On the Harmful Effects of Excessive Anti-Whiggism

Abstract

You don’t need me to remind you that the coming of age of the history of science has relegated to the discipline’s prehistory all the enlightened amateurs’ attempts to collect past curiosities which, under some unspecified criteria, appeared as ‘interesting’. By the same token, “history of science” has become a legitimate academic discipline in its own right, one possessing a well-delimited subject matter. History of science is now the methodologically principled study of past scientific achievements, in light of all factors which determined their production, their acceptance, and the diffusion and which gave them meaning and significance in the first place.

After the oral presentation of the paper, I had the privilege of a long session of questions and answers. All those who then addressed their queries to me, or expressed their disagreement, helped me, perhaps more than they could realize at the time, in shaping this final version. I thank them all wholeheartedly. In addition, before the Conference, I had the pleasure of sustained conversations on the paper itself as well as on the conception it is based on with Jean Paul van Bendegem, Peter Machamer, Marcello Pera and Wal Suchting, who happen to be not only colleagues but also close friends. All four know very well my debts to them, which extend far beyond their more than substantial help with the paper itself.