nauka: Sociology and the history of science

Evidence: 53 • authority: 72

Historiography of science is the history and analysis of the sub-discipline of history known as the history of science, including its disciplinary aspects and practices (methods, theories, schools), and controversies. Its subject is the variety of ways that science's past has been written about. The earliest histories of science were written by scientists largely as celebrations of scientific progress. Scholars in the 19th and early 20th century frequently treated the history and philosophy of science as a single scholarly undertaking but the fields began to diverge under the influence of logical positivism, which demarcated scientific justification as the proper concern of philosophy, leav…

Evidence: 52 • authority: 72

Political narrative is a term used in the humanities and political sciences to describe the way in which storytelling can shape fact and affect understandings of reality. However, political narrative is not only a theoretical concept, it is also a tool employed by political figures in order to construct the perspectives of people within their environment and alter relationships between social groups and individuals. As a result, fiction has the potential to become fact and myths become intertwined into public discourse. Political narrative is consequential in its ability to elicit pathos, allowing the narrative to be influential through the value it provides rather than the truth that is to…

Evidence: 42 • authority: 72

A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, through still or moving images, or through any combination of these. Narrative is expressed in all mediums of human creativity, art, and entertainment, including speech (oral literature), literature, theatre, dance, music and song, comics, journalism, animation, video (including film and television), video games, radio, structured and unstructured recreation, and potentially even p…

Evidence: 37 • authority: 72

Dominant narratives, sometimes called dominant cultural narratives, are frequently-repeated stories that are shared in society through various social and cultural institutions. The term is most frequently used in pedagogy, the study of education. Dominant narratives are often discussed in tandem with counternarratives. This term has been described as an "invisible hand" that guides reality and perceived reality. Dominant culture is defined as the majority cultural practices of a society. Dominant narrative is similar in some ways to the ideas of metanarrative or grand narrative. Sociologist Judith Lorber defines and describes "A-category" members as those that occupy the dominant group in d…

Evidence: 32 • authority: 88

Celebrated Sociologists. Abstract Who among their British and foreign colleagues are held by the professors of sociology in Britain in the highest esteem either as teachers (‘mentors’) or the most notable contributors (‘models’) to the subject in the twentieth century? The answers are based on a professorial survey (see Ch. 8 and Appendix 1) and on a citation analysis of the three main British journals of sociology (BJS, Sociology, and Sociological Review). The leading ‘mentors’ in the twentieth century have been British. The leading ‘models’ have been German, French, or American. Among the Britons only Anthony Giddens offers a serious challenge to these foreign luminaries.

Evidence: — • authority: 92

Postmodernism and Education in Nursing Science: The Case of Clinical Skills.. During the development of theories that took place in the human and social sciences during the second half of the 20th century, when the current of postmodernism was particularly prevalent among French thinkers (French Theory), the human body preoccupied philosophy and sociology as a social construction in relation to other parameters such as the question of power and knowledge. The purpose of this study is to highlight the main aspects of the relevant interventions according to the pioneering conception of Michel Foucault, and the criticisms made by persons with opposing philosophical and sociological views on sc…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

Narratives of contingency as historical evidence for philosophical arguments of contingency: pathway decisions in the early development of molecular genetics.. This article argues that philosophical arguments of contingency in the development of science can be advanced by starting from historical evidence produced through the framework of narratives of contingency. Narratives of contingency are conceptualized both as prospective narratives constructed by historical actors to navigate decisions at what they perceived as fork moments in the present and as an analytical framework for systematically reconstructing such decision-making processes from historical sources.The argument is developed…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

Learning and Crises in Human Development. A Sociocultural and Dialogical Approach.. This paper examines the relationship between human development, crisis, and learning from a sociocultural and dialogical approach in psychology. In this perspective, we conceptualize crises as ruptures that may arise from external events, interpersonal dynamics, or internal tensions, and are understood not solely as obstacles but as potential conditions for development. Within this framework, learning is approached as a situated, semiotically mediated process of meaning-making, embedded in relational, cultural, and sociohistorical contexts. By integrating biographical and narrative approaches with sociocultu…

Evidence: — • authority: 90

The Writing of the History of Science from the Notion of Scientific Field. Does science depend on its historical context? Does understanding science as a social construction demand us to abandon rationalist perspectives of knowledge? Based on these issues, this article aims to discuss epistemological questions concerning the problem of the historicity of sciences. In first part, we analyze how different philosophical systems conceptualize this problem and point out to tensions that emerge when one tries to reconcile a rationalist with a historicist perspective of knowledge. Then, we discuss the sociological epistemology of Pierre Bourdieu arguing that the field autonomy is a key concept to…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

New approach methodologies in neurotherapeutics development.. New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) offer substantial opportunities to transform neurotherapeutics discovery, optimization, and development, reducing the timeline to translate central nervous system (CNS) innovations to patients. Strategically deployed, NAMs enhance the predictive value of preclinical studies for human outcomes while reducing reliance on animal models. Current scientific community interest focuses particularly on human-based and -derived systems, in silico and AI-driven models, and advanced microphysiological platforms, reflecting a shift toward human-centric drug development paradigms. Despite this momentum, signi…

Evidence: — • authority: 90

Methodology of jurisprudence in the context of the paradigm of scientific rationality. The article examines the methodological problems of jurisprudence, caused by a change in the paradigms of scientific rationality and corresponding to the level of conceptual structures. This level is characterized by problems of understanding the qualitative evolution of knowledge, as well as an appeal to a more abstract, rather than objective, level of understanding of reality. The named level, usually called philosophical, can be based on two genetically different axioms, namely philosophy, including the philosophy of the phenomenon being studied, as well as the philosophy and epistemology of science. A…

Evidence: — • authority: 90

School science: a questionable construct?. I explore the emergence of science and scientific method as political constructs in the 19th century and argue that the associated rhetoric continues to have significant consequences for contemporary school science education. It allows science to be promoted as a coherent curriculum component and fosters an untenable but enduring notion of a unifying scientific method that ignores important philosophical, conceptual, and methodological differences between the basic scientific disciplines. It also fails to reflect the profound shifts that have taken place in the scale and nature of science since the end of the Second World War. As a result, school s…