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In scholarly debates, Ludwik Fleck's post-war paper 'Problemy naukoznawstwa [Problems of the Science of Science]', published in 1946, has been taken unanimously to illustrate the epistemology expounded in his monograph Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. The paper has also been seen to support parts of the received view of Fleck, notably that he manufactured an anti-typhus vaccine while imprisoned in Buchenwald. However, a different narrative emerges when comparing Fleck's paper with other accounts, also published in 1946 and written by other prisoners alluded to by Fleck in his paper. The situation is further complicated by four papers, published in prestigious scientific journals between 1942 and 1945, by the German medical leader of the typhus studies accounted for by Fleck. In addition, a thus-far neglected paper by Fleck, published in 1946 and summarizing his observations on typhus, discloses his role in the Buchenwald studies. Despite the obvious difficulties with tracing the history behind these works, notably the one on Nazi science, the contention is that what was attempted in Buchenwald in the name of science amounted to pseudoscience. This conclusion is amply supported not only by the accounts given by Fleck's fellow prisoners, but also by his own post-war paper on typhus. Based on the above findings, it is suggested that the mythology about Fleck, established in the 1980s, has been accomplished by a selective reading of his papers and also that the role played by Fleck was more complex than has so far been contemplated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments concerning Eva Hedfors' paper on Ludwik Fleck. It argues that Hedfors proposes an informed reading of Fleck which aims to contest the mythology of the latter. It explores the claim of Hedfors that the work of Fleck is poorly done, meaningless and of doubtful ethical value. It emphasizes that the views of Fleck on science is aimed at legitimating his own scientifically weak research. It examines the preface made by Hedfors to her thesis wherein she elaborates that when she first read Fleck, she found an interest in his writings.

The article presents the author's reply to comments launched at her paper on Ludwik Fleck. She clarifies certain issues and corrects possible misreadings concerning her claim that Fleck became a willing and eager participant in Ding's murderous enterprise and was volitionally involved in Nazi medical experiments. She reacts on her alleged proposal that Fleck admits in his paper that he was involved in Ding's experiments. The author opposes the allegations that she had seen a proof of Fleck's active participation in Ding's experiments.

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger constructed his historical epistemology of epistemic things by analyzing experimental practices in molecular biology during the 1970s and 80s. With genetic sequencing and multi-omics approaches, data has become a new resource in the life sciences, questioning the applicability of his concept of experimental system. By historicizing Rheinberger's epistemology, the paper focuses on its relatedness to Ludwik Fleck's notion of an aviso of resistance and points to a gradual shift in Rheinberger's emphasis, moving from an initial focus on writing and its differentiality to work on materials, preparations, and representations. By anchoring visualization in these material practices, Rheinberger also sheds new light on the changing conditions of experimentation in the life sciences due to big data, where visualization emphasizes patterns and correlations rather than substrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes a creative exploration of problems of academic understanding and exchange across language-specific segments of humangeographic discourse by utilizing and elaborating Ludwik Fleck's concept of 'styles of thought'. To illustrate what distinguishes styles of thought, and to develop ideas about how to improve inter-cultural exchange within human geography, the authors perform paired readings of papers on the concept of 'landscape' or 'Landschaft' from each other's language traditions. Hannah reads and reflects upon a paper by Ulrich Eisel, and Schlottmann reads a piece by John Wylie. These readings are oriented toward uncovering the ways in which expectations, assumptions and hitherto un-thematized viewpoints of the two readers are unearthed, activated, provoked or rendered intelligible by the respective texts, their subtexts and contexts. One of the results of these paired readings is a more detailed sense of the specific ways in which a broadly 'German-language' 'thought collective' can be distinguished from a broadly 'Anglophone' one despite all the complicated overlaps and interdigitations between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the ways in which beliefs about cervical cancer became contested within the medical profession in New Zealand from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. Medical dissenters who contested orthodox beliefs about cervical cancer during this period challenged the medical profession in a number of ways. In particular, professional unity and authority were called into question and threatened to turn professional uncertainties into public anxieties. Professional strategies were employed to cope with knowledge claims that threatened existing medical beliefs. The work of Ludwik Fleck forms the basis of a discussion of the ways in which medical knowledge is located and negotiated within a social context. This case study shows that closure of disputes over knowledge claims about cervical cancer occurred largely as a result of an inquiry into medical practice presided over by the laity and through an appeal to the moral as well as the scientific-technical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Ludwik Fleck's concepts of thought collectives and proto-ideas are surprisingly topical to tackle some conceptual challenges in analyzing contemporary innovation. The objective of this paper is twofold: First, it strives to establish Ludwik Fleck as an important classic on the map of innovation analysis. A systematic comparison with Thomas Kuhn's work on paradigms, a concept highly influential in various branches of innovation studies, suggests a number of pronounced yet under-researched advantages of a Fleckian perspective in the context of technological change and innovation. Secondly, the paper links these advantages to some recent changes in the organization of innovation. Due to the rising pervasiveness of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), configurational innovation has become commonplace that cuts across the boundaries of established trajectories of knowledge generation. Fleck's graded understanding of the closedness of thought collectives and his weak notion of incommensurability provide powerful metaphors to grasp the peculiarities of configurational innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses essential elements of the philosophical works of Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961) and their potential interpretation for the teaching and learning of science. In the early twentieth century, Fleck made substantial contributions to understanding the sociological character of the nature of science and explaining the embedding of science in society. His works have several parallels to the later and very popular work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn, although Kuhn only indirectly referred to the influence of Fleck on his own theories. Starting from a short review of the life of Ludwik Fleck, his philosophical work and its connections to Kuhn, this paper elaborates upon and illustrates how his theories can be considered for science education in order to provide learners with a better understanding of the nature of scientific endeavor and the bi-directional science-to-society links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the defence by the early sociologist of science Ludwik Fleck against the charge of relativism. It is shown that there are crucial and hitherto unnoticed similarities between Fleck's strategy and the attempt by his contemporary Karl Mannheim to distinguish between an incoherent relativism and a consistent relationism. Both authors seek to revise epistemology fundamentally by reinterpreting the concept of objectivity in two ways: as inner- and inter-style objectivity. The argument for the latter concept shows the genuine political background and intent of Fleck's sociology of science and its ambition to relieve the cultural struggles of his time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Without doubt, there is a great diversity of scientific images both with regard to their appearances and their functions. Diagrams, photographs, drawings, etc. serve as evidence in publications, as eye-catchers in presentations, as surrogates for the research object in scientific reasoning. This fact has been highlighted by Stephen M. Downes who takes this diversity as a reason to argue against a unifying representation-based account of how visualisations play their epistemic role in science. In the following paper, I will suggest an alternative explanation of the diversity of scientific images. This account refers to processes which are caused by the social setting of science. What exactly is meant by this, I will spell out with the aid of Ludwik Fleck's theory of the social mechanisms of scientific communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article traces the career of the concept scientific community through three discernible stages. The formative stages is presented by Ludwik Fleck's Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. It was learned that one of the early expositions of the theme that scientific knowledge is socially conditioned, Fleck's work revolves around the correlative concepts of thought collective and thought style. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was discussed. Stage three in the career of the concept scientific community is marked by criticism and the development of alternative models. During the 1960s and 70s, the view prevailed among metascientists that scientific knowledge is produced by communities of specialists. In the works of leading contemporary philosophers of science, as in many historical studies, the existence of scientific communities was assumed without question or argument. Kuhn's paper represents a watershed in the histories of both the concept itself and the entire discipline of sociology of science. Social integration in science was considered a result of a consensus about strategic norms or standards. Findings on the examination of the concept scientific community through the related works of Kuhn and Fleck, the Polish scientist and scientist knowledge, was presented.

This article seeks to provide a systematic reconstruction of the hermeneutic motifs in Ludwik Fleck's social epistemology and comparative cognitive sociology. The exegetical analysis of his work is extended and complemented by a hermeneutic critique of Fleck's psychologism. I begin with the recognition that Fleck's theory of the constitution of scientific facts involves a distinction between phenomena and observable facts. This distinction is underdeveloped in his book, but it plays a central role in his scientific papers. After discussing Fleck's constitutional theory by putting emphasis upon the historicity of scientific facts, I provide a rationale for the claim that the kind of sociality he attributes to the thought collectives is closer to the concept of interpretive transsubjectivity rather than normative inter-subjectivity. To this sociality corresponds a concept of thought style as an open horizon of interpretation. By approaching the way in which such a horizon reveals and conceals a field of investigation, I finally discuss Fleck's concept of the "event of truth." The thesis is advocated that Fleck is not an adherent, but rather an opponent of social constructivism as it has been understood in the last half century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with Ludwik Fleck's theory of thought styles and Michael Polanyi's theory of tacit knowledge. Though both concepts have been very influential for science studies in general, and both have been subject to numerous interpretations, their accounts have, somewhat surprisingly, hardly been comparatively analyzed. Both Fleck and Polanyi relied on the physiology and psychology of the senses in order to show that scientific knowledge follows less the path of logical principles than the path of accepting or rejecting specific conventions, where these may be psychologically or sociologically grounded. It is my aim to show that similarities and differences between Fleck and Polanyi are to be seen in the specific historical and political context in which they worked. Both authors, I shall argue, emphasized the relevance of perception in close connection to their respective understanding of science, freedom, and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the charge that--contrary to the current widespread assumption accompanying the near-universal neglect of his work--Wilhelm Jerusalem (1854-1923) cannot count as one of the founders of the sociology of (scientific) knowledge. In order to elucidate the matter, Jerusalem's 'sociology of cognition' is here reconstructed in the context of his own work in psychology and philosophy as well as in the context of the work of some predecessors and contemporaries. It is argued that while it shows clear discontinuities with the present-day understanding of the sociology of (scientific) knowledge, Jerusalem's sociology of cognition was not only distinctive in its own day but also anticipated in nuce a much-discussed theme in current history of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanistic reflection on culture is very important in Polish science. It is one of the most interesting themes of Polish philosophy, represented by Stanislaw Brzozowski, Bronislaw Malinowski, Florian Znaniecki, Leszek Kolakowski, Zygmunt Bauman, Jerzy Kmita. One of the greatest, still unknown, is Ludwik Fleck, who was a medical doctor (outstanding mickrobiologist) and an author of a book Genesis and Development a Scientifict Fact published in 1935, where he discusses sociological perception of science. Fleck is becoming popular among Polish representatives of humanities, especially sociologists and philosophers. His theory and point of view on developing of knowledge, organizes the discussion between realism (philosophy of science) and anti-realism (non-classical sociology of knowledge, sociology of scientific knowledge, science and technology studies). Fleck's theory of 'thought collectives' and 'thought styles' is completely unknown to Polish ethnologists. In author's opinion, Fleck's theory should be treated as a theory of culture in the anthropological sense, which can be useful to describe how culture works. He underlines that Fleck's theory can be useful in studies on cultural change, theory of vision and common sense. From methodological point of view Fleck's theory is more interesting (more empirical) than Thomas Kuhn's, and is putting culture closer to the development of science. In author's opinion Fleck's theory is a mature theory of non-classical sociology of knowledge. However, it appeared almost forty years before this sociological project. Even today Fleck's words are still worth mentioning. We can easily find ideas of H. Putnam, W. V. O. Quine, S. Fish in Fleck's papers. In author's opinion Fleck is a philosopher who is crossing the borders of anthropology, sociology of knowledge and onthological thesis of an American pragmatism. The author considers Fleck's theory to be an useful instrument which helps us to understand society. In his opinion, this theory should be widely discussed and used as a tool in Polish ethnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sedimentation of a knowledge claim is studied by context-analysis of a key paper by the neuropharmacologist De Wied. This paper formulated the neuropeptide concept, which relates neuropeptide production within the central nervous system to the regulatory function of these peptides for learning and memory processes. Different citation classifications are introduced, which make it possible to interpret the analysis within the framework of 'sedimentation ' as outlined by Ludwik Fleck. It is shown that, in agreement with Fleck, the sedimentation is easier in applied scientific and popular circles, distant from the inner circle of the neuropeptides research field in which De Wied works. However, accounts of neuropeptide research in handbooks did not show the stronger sedimentation, as claimed by Fleck; instead, the evidence for the concept is built up again and again, indicating that the concept is not fully accepted in the inner circle of the research field. The main conclusions are affirmed by the analysis of a controversy on De Wied's work which arose recently in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the language problems resulting from translations of the bilingual philosophical legacy of Ludwik Fleck (1896–1961). Since Fleck wrote in both Polish and German, some specific problems can be encountered which no single source can resolve, as both the Polish and German texts are of equal value and it is impossible to say whether his theory was formulated in one of these languages first. To solve this problem, this article suggests that we assume that the level of equivalency of the original sources is at the level of concepts. The case of ‘communication’ is analysed in detail in accordance with the frequency of certain expressions and the context behind them. Fleck used derivatives of ‘communication’ in Polish only twice, yet in English translations there are 51 uses of it. Most of the uses in the English translations come from the Polish ‘porozumieć’ and the German ‘Verkehr’ – expressions that have different meanings. The conclusion to this article argues that all of the translations should be revised. Some recommendations are formulated, especially in regard to thekrążenie myśli/Denkverkehr/‘circulation of thought’ expressions that differ in lexical meaning but denote the same concept devised by Fleck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has three objectives: First, it revises the history of the reception of Ludwik Fleck's monograph Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache (1935, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact). Contrary to the established picture, Fleck's book was largely discussed in the years before the outbreak of World War II. What becomes clear when reading these early reviews and especially Fleck's comments to those written by representatives of Nazi Germany is, second, the political dimension of his epistemology. In this respect, Fleck's emphasis on the genuinely democratic character of science will be discussed in some detail. And third, Fleck's notion of "Denkstil"--thought-style--shall be examined more closely since, as we will claim, it can be understood as a notion indicating where the democratic dimension of science encounters its limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At first glance there seem to be many similarities between Thomas S. Kuhn’s and Ludwik Fleck’s accounts of the development of scientific knowledge. Notably, both pay attention to the role played by the scientific community in the development of scientific knowledge. But putting first impressions aside, one can criticise some philosophers for being too hasty in their attempt to find supposed similarities in the works of the two men. Having acknowledged that Fleck anticipated some of Kuhn’s later theses, there seems to be a temptation in more recent research to equate both theories in important respects. Because of this approach, one has to deal with the problem of comparing the most notable technical terms of both philosophers, namely “thought style” and “paradigm”. This paper aims at a more thorough comparison between Ludwik Fleck’s concept of thought style and Thomas Kuhn’s concept of paradigm. Although some philosophers suggest that these two concepts are essentially equal in content, a closer examination reveals that this is not the case. This thesis of inequality will be defended in detail, also taking into account some of the alleged similarities which may be responsible for losing sight of the differences between these theories. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents the author's views on a debate concerning Dr. Ludwik Fleck which was published in a 2008 issue of this journal. The article refers to the use of a typhus antigen to make a vaccine, the negative comments about the value of Dr. Fleck's research, and Fleck's alleged wartime activities in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II. Information is provided about Fleck's Jewish family and his career highlights after graduating from the Lwow University Medical School in Poland.

Abstract: This contribution deals with developments in the history of philosophy, logic, and mathematics during the time before and up to the beginning of fuzzy logic. Even though the term “fuzzy” was introduced by Lotfi A. Zadeh in 1964/1965, it should be noted that older concepts of “vagueness” and “haziness” had previously been discussed in philosophy, logic, mathematics, applied sciences, and medicine. This paper delineates some specific paths through the history of the use of these “loose concepts”. Vagueness was avidly discussed in the fields of logic and philosophy during the first decades of the 20th century—particularly in Vienna, at Cambridge and in Warsaw and Lvov. An interesting sequel to these developments can be seen in the work of the Polish physician and medical philosopher Ludwik Fleck. Haziness and fuzziness were concepts of interest in mathematics and engineering during the second half of the 1900s. The logico-philosophical history presented here covers the work of Bertrand Russell, Max Black, and others. The mathematical–technical history deals with the theories founded by Karl Menger and Lotfi Zadeh. Menger''s concepts of probabilistic metrics, hazy sets (ensembles flous) and micro-geometry as well as Zadeh''s theory of fuzzy sets paved the way for the establishment of soft computing methods using vague concepts that connote the nonexistence of sharp boundaries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Ludwik Fleck is remembered for his monograph published in German in 1935. Reissued in 1979 as Genesis and development of a scientific fact Fleck’s monograph has been claimed to expound relativistic views of science. Fleck has also been portrayed as a prominent scientist. The description of his production of a vaccine against typhus during World War II, when imprisoned in Buchenwald, is legendary in the scholarly literature. The claims about Fleck’s scientific achievements have been justified by referring to his numerous publications in international scientific journals. Though frequently mentioned, these publications have scarcely been studied. The present article discusses differences in interpretation and evaluation of science in relation to the background of the interpreters. For this purpose Fleck’s scientific publications have been scrutinized. In conjunction with further sources reflecting the desperate situation at the time in question, the results of the study account for a more restrained picture of Fleck’s scientific accomplishments. Furthermore, based on the review of the latter, certain demands characterizing good science could be articulated. The restricted possibilities of those not trained in science or not possessing field specific knowledge, evaluating science are discussed, as are also formal aspects of scientific papers and questions related to research ethics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Since its almost serendipitous rediscovery in the late seventies, Fleck's monograph, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsachee, initially published in 1935, translated into English in 1979 (Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact), has been met with increasing acclaim within the philosophy and the sociology of science. In historizing, sociologizing and relativizing science, Fleck is claimed to have expressed prescient views on the history, philosophy and sociology of science and in deeply influencing Kuhn. Though the neglect of Fleck by his contemporaries has been difficult to account for, the basis of his epistemology has evoked little interest, partly due to the lack of apparent sources. Fleck's philosophical writings, published between 1927 and 1939, indicate, however, a polemic, deeply ingrained in an ongoing debate, on the standing of old established scientific disciplines versus new and emerging ones, occasioned by the rapid changes within the natural sciences. Most obvious to the lay community, and also reflected in the new positivist philosophy, were the revolutionary changes within physics. As a participant in the debate, eagerly striving for recognition, Fleck used modern physic heuristically as the basis of his epistemology. The tracing of his sources, and the voices of other contemporaneous scientists opposing his views, are attempted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media history offers an essential but easily overlooked set of tools for understanding scientific facts as historical processes. This essay argues that the "when" of the specific media through which scientific knowledge is created, disseminated, and taken up as authoritative has played a central part in the "how," "what," and "why" of scientific fact‐making as well as our iterative attempts to historicize science, medicine, and technology. Attending explicitly to how new (and old) media engage in the production, circulation, and consumption of knowledge can further help the historian understand dilations and contractions in the threshold of participation in scientific fact‐making itself. Manuscripts, printing presses, cheap newsprint, and open‐source digital publications open up and shut down possibilities of who gets to learn about science as news, who gets to act as a nodal point in the circulation of scientific knowledge, and who is able to make and share an observation about the natural world in the first place. Centering the media of scientific knowledge‐in‐the‐making offers a means of relating the history of science to the broader history of knowledge not in terms of absolute difference but in terms of the specificity of mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of knowledge about science is well established, and it has a long history in the area of science education. More recently, the specialized literature has highlighted the search for consensus in relation to what should be taught in this regard, that is, what should compose the science curricula of elementary and high school levels. Despite this effort, several criticisms made by researchers in this field have been targeted at this 'consensus view,' limiting the possibility of a true consensus. This work brings an epistemological framework-the epistemology of Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961)-to interpret the current state of research in this area concerning the search for consensus. In particular, Ludwik Fleck's notions of thought style; thought collective; active and passive connections; communication of thoughts within and between collectives (intracollective and intercollective communication); and esoteric and exoteric circles are presented and used for the characterization of our object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ludwik Fleck is known mainly for his pioneering studies of science as a social activity. This text investigates a different aspect of Fleck’s epistemological thought—his engagement with normative aspects of medicine and public health and their political underpinnings. In his sinuous professional trajectory, Fleck navigated between two distinct thought styles: fundamental microbiological research and practice-oriented investigations of infectious diseases. Fleck’s awareness of tensions between these two approaches favored the genesis of his theoretical reflections. At the same time, his close observation of medical and epidemiological practices led him to the conclusion that collectively produced scientific facts are situated and fragile. Thought collectives, Fleck explained, can err or yield to external pressures, with potentially disastrous consequences. While Fleck the reflexive experimental scientist has been creatively translated into the science studies idiom, Fleck the reflexive practical microbiologist and public health expert still awaits inspired translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fleck'sGenesis and Development of a Scientific Factforegrounds claims traditionally excluded from reception, often regarded as opposed to fact, scientific claims that are increasingly seldom discussed in connection with philosophy of science save as examples of pseudoscience. I am especially concerned with scientists who question the epidemiological link between HIV and AIDS and who are thereby discounted—no matter their credentials, no matter the cogency of their arguments, no matter the sobriety of their statistics—but also with other classic examples of so-called pseudoscience including homeopathy and other sciences, such as cold fusion. The pseudoscience version of the demarcation problem turns out to include some of the details that Latour articulates multifariously under a variety of species or kinds in his essay/interactive research project/monograph, ‘Biography of an Investigation’. Given the economic constraints of the current day, especially in the academy, the growing trend in almost all disciplines is that of suppression by threat: say what everyone else says or you won't be hired (tenured/published/cited). In this way, non-citation of outlier views generates what Kuhn called normal science. Finally, a review of Lewontin's discussion of biology shows the continuing role of ideology by bringing in some of the complex issues associated with the resistant bacteria (tuberculosis, Lyme disease, syphilis) and AIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Addiction is a significant issue in many aspects but no explanatory closure has been attained. The overemphasis on the brain disease paradigm upheld by the National Institute on Drug Abuse may run serious risks, and the present study intends to counteract this partiality. Drawing on Ludwik Fleck’s notion of thought collectives, this article offers a close reading of the works of sociologists Bingham Dai and Alfred R. Lindesmith vis-à-vis other coeval biomedical approaches. Individuals within the same thought collective, such as Dai and Lindesmith, have different views although they share certain thought styles. As noted in this study, inter-collective communication is not typically antagonistic and may form some liaison under certain circumstances. These findings imply that communication among collectives may facilitate creative liaison, as suggested by Fleck. This study aims to enrich the understanding of addiction by coordinating biomedical and sociological sciences through minimizing, if not erasing, their intellectual antagonism and social distance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In contrast to Thomas Kuhn, the work of Ludwik Fleck, a Polish-born physician, microbiologist, and epistemologist, is conspicuously absent from the science education literature. His originally obscure monograph first published in German in 1935, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, anticipates a number of views explicated by contemporary philosophers of science, cognitive psychologists, and learning theorists, and Fleck’s main thesis is, is many respects, strikingly similar to the oft-cited thesis developed later by Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Fleck’s work is perhaps the best example of the social influence on scientific commitment and thinking and is one of the first works to suggest different scales or varieties of change in science. At the same time as Fleck’s work gains recognition, momentum, and force in philosophical circles, some educators are calling for a critical appraisal of Kuhn’s impact on science education. This climate provides an ideal opportunity to assess (or perhaps in some cases reassess) the value of Fleck’s work in a science education context. The primary aim of this article, therefore, is to introduce educators in general, and science educators in particular, to the main ideas developed by Fleck in his Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Throughout this article, Fleck’s ideas are compared and contrasted to those of Thomas Kuhn—arguably one of the most popular referents in nature of science studies over the past decade. As will be discussed, many of the ideas developed by Fleck anticipate central issues and perspectives in philosophy, epistemology, sociology, education, and cognitive psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

. The aim of the article is to assess the usefulness of Ludwik Fleck's theory of thought-styles for the history of ophthalmology. On the basis of Fleck's ideas, the authors attempt to analyse the development of concepts of vision. They enumerate three styles in the history of ophthalmology: humoral, iatromechanical and micro-tissue. In conclusion, they state that the history of evolution of the concept of vision should be considered not only from the perspective of achievements of individual scientists but also with the addition of the social 'mood' that prevailed in a given historical period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the genealogy of science and technology studies (STS) in terms of philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn's book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and sociologist Bruno Latour's book "Science in Action." The author notes a lack of social considerations in Kuhn's work and highlights his gendered, masculine view of science. Kuhn's approach to the history of science is compared to that of chemist Ludwik Fleck, and special attention is paid to controversy studies and the study of laboratories. The author suggests the use of a Foucaultian method of genealogy in STS.

Ludwik Fleck is widely recognized as a precursor of Science and Technology Studies, but his case study on the development of the Wassermann reaction as a test for detecting syphilis has never been subjected to detailed empirical scrutiny. The fact that Fleck’s monograph is based on a limited set of documentary sources makes his work vulnerable to uncharitable critics. The problematic relation between thought collective and individual scientists in Fleck’s theoretical approach is another reason for a systematic re-examination of his case study, using materials on the early period in the history of the Wassermann reaction (1906–1912). My re-examination highlights several problems in Fleck’s account: a misinterpretation of the switch from antigen detection to antibody detection; a neglect of the “clinical connection”; an overemphasis on the importance of collective experience leading to implausible views on gross retrospective distortions supposedly inflicted by this experience upon the memories of individual participants; and, finally, a misjudgement of the significance of the acrimonious dispute over the intellectual ownership of the Wassermann reaction. What remains unscathed is Fleck’s picture of a zig-zag course of development from false initial assumptions via detours and cul-de-sacs to a clinically usable test in the end. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

History of science is, we are told, an important subject for study. Its rise in recent years to become a ‘stand alone’ discipline has been mirrored by an expansion of popular history of science texts available in bookstores. Given this, it is perhaps surprising that little attention has been given to how history of science is written. This article attempts to do that through constructing a typology of histories of science based upon a consideration of audiences who read these texts and writers who construct them. It identifies four ideal types of history of science which describe the opposite poles of two continua running from exoteric to esoteric. The article also examines the content of a sample of history of science texts and finds that often these texts, whether esoteric or exoteric, provide only a chronology of events (often incredibly detailed), avoiding discussion or even mention of wider social, economic and political contexts. Such histories serve to reinforce a ‘standard’ account of science as ‘separate’ from the rest of society, an account that is at odds with almost all contemporary sociology of science and science and technology studies. This prompts the question: why should I read histories of science? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the use of pedigrees in science and medicine relates to theories by physician Ludwik Fleck on the visualization of information. In his book "Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact," Fleck discussed how information can be represented visually through ideograms and commented on how thought collectives and the democratic aspects of knowledge production can be represented by exoteric and esoteric circles. The authors comment that heredity pedigrees function as ideograms and discuss the standardization of pedigrees by a committee of the British Eugenics Society as well as the development of clinical pedigrees for medical use.

The article discusses how the views of physician Ludwik Fleck have influenced debates over when a two-gender model of anatomy was adapted. Fleck used anatomical drawings to suggest that changing conceptions of male and female anatomy were due to cognitive styles. Fleck engaged in a debate with medical historian Tadeusz Bilikiewicz regarding scientific truth and how external social elements influence scientific development. Medical historian Michael Stolberg opposed suggestions by historian Thomas Laqueur that the two-gender model was adopted in the 18th century due to egalitarianism. Stolberg theorized that it was developed due to the development of gynaecology during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Historical studies of science pedagogy have flourished in recent years. This essay offers an assessment of the literature on science pedagogy from the 1930s to the present. It argues that rather than focusing on the work of Thomas Kuhn and Michel Foucault, historians of science pedagogy could with profit turn to the work of Ludwik Fleck. Fleck offers three categories of historical analysis – experience, sensation, and cognition – that are embedded in science pedagogy. He furthermore argues unequivocally for the central importance of considering the cultural context of science pedagogy. Fleck’s interpretation of the role of publishing in science is used in the final section of this essay to assess scientific publishing and textbook culture, topics that are the principal concern of the articles in this volume. Among the novelties of the articles in this volume on textbooks are (1) the connections they draw between textbooks and social structure; (2) the relationships they suggest between textbooks and the public sphere; and (3) their identification of the eighteenth century as the crucial transformative century in textbook production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rediscovery in the mid‐1970s of Ludwik Fleck’s initially neglected monograph, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Wissenschaftlichen Tatsache, published in 1935 and translated in 1979 as Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, has resulted in extensive, still ongoing, secondary writings, mainly within the humanities. Fleck has been interpreted as furthering a relativistic conception of science. Nowadays, he is often viewed as an important contributor to contemporary sociology of science and a forerunner to Thomas Kuhn. Fleck’s account of the Wassermann reaction, which forms the basis of his epistemology, has been praised as developed by a scientist well acquainted with the field in question. Because of the scarcity of available material on Fleck, however, the question of his sources has remained an unsolved issue. In the present article, an alternative reading is suggested. By focusing on the scientific content of the monograph, mainly neglected in the modern interpretations of Fleck, and on the so far overlooked sources of his writings traced back to their German origin, a better understanding of Fleck’s account of the Wassermann reaction can be given. The consequences of this alternative reading for the conception of Fleck’s monograph and for the impetus of his mission are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the concept of proto-ideas and discusses the epistemological and historiographical implications of the thesis of Polish microbiologist Ludwik Fleck. His approach offers an alternative to positivist reconstructions of the early history of germ theories. The terms thought-collective and thought-style are introduced in the context of his general epistemology. He utilized his professional background to analyze medical cognition as a model for scientific cognition in general.

In the work of both Ludwik Fleck and Thomas Kuhn the scientific literature plays important roles for stability and change of scientific phenomenal worlds. In this article we shall introduce the analyses of scientific literature provided by Fleck and Kuhn, respectively. From this background we shall discuss the problem of how divergent thinking can emerge in a dogmatic atmosphere. We shall argue that in their accounts of the factors inducing changes of scientific phenomenal worlds Fleck and Kuhn offer substantially different approaches, and we shall discuss in which respects their approaches may be compatible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article profiles two Polish anthropologists, Bronislaw Malinowski and Ludwik Fleck. Malinowski and Fleck were trained in the natural sciences but they were well read in philosophy and social sciences, too. Malinowski was born in 1884 and was trained at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland where he studied physics and mathematics before moving to philosophy, the subject of his doctoral dissertation. Fleck was born in 1896 and trained at Lvov's John Casimir University, where lively philosophical debates were in progress. Two Lvov professors were especially important to Fleck: Kazimierz Twardowski, head of the university's philosophy department and his son-in-law Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, a radical conventionalist.