The Postgraduate Seminars offer a sustained and systematic introduction to specific cutting-edge areas of research, led by leading experts in those areas.
Aims and Methods of Histories of the Sciences
Michaelmas Term 2025: Thu 12noon, weeks 1–4 (4 one-hour seminars) in Seminar Room 1
Nick Jardine (leader)
These postgraduate seminars will consider aspects of the history, aims, methods and current problems of the history of science. The opening session will give an overview of the formation of history of science as a discipline and of the range of recent approaches. Subsequent sessions will discuss the pioneering work of Hélène Metzger on the purposes of history of science, the relations between history and philosophy of science, and uses of histories of the sciences by scientists.
9 October
Nick Jardine: Formation and transformations of history of science
This opening session will sketch the ways in which history of science became established as a discipline. There will then be an overview of some of the main approaches that have dominated the field over the past century: positivist narratives of scientific progress, social histories of the sciences, cultural histories, and global histories.
16 October
Cristina Chimisso and Nick Jardine: Hélène Metzger on the methods and aims of history of science
Can the historian understand past texts just as readers who lived at the time when the texts were written did? Should this be the historian's aim? Is history of science relevant to current philosophy and science? These are some of the questions that the historian of chemistry Hélène Metzger (Chatou, France, 1889 – Auschwitz, 1944) aimed to answer. This session will discuss her innovative historiography of science.
23 October
Hasok Chang and Nick Jardine: Philosophers' uses of history of science
This session will consider ways in which philosophers of science can profit from close study of historical episodes and developments in the sciences.
30 October
Jeff Skopek and Nick Jardine: Scientists' uses of history
This session will consider the ways in which scientists have used the histories of their sciences for purposes of teaching, promotion of their disciplines, and defense of their views.
Print & Material Sources
Tuesdays, 3.00–4.30pm
Cambridge holds some of the world's most important material sources for the history of science, and, in this seminar series organised by the Whipple Museum and Library, we'll explore them with the guidance of those who know them best.