The Shapin Historiography Of Science Thoughts

Steven Shapin is a very famous sociologist and historian of science, his idea of the historiography of science is very important in today's international study of the history of science. I try to provide some primary studies of it in this dissertation.I. Purpose of studyShapin's idea of the historiography of science is both a symbol of the new stage and an embodiment of the influence of Marxism in the historiography of science. Making a study of Shapin's idea of the historiography of science will help us to grasp the development of international study of the history of science, to enrich and develop Marxist historiography of science, and then to improve our study in the history of science.As a leader of social constructivism, Shapin is always bringing the international attention to his idea. Many scholars have studied and commented his idea of the historiography of science, form the early opinion of anti—Whiggism to the later stage idea of constructivist historiography. But if we view the situation on the whole, we will find that the international study of Shapin's idea of the historiography of science is unsystematic, much of the scholars have studied Shapin's idea only in one aspect, and have not sketch the thread of his idea and can not grasp it as a whole.I want to study Shapin's idea carefully and deeply and try to provide a whole picture of his idea. I hope that I could fill in this academic blank about Shapin's idea of the historiography of science. In this dissertation, I want to provide my opinion of some major problem such as: the major sources of Shapin's idea; the essential contents of Shapin's idea; the main characteristic of Shapin's idea; the theoretical contribution and the limitations of Shapin's idea; how to apply Shapin's idea to enrich and develop Marxist historiography of science.II. Methods of studyIn the methodological level, I mainly used the Marxist view of practice and historical materialism. The subject of this dissertation is the historiography of science, and its terrain relates to both science and history. I insist the Marxist view of practice, treat science as a particular practice. And I apply the Marxist materialist view of history to ponder the problem of the historiography of science.In the level of specific method, I mainly use the documentary analytical method and comparison study method. In the first, I try my best to collect Shapin's documents from both domestic and international, and analyse the documents closely and deeply. I understand Shapin's writings from 1972 to 2004 on the whole so that to sum up the essential contents and the main characteristic of Shapin's idea. Secondly, I compare Shapin's idea with the latter period philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Kuhn's historiography of science, the theory of SSK and the Marxism to seek for the different and same opinion between the different theories, to analyse the sources of Shapin's idea and to develop the Marxist historiography of science.III. Conclusions of studyThe breakthroughs and innovations of this dissertation are mainly as follows:a. I comb the major sources of Shapin's idea of the historiography of science. In this dissertation I sketched three sources of his idea: the latter period philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Kuhn's idea of the historiography of science and the theory of SSK. I discuss that Wittgenstein's notion of "language game" and the idea of "suspicion is limited" and Kuhn's practical turn, anti-Whiggist standpoint and the view of two scientific traditions and the theory of SSK , particularly Bloor's "strong programme" and Collins's "empirical programme of relativism " had influenced Shapin's idea deeply.b. I sum up the essential contents of Shapin's idea of the historiography of science. Firstly, I analyse Shapin's views of the history of science, which is the theoretical foundation of his idea. The main contents of his views includs: the insistence of the historical quality of the history of science, the thought of that the history of science occupies the same terrain as the history of politics and the idea of that the history of science is a social history of truth. Secondly, I discuss Shapin's historiographic contents. As a historian of science who has the background of SSK, Shapin is mainly concerned with the scientific controversy in the history and various sorts of factors in the specific practice of making knowledge, and these contents are very different from the contents which the traditional historians of science has concerned. Thirdly, I summarize the historiographic methods which Shapin has used. I analyse the prosopography which he outstandingly used and a loose sense of historicism.c. I summarize the main characteristic of Shapin's idea of the historiography of science. The past studies usually only took Shapin's idea as an anti-Whiggist critical historiography or a constructivist historiography, but through read down the major writings of Shapin, I think that the main characteristic of Shapin's idea is both social constructivism and anti-Whiggism. Moreover, if we think about the development track of his idea, we will find that his earlier idea is to realize his aim of anti-Whiggism by constructivism and his later idea is to deepen his constructivist insistence by anti-Whiggism. The constructivist characteristic of Shapin's idea is embodied by both of his historiographic project and his specific study, and the anti-Whiggist characteristic of Shapin's idea is embodied by his anti-Whiggism on some problems such as scientific controversy, the creation of scientist's identity and the scientific revolution.d. I discuss the theoretical contribute and the limitedness of Shapin's idea of the historiography of science. I comb the theoretical contribute of Shapin's idea to the history of science, the philosophy of science and the sociology of scientific knowledge systematically. I discuss that its theoretical contribute to the history of science is major in the transcendence of the externalism-internalism debate and the breakdown of the idealism in the study of history of science, its theoretical contribute to the philosophy of science is that it contribute to form a new view of science and give answers to some important issues and its contribute to the sociology of scientific knowledge is that he is the first man put forward the interests model and to solve the problem of how the social factors get into scientific knowledge. Moreover, I analyse the limitedness of Shapin's idea of the historiography of science deeply. I discuss that its limitedness includes the one-sidedness in the views of science and history of science and the limitedness of historiographic project of SSK.e. I set forth my views about enriching and developing the Marxist historiography of science and these views are directed at three theoretical problems which are disputed in the historiography of science now. Firstly, on the problem of how to deal with the relationship between the externalism and internalism, I insist that to synthesize them. I discuss that we should carry forward the synthesis of the externalism and internalism so that to embody the Marxist opinion completely and to strengthen the explanation capability of the history of science. Secondly, although much of the historians are get round the problem of the objectivity of history and regard the "true history" as a "noble dream" only, I do not get round this problem and maintain that the Marxist historiography of science should not give up the pursuit of the "true history" and to insist the standpoint of anti-Whiggism and to deal with the history literatures cautiously. Thirdly, the study tradition of paying great attention to the elites and despising the masses has been existed in the historiography of science for a long time, and a tendency of separating these two academic traditions is emerged today. This dissertation stands at the Marxist masses view of history, makes use of Shapin's study of the interrelation between the elites and the masses, and then maintains the historiographic idea of to unify the history of the elites and the masses.IV. The deficiency and the effort directiona. The deficiency of this dissertationFirstly, Shapin's writings are very numerous and last a long time, many of them have not been translated into Chinese. It is very difficult to span the hedge between different languages, understand his writings exactly and sum up his idea of the historiography of science, so that There are some inexactnesses in my comprehension of Shapin's idea. Secondly, the historiography of science is related to many courses such as the philosophy of science, the sociology of science, the theory of history and so on, and I have not confronted a realm so complicated and comprehensive in the past. Because of my shallow thought on this realm, there is lots of work need to do at the historiographic ideas in the dissertation. Thirdly, I have not been engaged in the specific research of the history of science and lack of personal experience on some problems of it, so perhaps I made some empty talks about warfare in the dissertation.b. The effort directionEverything has its own develop course, the academic research is just the same. This dissertation is not perfect, but it is the starting of academic research after all. I will take this dissertation as my starting point, make efforts on this realm continually. Firstly, I will read more writings of the history of science, to improve my thinking capability of the theoretical problems of it. Secondly, I will reinforce my reading capability of English documents, so that to provide a more exact understanding of them. Lastly, I will strive to make some specific research of the history of science, put the work both of the theory and the practice ahead, in order to improve my capability of scientific research continuously.