Is there something important to learn from the history of science about knowledge and the mind? Do habits and emotions play a significant role in science? To what extent do present concerns and knowledge distort our understanding of past texts and practices? These are crucial questions in current debates, but they are not new. This monograph evaluates the answers to these and other questions that Hélène Metzger (1889-1944) provided. Metzger, who was the leading historian of chemistry of her generation, left us unparalleled reflections on the theory, practice and aims of history writing. Despite her influence on subsequent generations of thinkers, including Thomas Kuhn, this is the first full-length monograph on her. Beginning with an overview of her life, and the challenges faced by a Jewish woman working within academia, the book goes on to discuss the most important themes of her historiography, and her engagement with other disciplines, notably general history, philosophy, ethnology and religious studies. The book also explores both Metzger’s immediate legacy and the relevance of her ideas for a host of current debates in science studies. The Appendices include four of her historiographical papers, translated into English for the first time.

French philosophy is an internationally celebrated national philosophical tradition, and this Oxford Handbook offers a comprehensive approach to its history since 1800. The Handbook features essays written by renowned international specialists, illuminating key movements and positions, themes and thinkers in nineteenth-, twentieth- and even twenty-first-century French philosophy. The volume takes into account developments in recent historical scholarship by broadening the notion of Modern French Philosophy in two ways. Whereas recent approaches in the field have often ignored early nineteenth-century developments, this volume offers comprehensive treatment of French thought of this period in order to grasp better later developments. Moreover, the volume extends the canon at the other end of the period of Modern French Philosophy by including work on philosophers who have come to prominence only in the last ten or twenty years. The volume takes 'French philosophy' in a broad sense to include all philosophy carried out in France over the last 200 years, and it illuminates the institutional and cultural background of this national philosophical tradition in such a way as to provide a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of its unity and of its more famous moments in the twentieth century.

This book, a tribute to historian of mathematics Jeremy Gray, offers an overview of the history of mathematics and its inseparable connection to philosophy and other disciplines. Many different approaches to the study of the history of mathematics have been developed. Understanding this diversity is central to learning about these fields, but very few books deal with their richness and concrete suggestions for the “what, why and how” of these domains of inquiry. The editors and authors approach the basic question of what the history of mathematics is by means of concrete examples. For the “how” question, basic methodological issues are addressed, from the different perspectives of mathematicians and historians. Containing essays by leading scholars, this book provides a multitude of perspectives on mathematics, its role in culture and development, and connections with other sciences, making it an important resource for students and academics in the history and philosophy of mathematics.

Léon Brunschvicg's contribution to philosophical thought in fin-de-siècle France receives full explication in the first English-language study on his work. Arguing that Brunschvicg is crucial to understanding the philosophical schools which took root in 20th-century France, Pietro Terzi locates Brunschvicg alongside his contemporary Henri Bergson, as well as the range of thinkers he taught and influenced, including Lévinas, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, and Sartre. Brunschvicg's deep engagement with debates concerning spiritualism and rationalism, neo-Kantian philosophy, and the role of mathematics in philosophy made him the perfect supervisor for a whole host of nascent philosophical ideas which were forming in the work of his students. Terzi outlines Brunchvicg's defence of neo-Kantian judgement, historical analysis and the inextricability of the natural and humanist sciences to any rigorous system of philosophy, with wide-ranging implications for contemporary scholarship.

Over time, philosophers and historians of science have introduced different notions of 'ways of thinking'. This book presents, compares, and contrasts these different notions. It focuses primarily on Ian Hacking’s idea of 'style of reasoning' in order to assess and develop it into a more systematic theory of scientific thought, arguing that Hacking’s theory implies epistemic relativism. Luca Sciortino also discusses the implications of Hacking’s ideas for the study of the problem of contingency and inevitability in the development of scientific knowledge

The controversial matters surrounding the notion of anachronism are difficult ones: they have been broached by literary and art critics, by philosophers, as well as by historians of science. This book adopts a bottom-up approach to the many problems concerning anachronism in the history of mathematics. Some of the leading scholars in the field of history of mathematics reflect on the applicability of present-day mathematical language, concepts, standards, disciplinary boundaries, indeed notions of mathematics itself, to well-chosen historical case studies belonging to the mathematics of the past, in European and non-European cultures. A detailed introduction describes the key themes and binds the various chapters together. The interdisciplinary and transcultural approach adopted allows this volume to cover topics important for history of mathematics, history of the physical sciences, history of science, philosophy of mathematics, history of philosophy, methodology of history, non-European science, and the transmission of mathematical knowledge across cultures.

The 67 chapters of this book describe and analyse the development of Western science from 1500 to the present day. Divided into two major sections - 'The Study of the History of Science' and 'Selected Writings in the History of Science' - the volume describes the methods and problems of research in the field and then applies these techniques to a wide range of fields. Areas covered include: * the Copernican Revolution * Genetics * Science and Imperialism * the History of Anthropology * Science and Religion * Magic and Science. The companion is an indispensable resource for students and professionals in History, Philosophy, Sociology and the Sciences as well as the History of Science. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in an introduction to the subject.

This study offers a critical survey of past and present interpretations of the Chemical Revolution designed to lend clarity and direction to the current ferment of views.

Avant-Garde and Psychotechnics presents an innovative look at the Russian avant-garde and its cultural encounters with the sciences in the 1920s. The book examines some of the lesser known entanglements between architects, filmmakers and philosophers, on the one hand, and experimental psychologists and physiologists on the other. In Russia, famous avant-garde artists, such as El Lissitzky, Vassily Kandinsky and Dziga Vertov, helped propagate a movement referred to as "psychotechnics" that was emerging at the time in Germany and the United States and eventually led to a "psychotechnical boom." At the end of the story told in the book, it becomes clear that this boom continues to the present day. By analyzing concrete projects undertaken by Russian artists and scientists in cooperation with one another, and by drawing on as-yet-unpublished archival material, Avant-Garde and Psychotechnics challenges the established notion of socialist sciences. At the same time, it provides an entirely new picture of what was thought to be modern art, thereby demonstrating that artistic experimentation had much more than a mere metaphorical meaning in Russian arts in the 1920s. In 2007 Avant-Garde and Psychotechnics was acknowledged with an award for interdisciplinary research by the Wilhelm-Ostwald-Society, Großbothen. In 2011 the book received funding from the VolkswagenStiftung to be translated into English and Russian (the Russian edition was published by NLO books in 2019). The original German edition also received favorable reviews in NZZ, NTM, Derive, Junge Welt and Sehepunkte.