A Study on the History of Science: Between Accumulation and
Discontinuity
Introduction: The Concept and an Attempt at Definition
The concept of the history of science has its birth certificate in the works of 18th-century French writers, especially Fontenelle and Condorcet, then its resurgence in the works of Copernicus, Fizeau, and Galileo. The French approach to the history of science and epistemological practice was founded with Comte in a general way, then developed with Claude Bernard in the 19th century to be identified in the works of Bachelard, Cavaillès, Koyré, and Canguilhem in the 20th century.
Professor Dr. Rushdi Rashid believes that the history of science, as it appears in the writings of those who belong to it, does not represent a specialized art, but rather a field of activity. It lacks the unifying principle that might give it the ability and means to distinguish it, but rather it expands indefinitely with successive additions. It is a title for different and disparate subjects, not a specialized art with a procedural definition.
Some, and they are the majority, believe that the history of science is the history of ideas in the known sense of the phrase, that is, the history of mentalities. Others, more rigorous and insightful, believe that the history of science is the history of scientific concepts, the history of their formation, development, and modification. Still others, historians by their very nature, do not care about concepts and their special nature, but rather believe that the history of science can be a history of cultural production, like the history of art or the history of religions. Let us also mention those who make it a kind of social psychology of scientists, as well as those who make it a field sociology in the way that sociology developed after World War II in the United States in particular, that is, a sociology of groups, laboratories, and institutions.
French Epistemology: The Methodology of Accumulation
The history of science is governed by a philosophy or theory that is criticized in this history, and this epistemological theory is what generally distinguishes French epistemology and history, or as Canguilhem says, speaking of Comte's practice of history (the French approach to the history of science), the characteristic of this approach is to be governed by a theory, and to search for general laws that link scientific concepts, and establish them in order to advance them.
This French approach, although it began with Comte, will develop in Tannery's projects and find its completion in Cavaillès' work on mathematics, Bachelard's work on mathematical physics, and finally Canguilhem's work, which takes a different field from that of his teachers Bachelard and Cavaillès.
The French approach means that testing the history of any science is the summary of reading an entire specialized library, from tablets and papyri to magnetic disks, passing through the beginnings of printing.
This library, although it is an ideal library, actually represents a collection of artifacts and drawings of that science, and the whole of the past is represented in these drawings, as if it were a connected field on which we can transfer, according to the importance of the moment, the starting point of progress, and the end of progress will be the current state of science or interest.
Although this French approach seems to tend towards accumulation and continuity in its methodology, the history of science is not without clear stages of separation that break that supposed coherence. Dr. Rushdi Rashid says to the effect: the distinction between pre-scientific and scientific is presented as if it were a categorical distinction to which the entire history of science is subject. This opposition is always understood in both a historical and logical sense. That is, the pre-scientific always logically and historically precedes the scientific. According to this conception, some claim that the decisive break between them has essentially taken place in the 17th century.
For example, if Aristotle's physics and the theory of the social contract are described as pre-scientific, it means that both are theories that concern a lived experience - the experience of the motion of the shuttle or the experience of voting in a council - and are believed to be systematic and coherent. As for social Darwinism and social physics, they are described as pre-scientific, meaning that both represent a science that has been attached to a field other than its original field, and Euclid's views and marginal contributions (in economics) are described as pre-scientific, meaning "pure" knowledge resulting from the direct application of mathematics to theories about lived experience, direct visual experience, and the experience of distributing goods. Finally, models of ballistics in artillery, Condorcet in the social sciences, or Von Neumann in economics are described as pre-scientific as indirect applications of mathematics to a theory about lived experience, where this application is based on measurement with a third specialty.
Methodological Adjustments and Style Revisions in French Thought:
The profound methodological and stylistic revisions that have shaped French thought cannot be overlooked. These revisions and refinements, which Gaston Bachelard termed "epistemological breaks," Canguilhem described as "ruptures," and Koyré characterized as "sudden shifts" or "qualitative leaps," represent significant turning points in the history of ideas. In his book History of the Sciences, Canguilhem introduces his own approach, which he calls "retrograde restoration." He explains:
"There exists in my History of the Sciences another method besides the one that seeks to establish the hidden continuity of the progress of thought. This method aims to make a situation intelligible and effective, and this is also true of the authority of the distinctive break of innovation."
This implies highlighting the starting point of progress or transformation in concept, method, or experimental framework.
The Method of Rupture:
According to Dr. Rashi Rashed, pre-scientific knowledge is therefore pluralistic and of varying value. While it all stems from a theory of lived experience and is subject to the same criteria outlined earlier, its goals, explanatory capabilities, and degree of control over its linguistic structure and technique differ. Consequently, these forms of knowledge cannot have the same relationship with the emerging science.
It is true that the emerging science is formed in opposition and rupture with them, as has been repeatedly stated. However, the rupture does not always have the same scope. While the rupture with the theory of experience and its criteria always occurs at a deep level, it takes paths that constantly diverge.
This was the case with optics and Ibn al-Haytham. His break with the theories of his predecessors lies in separating the conditions of light propagation from the conditions of vision. Thus, in the former, only material things - "the smallest parts of light" - are considered, bearing only those qualities that are subject to engineering and experimental control, leaving aside sensory qualities except those related to energy. Despite the depth of this rupture - which, with the inclusion of a new type of proof in optics and natural science, made it possible - it did not occur in the same way with Euclidean optics or Aristotelian visual theory.
Similarly, in mechanics, Galileo was the first to distinguish within the theories of motion between what belongs to kinematics and what belongs to dynamics, so that only the relationships between the positions of material things over time are considered. They no longer have any but qualities that can be observed geometrically and experimentally, since all sensory qualities except for the property of resistance to motion have been eliminated.
Dr. Rashi Rashed also believes that the rupture occurs with the theories of lived experience - and with the criteria for their development at the same time - thanks to a conception of the subject that contains a law of practical procedure and judgment. The resulting knowledge (from the rupture) is not only endowed with cumulative power, but it actually achieves accumulation only through a continuous modification of how it is understood. New formulas emerge in the course of this modification, and if we think of pre-existing concepts, we can say that separations and connections are drawn into each other.
This rupture is sometimes called a "revolution," referring to the transition from one theory to another, from the mechanics of Galileo and Newton to special relativity, and from this to the connected electrodynamics and thermodynamics to quantum theory (théorie des quanta). What is meant here is the emergence of new formulas for the same task, each time redefining its subject matter, but without replacing it with a different one, as was the case with pre-scientific knowledge.
A noticeable lack of openness and disregard is observed between Anglo-Saxon writers, on the one hand, and European writers, particularly those from France, on the other. This mutual disregard is a phenomenon that has drawn the attention of the new generation of those interested in philosophical thought on both sides of the Atlantic, who have attempted to identify and understand its dimensions.
Furthermore, there is a lack of interest among writers in the British Isles and some American countries in the French approach to epistemology, whether in its analytical or phenomenological form. Similarly, those who advocate for a break and those who advocate for continuity in the progress of science are not mentioned in these countries.
