Publication

To Forgot Boris Hessen: Ghost of Externalism within Late Soviet History and Philosophy of Science

2022
Talks

Abstract

The reason why, unlike the West, Boris Hessen's achievements were virtually forgotten in the USSR even after his rehabilitation (1956), was that in the Soviet context his ideas concerning Isaac Newton lost the polemical sting they possessed when first formulated, which was directed against the old and "bourgeois" tradition of pure history of ideas (Mayer, Chivers). For the early Soviet context, Hessen's externalism was commonplace and ranged with a number of similar programs for studying the determination of knowledge

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2022
Talks

Abstract

Official source

Related concepts (3)

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author who was described in his time as a natural philosopher. He was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His pioneering book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, consolidated many previous results and established classical mechanics.

Opticks

Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light is a book by English natural philosopher Isaac Newton that was published in English in 1704 (a scholarly Latin translation appeared in 1706). The book analyzes the fundamental nature of light by means of the refraction of light with prisms and lenses, the diffraction of light by closely spaced sheets of glass, and the behaviour of color mixtures with spectral lights or pigment powders.

Pure mathematics

Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications, but pure mathematicians are not primarily motivated by such applications. Instead, the appeal is attributed to the intellectual challenge and aesthetic beauty of working out the logical consequences of basic principles.