Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Emergence of a Sophisticated Historiography of Science in Continental Europe in the Late Nineteenth Century

Handbook for the Historiography of Science

Part of the book series: Historiographies of Science ((HISTSC))

  • 25 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter investigates the histories of sciences put forward in the second half of the nineteenth century on the European continent and the historiographical frameworks that shaped those histories. The authors were mainly scientists and mathematicians with marked historical interests and sometimes with a good philosophical background. More specifically, the chapter focuses on German-speaking and French-speaking scientists-historians and mathematicians-historians. Deep scientific, technological, and social transformations took place in the last decades of the century, together with a process of professionalization and specialization of scientific practices. These scientists undertook meta-theoretical research on the explicit and implicit foundations of sciences, on the development of scientific theories and practices over time, and on aims and methods of sciences. The awareness of the complexity of scientific traditions can be found both in French research from Cournot to Duhem and in German research from Cantor to Mach. The existence of this cultural environment allows us to understand that Mach and Duhem cannot be looked upon as isolated forerunners. They represented the starting point of the subsequent professionalization of meta-theoretical research on science and at the same time the most meaningful outcome of historical research that spread through Europe from the mid-nineteenth century.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    The establishment of definite boundaries between science and philosophy was one of the achievements of scientific practices in the late nineteenth century. As Pickstone pointed out, “the sciences we take for granted – chemistry, physics, biology, and so forth – were chiefly the creations of the nineteenth century.” Moreover, we should distinguish the process of professionalization from the process of institutionalization in the field of the history of sciences. Institutionalization occurred now and then at the end of the century but took place in a systematic way only after World War II (Pickstone 2007, pp. 490 and 492). Professionalization took place at the end of the nineteenth century, when sophisticated historiographies began to spread throughout Europe.

  2. 2.

    Scandinavian historians of mathematics frequently published or re-published their research in German or French.

  3. 3.

    On the advantages of electric energy as a clean kind of energy, see Lami (1891, p. 743); on the spread of telegraphic nets, see Galison (2003, pp. 174–180).

  4. 4.

    According to Iggers, until the early nineteenth century, “there had been two dominant traditions of writing history: one predominantly learned and antiquarian, the other essentially literary.” History was looked upon as history of European élite and its “key institutions, primarily the state, that occupied the central role in the narrative.” There was only one history (Iggers 2005, pp. 23, 52, and 142–43).

  5. 5.

    At the end of the century, a design of international collaboration was put forward by the German mathematician Felix Klein. His Encyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften encompassed both the mathematical body of knowledge and its history. This encyclopedia was published in German and then in French.

  6. 6.

    According to Frederick Beiser, German historicism might be traced back to Herder and to a cultural tradition that merged history with natural history and natural laws. This complex network of influences led to some unexpected philosophical convergences like the provisional alliance between Ranke and positivists (Beiser 2011, pp. 100–105, 167–168, 255, 261, and 323–327).

  7. 7.

    Droysen also blamed “the false alternative between materialism and idealism” (Droysen 1875, p. 11).

  8. 8.

    On the network of philosophical influences on German historicism, see McQuillan (2013, p. 136): “… some of the figures associated with the historicist tradition identified with the enlightenment, while others turned to historicism in reaction against the enlightenment. […] many early historicists saw their work as an extension of enlightenment naturalism and the “science of man”, while later historicists tried to distinguish their methods from those of the natural sciences”.

  9. 9.

    Until the end of the seventeenth century, investigations into the history of mathematics were part of mathematical practice: historical introductions and historical remarks were quite common in mathematical papers and textbooks. At the same time, since ancient mathematics had been surpassed by the modern one, mathematicians thought that old mathematics did not deserve a specific field of research (Peiffer 2002, pp. 4–5).

  10. 10.

    See Nesselmann (1842, p. 1): “Die Geschichte der Mathematik ist, wie es scheint, sehr frühe behandelt worden.”

  11. 11.

    Positivism was both a specific philosophical school and a broad, intellectual environment, “an atmosphere” (Benrubi 1926, pp. 16–17; Metzger 1930 (1987), p. 113). On the meaning of words such as scientism and positivism, see Schöttler (2012, pp. 253–254).

  12. 12.

    Comte had an enduring influence both in French-speaking countries and in England. Going beyond Comte’s sharp scientism, William Whewell delved into the philosophical structures of scientific thought in his The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded Upon Their History (Whewell 1847, vol. 1, pp. v–x, 1, 7, and 14; Whewell 1847, vol. 2, pp. 321–322, 324, 326, and 329). An intermediate philosophy between Comte’s and Whewell’s can be found in Mill’s (1848) A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. For a wider analysis of French and English positivist environment, see Bordoni (2017b, pp. 21–25).

  13. 13.

    After becoming Dean in Grenoble, in 1838, Cournot was appointed General Inspector of Public Education. In the same year, he published a short book on the mathematical theory of economics, Recherches sur les principes mathématiques de la théorie des richesses, and in 1843, a longer book on statistics and probability, focusing on their philosophical and scientific foundations. In 1851, in the book Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances et sur les caractères de la critique philosophique, he undertook a sophisticated analysis of scientific practices, just highlighting the role of statistics and probability. For Cournot’s biography, see Moore (1905, pp. 521–543).

  14. 14.

    It is worth stressing that Cournot rejected any reductionism, in particular the reduction of life sciences to chemistry and physics. He restated his anti-reductionism in the 1872 book Considérations sur la marche des idées et des événements dans les temps modernes. His philosophical stance was not shared by many authoritative scientists. For instance, in the same year, the renowned German physiologist Emile Du Bois-Reymond claimed that scientific knowledge consisted in “reducing all transformations taking place in the material world to atomic motions.” A strict reductionism led him to a strict determinism: the universe was ruled by mechanical necessity (Du Bois-Reymond 1872, pp. 441–444 and 446). For more details, see Bordoni (2017a, pp. 64–72).

  15. 15.

    It is worth remarking that, only a century after Cournot’s investigations, in the second half of the twentieth century, scholars inquired extensively into the differences between the two traditions. See Thomas Kuhn’s interpretation of “classical” and “Baconian” sciences (Kuhn 1976, pp. 4–22).

  16. 16.

    Cantor attended Arneth’s lectures in Heidelberg, Gauss and Wilhelm Weber’s lectures in Göttingen, and those of Lejeune Dirichlet in Berlin. He also met Chasles in Paris in 1860 (Lützen and Purkert 1994, pp. 2–3).

  17. 17.

    For the influence of Chasles on Cantor and Zeuthen, see Peiffer (2002, p. 22): “Chasles played a major role in establishing the history of mathematics as a subdiscipline of mathematics. Through his immense reputation, …, Chasles exercised an influence on many mathematicians, French and foreign, including Hieronymus Zeuthen and Moritz Cantor, that is still under-appreciated.”

  18. 18.

    In 1936, the Belgian historian of sciences George Sarton pointed out that Cantor’s account of “ancient and medieval period and oriental mathematics in general” was definitely “insufficient”: his history of mathematics should be “entirely rewritten.” However, many details had already been corrected by the historian of mathematics Gustaf H. Eneström and his collaborators in the journal Bibliotheca Mathematica. With regard to Zeuthen, Sarton remarked that “he was himself a creative mathematician and had a keener sense of mathematical subtleties than Cantor” (Sarton 1936 (1957), pp. 42 and 44).

  19. 19.

    In 1834, after having got his PhD from the University of Berlin, Poggendorff became extraordinary professor of physics in the same university, and there he remained until his death in 1877. For many years, he was in charge as the Annalen der Physik und Chemie’s editor, the best-known and the most authoritative scientific journal in German-speaking countries in the nineteenth century. This was his lifework, the translation of foreign papers included. In 1863, he published an extensive, encyclopedic Handwörterbuch on the history of exact sciences in two volumes, with biographies of many scientists and short accounts of their achievements and publications.

  20. 20.

    We have seen that this historiographical thesis had already been put forward in Cournot (1872, pp. 292–294). See also footnote 15.

  21. 21.

    Mach’s frequent mention of the “economy of thought” has led many historians and philosophers to speaking of Mach’s empiricism. However, even philosophers who lean toward this thesis have acknowledged that “Mach’s empiricism is complicated.” According to Paul Pojman, such empiricism would be mitigated by “the belief that knowledge is a product of evolution, that our senses, minds, and cultures have an evolutionary history.” Mach’s historical research might be looked upon as “archaeologies of science, digging at the past to critically elucidate the present” (Pojman 2020, online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

  22. 22.

    See Banks (2021, p. 273): “It is very wrong to say that Mach was sceptical of laws or abstract principle and believed only in economical lists of particulars. His view of economy is much more subtle than that.”

  23. 23.

    Mach’s concept of “economy” has been widely debated by historians and philosophers, and the interpretation of this concept always depends on the philosophical classification of Mach’s thought. When Mach is considered as an empiricist, its “economy” undergoes an empiricist nuance; when Mach becomes a pragmatist, even its “economy” leans toward pragmatism, and so on …. The fact is that “the economical role of science” (“die Oekonomie der Wissenschaft”) made reference to any rational procedure that helps us set the empirical body of knowledge in order. In the context of Mach’s research, the adjective economical and the noun economy essentially mean theoretical systematization. According to Mach, there is no science without rational or theoretical practices (Mach 1883, pp. 452 and 454).

  24. 24.

    In 2004, Erik Banks pointed out Mach’s awareness of the intrinsic tension between the “uniqueness” of individual events and “abstract laws and schemata, however necessary these were for the pursuit of science.” There was a conflict between “his heraclitean view of nature as a limitless non-repeating flux and his commitment as a scientist,” namely, “the view that nature repeats itself with sufficient regularity to frame true laws and symmetries” (Banks 2004, pp. 23, 25, 27, and 29). In other words, science requires “the economy of thought” that leads from individual events to laws and theories. The search for synthesis or economy is the core of scientific practices.

  25. 25.

    During the twentieth century, many philosophical labels were put forward in order to qualify Mach’s intellectual enterprise: phenomenalist, empiricist, instrumentalist, pragmatist, etc. Because of “the increasing tendency to think of science in formal terms,” sometimes, Mach has been looked upon as some kind of “a pre-logical positivist.” Probably “historicist naturalism” is the most reasonable label for qualifying Mach’s stance (Preston 2021, p. 7). It is also reasonable that “Mach’s historicist naturalism be looked upon as an original form of pragmatism” (Uebel 2021, p. 99).

  26. 26.

    Gerland lectured in physics and electrotechnics in a peripheral institution, the Königliche Bergakademie in Klausthal (Royal Institute of Mining Engineering in Clausthal, in Lower Saxony).

  27. 27.

    According to the historian of philosophy Isaac Benrubi, Cournot’s intellectual pathway does not suit “a definite summary and a sharp classification” (Benrubi 1926, pp. 89–90).

  28. 28.

    For a reconstruction of the events that prevented Tannery from being appointed to the Chair of “Histoire Générale des Sciences” at the Collège de France, see Milhaud (1906, p. 14), Brenner (2003, pp. 5 and 101), and Chimisso (2008, p. 85, fn 1).

  29. 29.

    On the influence of German history of philosophy on Tannery and more specifically on the philosophical background of the conception “of history of science as complementary to history of philosophy,” see Catana (2011, pp. 517–523).

  30. 30.

    George Sarton praised Tannery for having early understood the plurality of skills and sensitivities the history of science required More specifically, Tannery combined “a philological precision with a wide and profound scholarship, and a remarkable philosophical awareness” (Sarton 1954, p. 321).

  31. 31.

    On Milhaud’s institutional role in the establishment of a chair of philosophical history of science in France, see Chimisso (2008, pp. 25–26).

  32. 32.

    On Duhem’s design for a generalized mechanics, see Bordoni (2012a, pp. 238–43) and Bordoni (2012b, Chaps. 6–10). Duhem’s generalized mechanics or Energetics should not be identified with Georg Helm and Wilhelm Ostwald’s Energetics, which dealt with the universality of the principle of the conservation of energy and on the replacement of mass with energy as the fundamental physical entity. On the friendship between Duhem and Ostwald, see Brouzeng (1981, vol. 2, pp. 226–228).

  33. 33.

    Mach’s Mechanik was translated into French only in 1904, whereas Mach’s follower Friedrich Adler translated Duhem’s 1906 La théorie physique into German in 1908. Mach himself wrote the introduction.

  34. 34.

    Duhem’s representation of the history of science as a periodical series of dull applications and exciting revolutions was developed 70 years later in a completely different intellectual context. See Kuhn’s “normal” and “revolutionary” stages in the history of sciences (Kuhn 1962 (1996), pp. 10 and 111). In that context, Kuhn did not mention Duhem.

  35. 35.

    At that time, Duhem was “maitre de conférences” at Lille University; for further biographical details, see Brouzeng (1987, p. 54).

  36. 36.

    Duhem’s meta-theoretical design was better unfolded only afterward in a book he published in 1903, L’évolution de la mécanique (Duhem 1903 (1992), pp. 199 and 218–219).

  37. 37.

    The original passage deserves to be quoted: “Ainsi, sous les théories qui ne s’élèvent que pour être abattues; sous les hypothèses qu’un siècle contemple comme le mécanisme secret et le ressort caché de l’Univers, et que le siècle suivant brise comme des jouets d’enfant, se poursuit le progrès lent, mais incessant, de la physique mathématique” (Duhem 1894, p. 125). Stoffel pointed out the striking analogy between Duhem’s passage and one of Pascal’s Pensées on cyclic, historical processes (Pascal 1951, p. 417; Stoffel 2007, pp. 292–293). I point out the analogy with Naville’s passage on the slow, scientific progress underlying the appearance and disappearance of theories (Naville 1883, p. 55).

  38. 38.

    For a detailed reconstruction of Duhem’s 1896 generalized mechanics or Energetics, see Bordoni (2012b, pp. 209–237).

  39. 39.

    For instance, more than 10 years ago, Paul Forman pointed out the markers of “the transition from modernity to postmodernity” in science (Forman 2010, pp. 157–158).

  40. 40.

    It is worth stressing that this network of cultural transformations “was as yet understood, or even observed, by relatively exiguous numbers of men and women in a handful of countries” (Hobsbawm 1989, p. 243). At the same time, the technical and social progress was really enjoyed by large communities, more specifically large cities’ inhabitants. They could actually rely on electric lighting, electric means of transportation, and electric means of communication. See footnote 3.

References

Primary Sources

  • Arneth A (1852) Die Geschichte der reinen Mathematik in ihrer Beziehung zur Geschichte der Entwicklung des menschlichen Geistes. Franck, Stuttgart

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnold M (1868) Schools and universities on the continent. Macmillan, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Berthelot M (1886) Science et philosophie. Calmann LÉvy, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Cantor M (1863) Mathematische Beiträge zum Kulturleben der Völker. H.W. Schmidt, Halle

    Google Scholar 

  • Cantor M (1880) Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik. Teubner, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Chasles M 1837 (1875) Aperçu historique sur l’origine et le développement des méthodes en géométrie, particulièrement de celles qui se rapportent à la géométrie moderne. Gauthier-Villars, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Comte A (1830) Cours de philosophie positive, Tome premier. Rouen Frères, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Comte A (1852) CatÉchisme positiviste. In: Comte A (1891) CatÉchisme positiviste ou Sommaire exposition de la religion universelle. Édition apostolique. Paris/Rio-Janeiro/Londres: Apostolat Positiviste

    Google Scholar 

  • Cournot AA (1861) TraitÉ de l’enchainement des idÉes fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l’histoire, 2 tomes. Hachette, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Cournot AA (1872) ConsidÉrations sur la marche des idÉes et des ÉvÉnements dans les temps modernes. Hachette, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Cournot AA (1875) MatÉrialisme, vitalisme, rationalisme. Études sur l’emploi des donnÉes de la science en philosophie. Hachette, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Droysen JG (1858) Grundriss der Historik. Friedrich Frommann, Jena

    Google Scholar 

  • Droysen JG (1875) Grundriss der Historik (Zweite Durchgesehene Auflage). Veit & Comp, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Bois-Reymond E (1872) Über die Grenzen des Naturerkenntnis. In: Du Bois-Reymond E (1912) Reden. Veit & Comp, I Band, Leipzig, pp 441–473

    Google Scholar 

  • Duhem P (1892a) Commentaire aux principes de la Thermodynamique – Première partie. Journal de MathÉmatiques pures et appliquÉes 4(VIII):269–330

    Google Scholar 

  • Duhem P (1892b) Quelques rÉflexions au sujet des thÉories physiques. Revue des questions scientifiques 31:139–177

    Google Scholar 

  • Duhem P (1894) Les thÉories de l’optique. Revue des deux mondes 123:94–125

    Google Scholar 

  • Duhem P (1896) ThÉorie thermodynamique de la viscositÉ, du frottement et des faux Équilibres chimiques. Hermann, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Duhem P (1903). L’évolution de la mécanique. In: Duhem P (1992) L’Évolution de la mÉcanique – suivi de « Les thÉories de la chaleur », « Analyse de l’ouvrage de Ernst Mach: La MÉcanique ». Vrin, Paris, pp 1–348

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerland E (1892) Geschichte der Physik. Weber, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Laffitte P (1876) De l’HumanitÉ. ApprÉciation systÉmatique des principaux agents de l’Évolution humaine, vol II. Ernest Leroux, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Lami EO (ed) (1891) Dictionnaire encyclopédique et biographique de l’Industrie et des Arts industriels, SupplÉment 1. Librairie des Dictionnaires, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Littré E (1873) La science au point de vue philosophique. Didier, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Mach E (1872) Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes von der Erhaltung der Arbeit. Calve, Prag

    Google Scholar 

  • Mach E (1883) Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung historisch-kritisch dargestellt. Brockhaus, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Mach E (1896) Principien der Wärmelehre. Barth, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Milhaud G (1893) Leçons sur les origines de la science grecque. Alcan, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Milhaud G (1906) Paul Tannery. La Revue des IdÉes, (15 janvier 1906), pp 1–14

    Google Scholar 

  • Mill JS (1865) Auguste Comte and positivism. TrÜbner & Co, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Naville E (1883) La physique moderne. Études historiques et philosophiques. Baillière, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Nesselmann GHF (1842) Versuch einer kritischen Geschichte der Algebra (Erster Theil: Die Algebra der Griechen). Reimer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pascal B (1951) PensÉes (Introduction et notes de Louis Lafuma), 3 vols. Editions du Luxembourg, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Poggendorff JC (1879) Geschichte der Physik. Barth, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinet JF (1881) La philosophie positive, Auguste Comte et M. Pierre Laffitte. Alcan, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Tannery P (1887a) Pour l’histoire de la science hellène. Alcan, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Tannery P (1887b) La GÉomÉtrie Greque. Gauthier-Villars, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Whewell W (1847) The philosophy of inductive sciences founded upon their history, vols. 1 and 2. Parker, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeuthen HG (1886) Die Lehre von den Kegelschnitten im Altertum. Andr. Fred. Höst & Sön, Kopenhagen

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeuthen HG (1896) Die Geschichte der Mathematik im Altertum und Mittelalter. Andr. Fred. Höst & Sön, Kopenhagen

    Google Scholar 

Secondary Sources

  • Banks E (2004) The philosophical roots of Ernst Mach’s economy of thought. Synthese 139(1):23–53

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Banks E (2021) The case for Mach’s neutral monism. In: Preston J (ed) Interpreting Mach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York/Singapore, pp 258–279

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Beiser FC (2011) The German historicist tradition. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Benrubi I (1926) Contemporary thought of France. Williams and Norgate, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordoni S (2012a) Unearthing a buried memory: Duhem’s third way to thermodynamics. Part 2. Centaurus 54(3):232–249

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bordoni S (2012b) Taming complexity. Duhem’s third pathway to thermodynamics. Editrice Montefeltro, Urbino

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordoni S (2017a) When historiography met epistemology – sophisticated histories and philosophies of science in French-speaking countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. Brill, Leiden

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordoni S (2017b) The French roots of Duhem’s early historiography and epistemology. Transversal Int J Historiogr Sci, Dossier Pierre Duhem, 20–35

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowler PJ, Morus IR (2005) Making modern science. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Brenner A (2003) Les origines françaises de la philosophie des sciences. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Brouzeng P (1981) L’oeuvre scientifique de Pierre Duhem et sa contribution au dÉveloppement de la thermodynamique des phÉnomènes irrÉversibles, 2 vols., Thèse. UniversitÉ de Bordeaux I, Bordeaux

    Google Scholar 

  • Brouzeng P (1987) Duhem 1861–1916 – science et providence. Belin, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Catana L (2011) Tannery and Duhem on the concept of a system in the history of philosophy and history of science. Intellectual History Review 21(4):515–531

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chimisso C (2008) Writing the history of the mind. Philosophy and science in France, 1900 to 1960s. Ashgate, Aldershot/Burlington

    Google Scholar 

  • Folkerts M, Scriba CJ, Wussing H (2002) Chapter 5 – Germany. In: Dauben JW, Scriba CJ (eds) Writing the history of mathematics: its historical development. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel/Boston/Berlin, pp 109–150

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Forman P (2010) (re)cognizing postmodernity: helps for historians – of science especially. Ber Wiss 33(2):157–175

    Google Scholar 

  • Galison P (2003) Einstein’s clocks, PoincarÉ’s maps – empires of time. W.W. Norton, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Haller R (1991) Poetic imagination and economy: ernst mach as theorist of science. In: Blackmore J (ed) (1992) Ernst Mach – a deeper look. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 215–228

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobsbawm E (1989) The age of empire 1875–1914. Vintage, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Iggers GG (2005) Historiography in the twentieth century – from scientific objectivity to the postmodern challenge. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn TS (1976) Mathematical vs. experimental traditions in the development of physical science. J Interdiscip Hist VII(I):1–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn TS 1962 (1996) The structure of scientific revolutions, 3rd edn. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London

    Google Scholar 

  • Lützen J, Purkert W (1994) Conflicting tendencies in the historiography of mathematics. In: Cantor M, Zeuthen HG (eds) The history of modern mathematics, III, pp 1–43

    Google Scholar 

  • McQuillan C (2013) The German historicist tradition by Frederick Beiser. Stud Soc Polit Thought 20:135–137

    Google Scholar 

  • Metzger H (1930) La philosophie de Lucien LÉvy-Bruhl et l’histoire des science. Archeion 12:15–24. In: Metzger H (1987) La mÉthode philosophique en histoire des sciences. Textes 1914–1939 (rÉunis par Gad Freudenthal). Fayard, Paris, pp 113–24

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore HL (1905) Antoine-Augustin Cournot. Rev Metaphys Morale 13(3):521–543

    Google Scholar 

  • Morus IR (2005) When physics became king. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Peiffer J (2002) Chapter 1 – France. In: Dauben JW, Scriba CJ (eds) (2002) Writing the history of mathematics: its historical development. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel/Boston/Berlin, pp 1–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Pickstone JV (2007) Working knowledges before and after circa 1800. Isis 98:489–516

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pojman P (2020) Ernst Mach, Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ernst-mach/. Accessed 20 Mar 2022

  • Preston J (2021) A new Mach for a new millennium. In: Preston J (ed) 2021, Interpreting Mach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York/Singapore, pp 1–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Rapple B (1997) England’s neglect of higher education: the comparative perspective of Matthew Arnold. J Educ Thought (JET)/Revue de la Pensée Éducative 31(2):159–180

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross S (1962) Scientist: the story of a word. Ann Sci 18:65–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sarton G (1936) The study of the history of mathematics. In: Sarton G (1957) The study of the history of mathematics and the study of the history of science. Dover, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarton G (1954) La correspondance de Paul Tannery et l’histoire de nos Études. Revue d’histoire des sciences et de leurs applications 7(4):321–325

    Google Scholar 

  • Schöttler P (2012) Szientismus, Zur Geschichte eines schwierigen Begriffs. NTM Z Gesch Wiss Tech Med 20(4):245–269

    Google Scholar 

  • Stoffel JF (2007) Pierre Duhem: dans le sillage di Blaise Pascal. Revista Portuguese de de Filosofia 63:275–307

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swerdlow NM (1993) Montucla’s legacy: the history of the exact sciences. J Hist Ideas 54(2):299–328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uebel T (2021) Ernst Mach’s enlightenment pragmatism: history and economy in scientific cognition. In: Preston J (ed) 2021, Interpreting Mach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York/Singapore, pp 84–102

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bologna, Italy

    Stefano Bordoni

Authors
  1. Stefano Bordoni
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Mauro L. Condé

  2. Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil

    Marlon Salomon

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Bordoni, S. (2023). The Emergence of a Sophisticated Historiography of Science in Continental Europe in the Late Nineteenth Century. In: Condé, M.L., Salomon, M. (eds) Handbook for the Historiography of Science. Historiographies of Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_24-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_24-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-99498-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-99498-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Humanities, Soc. Sciences and Law

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Chapter history

  1. Latest

    The Emergence of a Sophisticated Historiography of Science in Continental Europe in the Late Nineteenth Century
    Published:
    23 July 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_24-2

  2. Original

    The Emergence of a Sophisticated Historiography of Science in Continental Europe in the Late Nineteenth Century
    Published:
    18 May 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_24-1

Search

Navigation