NOTES FOR A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF NATURAL SCIENCES

Abstract

Starting from a brief review of the different interpretive traditions of the history of science, it tries to establish a balance of the major contributions of each to form an interpretive framework for addressing a history of natural sciences that accounts for the major concerns of traditionally called internalist and externalist approaches. In this analysis is emphasized the need for an approach that focus on scientific practice, maintaining a philosophically realistic posture about experimental techniques, to displace the internal/external dichotomy towards the production of objects, artifacts and instruments , and, similarly to that proposed by Marx for social analysis, consider this material production of objects as a structural dimension, as the core of scientific practice, and the development of theoretical constructs, as its superstructure. In a second stage, it is proposed the study of relations maintained between the different social agents belonging to scientific institutions and those belonging to other institutions.