Overview
- Establishes a new type of bridge between linguistics and the history of science
- Presents an understanding of what is at stake in the segmentation of scientific texts
- Identifies the types of textual segments used in scientific writing
- Includes segmenting rules according to fields of knowledge, time periods, and cultural contexts
Part of the book series: Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter (WSAWM, volume 1)
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Introductory Remarks
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Front Matter
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Material Parts of Texts
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Front Matter
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Organizational Strategies and Internal Architecture of Texts
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Front Matter
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Intertextuality and Strategies to Bind Parts of Ideas, Parts of Works and Parts of Texts
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- History of Science
- Scientific Texts
- Global History
- Textual Architecture
- Textual Segments
- Practices of Binding Parts of Texts
- Paratext and Text
- Quotations and Citations
- Organization of Written Discourse
- History of Text
- Epigraphs as Parts of Text
- Chinese Medical Texts
- Transmission of Embedded Texts
- the Example of Conics by Apollonius of Perga
About this book
This book starts from a first general observation: there are very diverse ways to frame and convey scientific knowledge in texts. It then analyzes texts on mathematics, astronomy, medicine and life sciences, produced in various parts of the globe and in different time periods, and examines the reasons behind the segmentation of texts and the consequences of such textual divisions. How can historians and philosophers of science approach this diversity, and what is at stake in dealing with it? The book addresses these questions, adopting a specific approach to do so.
In order to shed light on the diversity of organizational patterns and rhetorical strategies in scientific texts, and to question the rationale behind the choices made to present such texts in one particular way, it focuses on the issue of text segmentation, offering answers to questions such as: What was the meaning of segmenting texts into paragraphs, chapters, sections and clusters? Was segmentation used to delimit self-contained units, or to mark breaks in the physical appearance of a text in order to aid reading and memorizing, or to cope with the constraints of the material supports? How, in these different settings and in different texts, were pieces and parts made visible?
Reviews
“The individual chapters are each interesting studies that presents the selected material and make use of scientific features of the sources … that do not fall into the trap of an anachronistic Eurocentric perspective. … Taken together, these publications attest to the lively and active community of historians of science working on ancient sources and the potential to learn about the origin and early development of sciences and their place within societies … .” (Annette Imhausen, NTM, Vol. 30 (3), September, 2022)
“Pieces and Parts in Scientific Texts provides a valuable perspective on an understudied aspect of scientific writing—and does so across times and cultures. It encourages historians of science to think more broadly about writing and composition practices and opens new approaches to the study of scientific texts.” (Lisa Raphals, Isis, Vol. 111 (1), 2020)
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Florence Bretelle-Establet is a senior researcher at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris), focusing on the history of medicine in late imperial China. The author of La santé en Chine du Sud, 1898–1928 (2002), she has published articles and book chapters on the history of medicine in the Far South of China and edited several books, notably Looking at It from Asia: The processes that Shaped the Sources of History of Science (2010). Together with Romain Graziani, she has been the chief editor of the journal Extrême-Orient Extrême Occident for ten years.
Stéphane Schmitt is a senior researcher at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris). His work focuses on the history of the life sciences, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. He has published numerous books and papers on the history of anatomy, embryology, and the sciences of evolution, as well as the history of publications in natural history. He is the main editor of Buffon’s Œuvres complètes (Paris, Champion, 2007–, 10 volumes published to date).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Pieces and Parts in Scientific Texts
Editors: Florence Bretelle-Establet, Stéphane Schmitt
Series Title: Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78467-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-78466-3Published: 12 June 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-08705-0Published: 03 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-78467-0Published: 01 June 2018
Series ISSN: 2662-9933
Series E-ISSN: 2662-9941
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 355
Topics: History of Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary, Epistemology, History of Mathematical Sciences, Linguistics, general, Printing and Publishing