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For the history of the historiography of sciences 
 
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science is pleased to announce its first issue. 
Thanks to the efforts of a group of collaborators from many countries, a project conceived, discussed and 
matured over a long period of time, now becomes a reality with the publication of this first issue. So it is very 
important to remark that this project has had the support and participation of scholars from more than 15 
different nationalities. Specifically for this first issue more than 70 researchers, among authors, editors and 
referees, from different parts of the world were mobilized. We would like to express our deepest appreciation 
for the support received, but above all for their believing in this project. Without such cooperation and support 
this project would not be possible. 

This journal intends not to be just another journal. Transversal does not fit in and does not add up 
to the incredibly large set of new journals that have emerged in recent years as a result of the technical 
facilities and low costs offered by online versions of academic journals. Instead of this, for a long time, we 
discussed the editorial difficulties encountered by the area and the lack of an academic journal dedicated 
specifically to this subject. Before any technical facility, what moves us is the need to express this area of 
research. 

Thus, the main aim of Transversal is precisely to aggregate an international community around 
dialogue, analysis and criticism of the historiography of science. For, we believe, the expression 
“historiography of science” in the title of this journal relates to an evidence that we should address historically 
and critically, that is, the evidence that the writing of the history of science has in itself a history. One can 
see this historicity of the writing of the history of science from Condorcet to current social studies of sciences; 
from Auguste Comte to Thomas Kuhn; from Paul Tannery to I. Bernard Cohen; from Pierre Duhem, Georges 
Sarton and Aldo Mieli to the historical French epistemology of Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and 
Alexandre Koyré; from Léon Brunschvich and Émile Meyerson to the strong program of the School of 
Edinburgh; from Ludwik Fleck to Michel Serres; from Edgar Zilsel and Marshall Clagett to Paolo Rossi and 
Joseph Agassi; from Richard Westfall to Pietro Redondi; from A. Rupert Hall to Steven Shapin; from Hélène 
Metzger-Bruhl to Alistair Crombie; from Marie Boas Hall to Simon Schaffer; from Michel Foucault to François 
Delaporte; and within all of these individual and collective trajectories and paths is the historicity of an area 
of reflection on science which is drawn and founded on the field of history. 

But it is not a question of valuing here exclusively “authors” and “works”. The “places” of production 
of knowledge is undoubtedly fundamental to reconstitute not only the supporting materials used to structure 
this field, but also for the formations (institutional, sociological, intellectual and theoretical) to which their 
actors were subjected. In the same way, the privileged vectors of its diffusion are fundamental, in particular 
the journals that help to structure, promote and create, little by little, the awareness and identity of a 
disciplinary field. Also the associations, societies and meetings (national and international) responsible for 
organizing researchers from different backgrounds around common patterns and problems, thus building a 
sense of intellectual community. Finally, it would be necessary not to isolate the writing of the history of the 
sciences from the work carried out in other historiographies: art, technics and technology, society, culture, 
economy, etc. We understand that it is in the limits of these issues that we could define a historiography of 
the sciences. 

Now, this description necessarily leads us to define the historiography of the sciences as an 
essentially transdisciplinary field. Although historiography of science is a sub-discipline of History, we 
construe this subject broadly to include analysis of the historiography of science produced by the history of 
science, philosophy of science and related disciplines. By focusing its analysis on the different historical, 
social and epistemological implications of science, historiography of science is a transversal knowledge with 
respect to the production of science, hence the name of this journal. In order to accomplish its 
purpose, Transversal discusses historical, theoretical, conceptual and methodological aspects of the 



 

 

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different themes, works and authors present in this tradition, quoted previously, as well as the new 
approaches in the recent historiography of science. 

Last but not least, we chose to start this journey with a special issue dedicated to Ludwik Fleck’s 
work, an author that in different perspectives synthetizes the aims of this journal. To understand the whole 
of the scientific activities involving theories, experiments, laboratories as well as its social, historical and 
philosophical implications, Fleck used the expression “science of the sciences” (Fleck, 1986 [1946], 127). 
In a sense, the historiography of science as conceived here also has a similar target searching to reflect the 
science as a whole by means of the critical analysis of its historical, social and scientific aspects as well as 
its epistemological foundations.  

This special dossier Ludwik Fleck would not exist without the hard work of the organizers – as well 
as the support of their institutions – Paweł Jarnicki (Project Science Foundation, Poland) and Sandra Lang 
(Ludwik Fleck Zentrum, Switzerland). We would like to thank both of them. In special, Paweł Jarnicki for his 
leadership in this process.  
 
 

Editors-in-chief on behalf of the Editorial Board, 
Mauro L. Condé – UFMG 

Marlon Salomon – UFG 
 
 
 
 

Reference 
 

Fleck, Ludwik. “Problems of the science of science”. [1946] In. Cohen, Robert; Schnelle, Thomas  (eds.). 
 Cognition and fact: materials on Ludwik Fleck. Dordrecht: Reidel Publish Company, 1986.