What is science? A historian’s perplexities

Authors

  • Patricia Fara University of Cambridge (United Kingdom).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.0.3915

Keywords:

science, history, theology, scientist, natural philosophy

Abstract

What is science? This deceptively straightforward question has no single answer, because science is culturally situated, and so has neither a permanent nor a universal meaning. Because modern scientific practices have different histories, they vary from place to place. The significance of science also changes over time, although current understandings are often misleadingly extended to cover the past. Science continues to change, and the science of the future may well be very different from the science of the present.

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Author Biography

Patricia Fara, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom).

Senior Tutor at Clare College. University of Cambridge (United Kingdom).

References

Dear, P., 2006. The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

Fara, P., 2009. Science: A 4000 Year History. Oxford University Press. Oxford.

Hobson, J. M., 2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Knight, D., 2009. The Making of Modern Science: Science, Technology, Medicine and Modernity: 1789-1914. Polity. Cambridge.

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Published

2015-04-16

How to Cite

Fara, P. (2015). What is science? A historian’s perplexities. Metode Science Studies Journal, (5), 189–193. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.0.3915
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Issue

The light of science (2015)

Section

What is science? A multidisciplinary approach to scientific thought

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