Maximilianus Hell (1720-1792) - Munin

limits. For example, international successes such as Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the
Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (London 1980, Italian orig. 1976) or
Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life by Steven Shapin &
Simon Schaffer (Princeton 1985) constitute a rather narrow approach, compared to the
universalist scope of earlier classics in the vein of Augustine to Galileo: The History of
Science, A.D. 400-1650 by Alistair Crombie (London 1952) or From the Closed World to the
Infinite Universe, a grand synthesis of European astronomy from the fifteenth to the early
eighteenth century by Alexandre Koyré (Baltimore 1957). What is more, whereas the main
line of conflict once used to run between the ‘externalist’ and the ‘internalist’ camps (that is,
between humanists or social scientists on the one hand and scientists studying the history of
their discipline on the other), there is now also a criss-crossing of conflicts between various
groups of ‘externalists’. 58
A recently retired professor of history of science at Oxford University, Robert Fox has in a
paper of 2006 discussed the main developments of the discipline that he represents. 59 While
welcoming new approaches for their often illuminating insights into the scientific cultures of a
particular region, institution or group of researchers, he deplores the “all-too-exclusive
commitment” of some scholars, who tend to subscribe to the approach of some particular
authority within the ‘new history of science’ and reject all others. 60
It is easy to appreciate the attitude of Professor Fox and agree that the historian should seek to
be eclectic in the most positive sense, that is, at the same time open-minded and sceptical.
Throughout this thesis, efforts are made to analyse relevant textual sources in a contextual
perspective. Over the following pages, I will describe three analytical perspectives that I have
found convenient to apply in the process of contextualisation, however conventional and
unoriginal they may appear.
The first of these perspectives has to do with breaking down national barriers, avoiding what
historically oriented sociologists have coined “methodological nationalism”. 61 Employing a
58
This does not imply that the ancient conflict between ‘internalists’ and ‘externalists’ has in any way cooled
down, see for example Enebakk 2008 or 2009 (both in Norwegian).
59
Fox, “Faschioning the discipline: History of science in the European intellectual tradition” 2006.
60
Fox 2006, p. 411.
61
The concept appears in historical studies to be primarily attributed to Anthony Smith, but it does have roots in
the 1970s, see for example Wimmer & Schiller 2002. As to its meaning in historical studies, readers of
Norwegian may consult Myklebost 2009 or Kjeldstadli 2009.
- 30 -