EXTRA-SCIENTIFIC IDEAS

Koyré´s internalistic approach made it appeared as if he was absolutely against the influence of forces in the development of science. On the contrary, he accepted the influence of extra-scientific ideas. The Koyréan thesis (see section 2.2, 2.2.1 and 2.2.2) illustrated the role of non-testable general views about the world in the formulation of mathematical derivable and experimentally testable theories about the world. For him, scientific metaphysics influenced scientific theories. His internalistic approach became a paradigm for history of science as history of disembodied ideas, thereby heralding the distinction between the history of ideas and sociology of knowledge. At first sight it might appear Koyréan thesis is totally different from the general thesis of the historicist model. Such mistaken understanding of the Internalist approach of the Koyréan thesis is what gave the perception that the history of ideas is ´uninfluenced´ in contrast to the sociology of scientific knowledge propounded by other historicists.

338 Jean Celeyrette, ¨Bradwardine´s rule: A mathematical law?¨ in Mechanics and Natural Philosophy before the Scientific Revolution. Eds. Laird, W. R & Roux, S. (Dordrecht: Springer. 2008) p. 64

Koyré accepted that ideas are influenced. He was open to the influence of ¨extra-scientific¨ factors in science. His studies on Galileo and Newton attributed significant role to extra-scientific ideas in the development of science. Often, his works on both great scientists are labelled as pure history of ideas but his acceptance of the great role of metaphysics in science shows the contrary. We should not forget the impact of his researches on the German post-Reformation mystics on his view of science. Koyréan thesis is not absolutely opposite to the general thesis of the historicist model which consists in showing how the structure of scientific knowledge fits into history. Even though he resisted, mainly, from giving attention to socio-economic and institutional factors as did the Marxist and sociologist historiographies, he showed that the body of scientific knowledge has extra-scientific influence.

Alexandre Koyré redirected the historiography of scientific ideas for several generations. He actually was among the creators of the historical sociology of scientific knowledge, together with Emile Meyerson whose work he continued, with Robert K.

Merton with whom he overlapped for some decades, and with Thomas Kuhn who, in a way, continues his work.³³⁹

He identified the scientific revolution as the establishment of a new ¨metaphysics, ¨ or set of deep conceptual presuppositions for scientific thought. In the Galileo Studies (1939) he attributed Galileo´s success in founding the first version of classical mechanics to the fact that he worked within the correct sort of metaphysical framework—the Platonic metaphysics, which showed that the basic furniture of the world consists in mathematical objects, moved according to simple mathematical laws.

Just like Kuhn and Merton, he knows that important influences of problem-choice and other aspects of scientific processes are exercised by what is thought about sources, aims and kinds of legitimation of knowledge. Although he recognised mathematical principles as playing great roles in the works of Galileo and Newton, he showed that the vital factor was the metaphysics behind them. Such metaphysics are those statements

339Yehuda Elkana, ¨Alexandre Koyré: between the History of ideas and Sociology of Knowledge¨, p. 113

about the object of discussion—the world, society, the biological organism or the individual human being—which are untestable. Certainly, he was more interested in the body of knowledge than its image. But he showed with his illustrations that the body of knowledge which is built from the mathematical principles, invariably, mirrors the image of the extra-scientific ideas from which they emanate—in this case ´Platonic metaphysics´.

Koyré’s illustration shows that ideas are influenced and science is not restricted only within the ´testable´. That a claim cannot be unambiguously verified or falsified (see confirmationism and falsificationism in sections 3.1.1.1 and 3.1.1.2) does not mean that no meaningful debate about its truth can be conducted. On the contrary many great scientific debates focused on metaphysical generalisations which were in principle untestable. For instance, Newton´s view that the world consists of discrete particles with central forces acting between them, or Faraday´s that the world is a continuum of forces, the quantity of which is conserved, or the view of the molecular biologists that with growing knowledge of the chemistry of life, the phenomena of evolution will be reducible to molecular biology, are exactly such ´untestable´ propositions.

Mathematics was highly appreciated because of its social status among the prominent scientist of that period. In fact, some historical studies would argue that the

´mathematization of nature´ which has been held as a sine que non for the Scientific Revolution, precisely, describes the changing social status of mathematical practitioners and concomitant changes in attitudes about the relevance and value of mathematics, in everyday life but also in the higher echelons of thought.³⁴⁰ Precisely, the major difference there is among the internalists and externalists of the historicist model is that while the internalist considers extra-scientific ideas, the externalists focus on socio-economic and institutional factors. They all converge on the view that ideas are influenced.

340John Henry, ¨Ideology, Inevitability, and the Scientific Revolution¨, Isis, 2008, 99(3), pp. 554-555