David Östlund:
* “Our Preeminently Social Activity: Ludwik Fleck and Thought in History”, Ideas in History 2007:3.
Abstract:
This paper aims to introduce the approach and core concepts of Ludwik Fleck as resources for the study of general intellectual history. An interpretation of Fleck’s texts on “comparative epistemology” and his theory of “thought-style and thought-collective” is outlined, stressing e.g. that scientific thought was treated as an integrated phenomenon among other forms of human thought (and that this was a main point in Fleck’s understanding of science), and that the explicit moral of his analysis in essence was a “democratic” appeal for openness and criticism against intellectual hubris. The proposed interpretation gives prominence especially to Fleck’s concept of Denkverkehr (“intercourse” between thinking people and “traffic” in words and phrases), and to his implicit assumption that human thought (“ideas”) is nothing but a form of action, and as such a particularly “social” form of activity – eminently suited to be studied in terms of processes of social interaction, situated in historical time and space.