Sciences, Philosophie, Histoire – UMR 7219, laboratoire SPHERE

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Research in this area shares a common goal: to examine, historically, anthropologically and critically, the various historiographies of knowledge and, more broadly, to develop theoretical tools in history, anthropology and philosophy of science and technology.

Work is being done on the different writings of the past in science and technology as well as on the issues that the actors involved have associated with these companies and the impact these contexts have had on the shaping of these stories (project 5.1)

It questions the way in which anthropological approaches to knowledge can irrigate the reflections of history and philosophy of science and technology (project 5.2).

Critically, we examine the concepts and tools that have been proposed in the history and philosophy of science and technology in recent decades to better describe the variety of ways of practicing knowledge and grasping it. the collective dimensions.

Thus, the diversity of science practices is approached from the angle of the types of texts and inscriptions that actors have shaped in order to carry out their investigations (project 5.3).

It is also interested in the epistemological values ​​favored by given collectives, and, more generally, in the description of the learned cultures in which the practitioners operate (project 5.4).

There is a particular interest in work techniques in a broad sense and in the material and social environments in which they are deployed. In addition to practical and technical objects, we study operative knowledge in itself as well as in relation to science and society (project 5.5).

Finally, we examine the different practices that our actors have developed to shape numbers, quantities, measures and work with these entities (project 5.6).

Such a program requires interaction with other human sciences, such as linguistics, anthropology, or prehistory. It brings us to cooperate in a novel way history, anthropology and philosophy of science and technology, and thus to propose a particular form of historical epistemology. These projects finally require, to be carried out - and this is the challenge - that we can rely on the constant confrontation between case studies conducted in the most diverse disciplinary, professional or social contexts. They are intended to allow all members of the UMR to work together to develop their working tools, across the boundaries of disciplines, times and regions of the planet treated.

Thematics / Members / Presentation /

• 1 Writings and uses of the past of sciences 2018–2022
  This theme is centered on the study of forms of construction of the past in the present, in their diversity and in context, as well as the uses of these forms in different social groups. One of the key objectives is to equip ourselves with critical tools vis-à-vis the historiography we inherit as well as to clarify the political, social and institutional issues that influence the writing of the history of Sciences. [...]
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• 2 Science field : uses of ethnography in history, philosophy and anthropology of sciences 2018–2022
  In line with the work undertaken in the sub-axis "Ethnographic approaches in the history of science" (2012-2017), the objective of this research group will be to explore further, theoretically and empirically, the way in which research in the history and philosophy of science may use ethnographic methods - broadly understood as field investigation as practiced by comparative and participatory ethnology, science studies or anthropology social and cultural. Anthropologists, historians and philosophers of science will come together to compare research approaches and results from different disciplines and theoretical and methodological traditions. [...]
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• 3 History of science, history of text 2018–2022
  The seminar "history of science, history of the text" is intended to continue and we will address the following topics, in order to prepare collective publications:
  – Temporality
  Various documents bear the marks of scientific activities taking place in time, and their internal structure, even material traces sometimes reveal the intervention of actors operating at different times or throughout a period of time given. Whether it is the scale of a calculation or the production of a figure, or even that of the preparation of critical editions or the annotation, how can one exploit these traces of temporality? This will be one of the issues at the heart of our collective work [...]
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• 4 Epistemological cultures, practices, work 2018–2022
  Many colleagues gathered around the issues that have been worked on in this sub-axis intend to pursue this research together. They set themselves the following objectives for the period 2018-2022:
  – Preparation of a collective work (book or special issue of journal) on the various mathematical cultures of the ancient world. The main purpose is to finalize the research conducted in the context of SAW and to identify the theoretical contributions to these questions that this particular site offers.
  – Continuing work on epistemological values. We intend to finalize the work begun on abstraction as well as that started on rigor. [...]
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• 5 Cultural and interdisciplinary history of techniques 2018–2022
  This theme is explicitly developed as a transverse axis of SPHERE. The aim is to promote a reflection on the technical aspects, the instruments and the material cultures of the sciences studied in the other axes, and, in addition, to question the relations with the general techniques, the engineering and the technology. Through the various supported and structural collaborations (ICT, Center Koyré, CNAM, etc.), the theme also aims to be a place of inter-laboratory collaboration.
  The theme brings together researchers who study historical overlaps between techniques and sciences in their cultural context, taking into account individual practices, material conditions, social and economic structures, and intellectual configurations. The term "technical" is understood in its broadest sense and covers technological objects, scientific instruments as well as technical actions and manipulations. . [...]
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• 6 Historical, philosophical and anthropological approaches to numbers, measurement and measurability 2018–2022
  The themes around numbers and measurement have been worked on since at least 2001 in the REHSEIS laboratory, then SPHERE, notably within the axes "history and philosophy of mathematics" and "history and philosophy of physics". Problems of an ethical or philosophical nature related to measurability in the human and social sciences or in medicine have been addressed in the other areas of SPHERE. In the course of this research, broader issues emerged which seemed to us to deserve to be approached from an interdisciplinary angle. We propose to open the following tracks, or to pursue them in an interdisciplinary way. [...]
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