective of history had become an inalienable constituent of the way scientists made sense of their scientific enterprises during the twentieth century. For a history of science to be possible at all, scientists (not only historians of science, and philosophers of science) have to make explicit both the way their conceptualization develops (not just to propose concepts) and the assumptions and conditions for the concepts to work and to be tested. The chapters went into detail about the writing of leading European scientists and philosophers, most of whom I am not familiar at all. So I skipped them.