The Pedagogical Roots of the History of Science: Revisiting the Vision of James Bryant Conant

摘要

This essay examines the rise and fall of Harvard president James Bryant Conant's postwar vision for history of science based general science education. As well as developing the foundations of Conant's vision, it considers the tension between Conant's science pedagogy-centered view of the history of science and the claims of George Sarton and I. B. Cohen that the field was a distinct discipline. It relates these themes to Conant's unease with the like-minded theorists Thomas Kuhn and Michael Polanyi and concludes by examining Conant's anticipation of later science studies approaches and reflecting on his place in the history of the history of science.