The Social Roots of Science

Abstract

Fully developed, science is to be found only in modern European-American civilization. As its development began in early capitalism we shall have to study the period from the end of the Middle Ages until 1600. Results obtained by ancient mathematicians, astronomers, and physicists and by medieval Arabic physicians have greatly influenced the beginning of science in modern Europe. We shall not discuss this influence, but the social and economic conditions which made it possible.

[This essay is the first English statement of Zilsel’s project ‘on the social origins of modern science’. It was presented at the 5^th International Congress for the Unity of Science held at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., September 3–9, 1939. This MS was discovered by Friedrich Stadler among the Neurath papers, held at the Institute Vienna Circle, Vienna and published in H. Pauer-Studer, Norms, Values, and Society (Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, Vol 2) (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), pp. 305-308. We gratefully acknowledge Stadler’s assistance to republish it in this volume. Eds.]