On the harmful effects of excessive anti-whiggism
pp. 107-119
in: Kostas Gavroglu, Jean Christianidis, Efthymios Nicolaidis (eds), Trends in the historiography of science, Berlin, Springer, 1994Abstract
You don't need me to remind you that the coming of age of the history of science has relegated to the discipline's prehistory all the enlightened amateurs' attempts to collect past curiosities which, under some unspecified criteria, appeared as "interesting". By the same token, "history of science" has become a legitimate academic discipline in its own right, one possessing a well-delimited subject matter. History of science is now the methodologically principled study of past scientific achievements, in light of all factors which determined their production, their acceptance, and the diffusion and which gave them meaning and significance in the first place.