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The discipline Idé och lärdomshistoria, translated as History of Science and Ideas, is an important part of the
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at th ...
faculties in most Swedish universities, most notably Stockholm,
Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...
, Lund, Gothenburg,
Umeå Umeå ( , , , locally ; South Westrobothnian: ;). fi, Uumaja; sju, Ubmeje; sma, Upmeje; se, Ubmi) is a city in northeast Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County. Situated on the Ume River, U ...
and
Södertörn Södertörn is a roughly triangular peninsula and artificial island in eastern Södermanland, Sweden, which is bordered by: *Lake Mälaren and the inlet of Saltsjön (a part of the Baltic Sea) to the north, *The Baltic Sea (the Stockholm ...
. It is a broad field of study that often involves cross disciplinary research between
intellectual history Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual hist ...
,
history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...
, medicine or philosophy,
conceptual history Conceptual history (also the history of concepts or, from German, ''Begriffsgeschichte'') is a branch of historical and cultural studies that deals with the historical semantics of terms. It sees the etymology and the change in meaning of terms ...
, history of education and media history. It is taught in Universities at undergraduate and graduate levels, and is also an active field of research. The annual journal Lychnos publishes the current research of the discipline. The discipline was founded in the early 20th century. It has become commonplace to distinguish between three distinct phases in 20th-century intellectual ideas: history of ideas, social history, and cultural history. These concern, respectively, the investigation of independent unit ideas, the social conditions of knowledge production, and the cultural-literary technologies and practices by which intellectual authority arises. The transition towards a quantitative social history took place during the 1960s as an attempt to broaden intellectual history, “which had lost itself in flights of idealist abstraction, underestimated the importance of material factors in shaping the human past, and ignored the plight of ordinary people.” A second transition took place in 1980s when social history was criticized for a lack of political self-reflexivity.


Formation of the discipline in Sweden

The Dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 sparked a renewed need to define Sweden as a cultural and political entity. The rapid expansion of the
Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for prom ...
offered the institutional space wherein this need could be further cultivated: nationalist narratives of Swedish scientific personas were produced on an extensive scale. This genre provided in Sweden the first production of a history of science. Two apt examples of this practice are Eneström’s Bibliotheca mathematica (1984 – 1914) and Linnésällskapets Årsskrift (1918). After the events of the
first world war World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...
, the supposed progressive direction of science was discredited, and its historical study lost interest. It was not until the 1930s that the interest for a new history of science increased in Sweden. Important figures within this revival were Eneström, Arrhenius, von Hofsten, Nordenskiöld, Oseen, and, most famously,
Johan Nordström Johan * Johan (given name) * ''Johan'' (film), a 1921 Swedish film directed by Mauritz Stiller * Johan (band), a Dutch pop-group ** ''Johan'' (album), a 1996 album by the group * Johan Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada * Jo-Han, a manu ...
. In 1932 Nordström was appointed the first chair of History of Ideas (Idé- och lärdomshistoria) in
Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...
. Influenced by figures ranging as widely as
Dilthey Dilthey is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Helmut Dilthey (1894–1918), German First World War flying ace *Karl Dilthey (1839–1907) German classical scholar and archaeologist *Wilhelm Dilthey Wilhelm Dilthey (; ; 19 Nov ...
, Burckhardt, Comte, Buckle, Tannery, and Sarton, Nordström argued for a new social historical understanding of the history of science. History of science was considered at the base of history of ideas, Nordström writes: history of science should set out to depict scientific life in its totality and in its context, to focus on the essential features of progress, the basic opinions, the emergent new ideas, the great revolutionizing discoveries, and seek to establish their importance as factors shaping the cultural process. In 1934, Nordström founded the Swedish History of Science Association and its annual journal Lychnos, in which he was involved as editor. He continued to hold his Chair in Uppsala until 1957.


Nordström school

What later became known as the Nordström school in Sweden was marked less by strict methodology than by a general sensitivity to social historical circumstances of scientific knowledge production. His students, most notably
Sten Lindroth Sten Hjalmar Lindroth (28 December 1914, in Lund – 1 September 1980) was a Swedish historian of learning and science. Lindroth was born in the university town of Lund in Southern Sweden, but grew up and went to school in Gothenburg after his ...
and Henrik Sandblad, worked towards a further dissemination and cultivation of the field. The former succeeded to Nordström in
Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...
in 1957, whilst the latter went on to found a Chair in the History of Ideas at the
University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 s ...
. In 1966, Rolf Lindborg founded a Chair of History of Ideas in Lund. Four years later, another chair was founded in
Umeå Umeå ( , , , locally ; South Westrobothnian: ;). fi, Uumaja; sju, Ubmeje; sma, Upmeje; se, Ubmi) is a city in northeast Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County. Situated on the Ume River, U ...
by Gunnar Eriksson, and, lastly, in 1978, Nils Runeby founded a similar chair in Stockholm. Among these different departments, two general shared perspectives stand out.Frängsmyr, T. (1984), p52 First, their investigations go beyond the history of science and extend into history of humanities, religion, and a wider History of ideas. Secondly, most of the historians involved have no formal background in the natural sciences, and favour an externalist, social-contextual approach to knowledge production.


Currents trends of history of science and ideas

During the ‘70s and ‘80s, several Swedish History of Science and Ideas scholars were public intellectuals and engaged in the public debate, most notably
Sten Lindroth Sten Hjalmar Lindroth (28 December 1914, in Lund – 1 September 1980) was a Swedish historian of learning and science. Lindroth was born in the university town of Lund in Southern Sweden, but grew up and went to school in Gothenburg after his ...
,
Tore Frängsmyr Tore Lennart Frängsmyr (8 July 1938 in Skellefteå – 28 August 2017 in Uppsala) was a Swedish historian. He was the first holder of the Hans Rausing professorship in the history of science at Uppsala university. According to J.L. Heilbron, Fr ...
, Henrik Sandblad,
Sven-Eric Liedman Sven-Eric Liedman (born 1 June 1939 in Karlskrona) is a Swedish author and Professor Emeritus of history of ideas at the University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden. Liedman received his Bachelor of Arts degree in theoretical philosophy at ...
,
Karin Johannisson Karin Johannisson (11 October 1944 – November 2016) was a Swedish idea historian who was Professor of the History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University."Karin Johannisson", biographical entry in ''Nationalencyklopedin'' She was a member of ...
and Ronny Ambjörnsson. At present, a number of subfields have become particularly prevalent within the history of ideas in Sweden. Most notably, media history, Cultural history,
History of medicine The history of medicine is both a study of medicine throughout history as well as a multidisciplinary field of study that seeks to explore and understand medical practices, both past and present, throughout human societies. More than just hist ...
,
History of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...
, history of concepts, and History of theology have received increased attention. Today, history of science and ideas is practiced in Sweden at most of the universities with several hundred active scholars. The journal Lychnos continues to be an important place for intellectual exchange within the subject in Sweden.


References


Further reading

*Nils Andersson och Henrik Björck, Idéhistoria i tiden: Perspektiv på ämnets identitet under sjuttiofem år (Stockholm/Stehag, 2008) *Tore Frängsmyr (ed.), History of Science in Sweden. The Growth of a Discipline, 1932-1982, vol. 2, Almqvist & Wiksell. {{ISBN, 91-86836-01-3 (paper) (1984) *Sven-Eric Liedman, 'A success story: history of ideas and science in Sweden', 'Intellectual News' Vol. 2 , Iss. 1, 1997 Education in Sweden Intellectual history