Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:53:41.740Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The History of Science as European Self-Portraiture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2006

LORRAINE DASTON
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstrasse 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Since the Enlightenment, the history of science has been enlisted to show the unity and distinctiveness of Europe. This paper, written on the occasion of the award of the 2005 Erasmus Prize to historians of science Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin, traces the intertwined narratives of the history of science and European modernity from the 18th century to the present. Whether understood as triumph or tragedy (and there have been eloquent proponents of both views), the Scientific Revolution has been portrayed as Europe's decisive break with tradition – the first such break in world history and the model for all subsequent epics of modernization in other cultures. The paper concludes with reflections on how a new history of science, exemplified in the work of Shapin and Schaffer, may transform the self-image of Europe and conceptions of truth itself.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Academia Europaea 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)