History of Science and Technology
The study of how scientific knowledge and technological practices developed, interacted, and shaped societies across time.
Scientific Revolution: A transformation in European natural philosophy and scientific practice, especially from the sixteenth through seventeenth centuries. A major case of new methods and instruments reorganizing knowledge and authority.
Francis Bacon: An English philosopher who advocated organized observation and experiment as foundations for natural knowledge. His program helped frame experimental inquiry as a means of improving human affairs.
Ludwik Fleck: A Polish physician and philosopher who analyzed how scientific facts emerge within thought collectives. His work foregrounded communities and shared concepts in the making of knowledge.
History of Medicine: The study of medical knowledge, practice, institutions, and health across time. Medicine shows how scientific claims and technologies meet bodies, patients, and power.
Industrial Revolution: A period of major economic and social transformation driven by mechanized production and new energy systems. It demonstrates how technological systems can reorganize work, cities, and economic life.
Scientific Instrument: A device designed to observe, measure, or experiment on natural phenomena. Instruments made previously inaccessible phenomena measurable and changed scientific claims.
Auguste Comte: A French philosopher who founded positivism and proposed a law-like progression of human knowledge. His stage theory shaped nineteenth-century narratives about science's historical development.
Alexandre Koyré: A historian of science known for studies of early modern cosmology and scientific thought. He showed how conceptual change could matter as much as practical technique.
Environmental History: The study of relationships between human societies and the nonhuman environment over time. It tracks how technologies and scientific knowledge alter landscapes and resource use.
Colonial Science: Scientific activity shaped by, and often serving, colonial rule and imperial networks. It exposes how knowledge gathering depended on unequal movement of people and resources.