Technikatörténeti szemle 19. (1992)

KÖNYVISMERTETÉS - Papers of the First „MINERALKONTOR” International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Veszprém, 12-16 August, 1991)

A.N. SHAMJN* THE HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES: THE CORRELATION BETWEEN THE COGNITIVE AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE The history of chemistry has been studied in the Institute for History of Natural Science and Technology in Moscow since its foundation in 1933. The Department of History of Chemistry has laid emphasis on the study of the activities os outstanding chemists and their schools and the main trends in the development of chemistry. In recent years the staff of the Department has engaged in elaborating two new projects: the history of modern chemistry and the history of biological chemistry. These projects are aimed at retracing the development of the whole structure of modern chemistry. We attempt to describe both the cognitive and social structures in chemistry. Our efforts are concentrated on analyzing specific features in the development of modern science as a cognitive activity and social institute. Within the framework of these projects, we elaborate the questions of the history of formation of a structure of chemistry in relation with the system of research institutions. The following strategy was chosen for the research. First, we explored the conventional problems, i.e. the creation of a general terminological base, that is operational for the analysis of the specific situations. Second, we carried out both the comparative tests of the development of separate chemical disciplines and the comparative analysis of the development of some branches of chemistry (biochemistry in particular) in different countries such as Russia, Germany, United States, Great Britain, France and Hungary. In our studies, we use different terms for the social and cognitive realms. The term ..scientific discipline", for example, is only used for the social structure, while ..science", for cognitive structures only. We use also the term „the front of the development of science" to emphasize the established fact: the cognitive history of science does not represent the development of real structure of science, especially the structure of regional science. The history of ideas and discoveries always leaves behind real state, it has a certain lag-phase. The scientific community assimilates new ideas and results of discoveries during some historical time. Owing to this fact, the front of the development of science may also be depicted as some structure, which can also be used to demonstrate the pathway from the general idea or empirical discovery through stages of fundamental rese •Institute for' History of Natural Sciences and Technology, Moscow, Staropansky lane 1/5