Difficulties in the historiography of science

L. A. Markova

pp. 21-30

in: Robert E. Butts, Jaakko Hintikka (eds), Historical and philosophical dimensions of logic, methodology and philosophy of science, Berlin, Springer, 1977

Abstract

Nowadays we read rather often about a revolutionary situation in the modern historiography of science. I shall try to outline the main difficulties and the unresolved problems which give rise to such opinions. Even a superficial acquaintance with modern works on the history and philosophy of science gives us an opportunity to notice three difficulties, each of them attracting intense attention from investigators. All these difficulties are connected with the introduction of the idea of discontinuity in the history of science in opposition to the positivistic interpretation of the history of science as continuous and cumulative.¹