Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-68ccn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-08T07:38:46.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Sociology of Scientific Disciplines: On the Genesis and Stability of the Disciplinary Structure of Modern Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Rudolf Stichweh
Rudolf Stichweh
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay attempts to show the decisive importance of the “scientific discipline” for any historical or sociological analysis of modern science. There are two reasons for this:

1. A discontinuity can be observed at the beginning of modern science: the “discipline,” which up until that time had been a classificatorily generated unit of the ordering of knowledge for purposes of instruction in schools and universities, develops into a genuine and concrete social system of scientific communication. Scientific disciplines as concrete systems (Realsysteme) arise as a result of (a) the communicative stabilization of “scientific communities” at the end of the eighteenth century and the formation of “appropriate” roles and organizational structures (in universities); (b) the structural differentiation of the new scientific disciplines from the established professions (law, theology, medicine) in Europe; (c) the formation of scientific communication in the standardized form of scientific publication; the distinction of the separate action-type “scientific research” and the differentiation of these two elementary acts of all future scientific endeavor in relation to each other.

2. The scientific discipline as primary unit of the internal differentiation of science has, since its genesis, been stabilized by two conditions: (a) The fact of a science differentiated into a plurality of (competing, mutually stimulating) disciplinary perspectives becomes the chief causal factor underlying the developmental dynamism of modern science; (b) Similar to the way in which the discipline functions as a cognitive address within the system of science, science also links the discipline up as a structural unit (utilized in both systems) with curricular structures in the system of education — i.e., it is stabilized by the central system/environment relation of science.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Spring 1992 , pp. 3 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baudeaux, Nicolas. 1771. Première introduction à la philosophie économique ou analyse des états policés. Paris.Google Scholar
Becher, Tony. 1981. “Towards a Definition of Disciplinary Cultures.” Studies in Higher Education 6:109–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Philipp August. 1927. “Gottsched, Bayle und die Enzyklopädie.” Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Erforschung Vaterländischer Sprache und Altertümer in Leipzig 12:94–108.Google Scholar
Brandt, Stephen B., and McDonald, Michael E.. 1987. “Homage to Speculation: Putting Fun Back into Science.” BioScience 37:771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chatellier, Louis 1987. L'Europe des dévots. Paris.Google Scholar
Crusius, Christoph August. [1747] 1965. “Weg zur Gewissheit und Zuverlässigkeit der menschlichen Erkenntnis.” In Die philosophischen Hauptwerke, Vol.3, ed. Giorgio Tonelli. Hildesheim.Google Scholar
Evans, Gillian Rosemary. 1980. Old Arts and New Theology: Beginnings of Theology as an Academic Discipline. Oxford.Google Scholar
Fisher, Charles S. 1967. “The Last Invariant Theorists: A Sociological Study of the Collective Biographies of Mathematical Specialists.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 8:1094–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gildemeister, Johann Friedrich. 1783. Juristische Encyklopädie und Methodologie. Duisburg.Google Scholar
Grimm, Jacob. [1849] 1864. “Über schule, universität, akademie.” In Kleinere Schriften, Vol.1, 211–54. Berlin.Google Scholar
Kohler, Robert E. 1982. From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry: The Making of a Biomedical Discipline. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lange, Johann Christian. 1706. Protheoria eruditionis humanae universae: Oder Fragen von der Gelehrsamkeit des Menschen ins gemein. Giessen.Google Scholar
Laue, Max von. 1921. “Das physikalische Weltbild.” Lecture presented at the “Kieler Herbstwoche.” Karlsruhe.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas. 1981. “Wie ist soziale Ordnung möglich?” In his Gesellschafts-struktur und Semantik, Vol.2, 195–285. Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
McCain, Katherine W. 1986. “The Paper Trails of Scholarship: Mapping the Literature of Genetics.” Library Quarterly 56:258–71.Google Scholar
Marrou, Henri Irène. 1934. “‘Doctrina’ et ‘Disciplina’ dans la langue des pères de l'église.” Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 9:1–23.Google Scholar
Ong, Walter J. 1958. Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue. Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Parsons, Talcott. 1971. “Kinship and the Associational Aspect of Social Structure.” In Kinship and Culture, ed. Hsu, F. L. K., 409–38. Chicago.Google Scholar
Stichweh, Rudolf. 1984. Zur Entstehung des modernen Systems wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen: Physik in Deutschland 1740–1890. Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Stichweh, Rudolf. 1987. “Professionen und Disziplinen: Formen der Differenzierung zweier Systeme beruflichen Handelns in modernen Gesellschaften.” In Professionalisierung der Erwachsenenbildung, ed. Harney, Klaus, Jütting, Dieter, and Koring, Bernard, 210–75. Frankfurt am Main/Bern.Google Scholar
Stichweh, Rudolf. 1990. “Self-Organization and Autopoiesis in the Development of Modern Science.” Sociology of the Sciences 14:195–207.Google Scholar
Stichweh, Rudolf. 1991a. Der frühmoderne Staat und die europäische Universität. Zur Interaktion von Politik und Erziehungssystem im Prozess ihrer Ausdifferenzierung (16–18 Jahrhundert). Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Stichweh, Rudolf. 1991b. ”Bildung, Individualität und die kulturelle Legitimation von Spezialisierung. In Wissenschaft und Nation: Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, ed. Fohrmann, Jürgen and Vosskamp, Wilhelm, 99–112. Munich.Google Scholar
Turner, R.Steven. 1987. “The Great Transition and the Social Patterns of German Science.” Minerva 25:56–76.Google Scholar
Veysey, Laurence. 1973. “Stability and Experiment in the American Undergraduate Curriculum.” In Content and Context: Essays on College Education, ed. Kaysen, Carl, 1–63. New York.Google Scholar
Wundt, Wilhelm. 1889. “Über die Eintheilung der Wissenschaften.” Philosophische Studien 5:1–55.Google Scholar