Microsoft Word - 1 From the editors 1 Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science, 3 (2017) 01-02 ISSN 2526-2270 www.historiographyofscience.org © The Authors 2017 – This is an open access journal From the Editors For the diversity of the historiography of science Mauro L. Condé1 Marlon Salomon2 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24117/2526-2270.2017.i3.01 ____________________________________________________________________________________ Reconstituting the history of the historiography of science implies, from the outset, to recognize the plurality and diversity of its critical trajectories. Since at least the 19th century, and still more forcefully from the 20th century, critical reflection on the sciences – understood as a phenomenon whose coherence could only be understood in the becoming – has expanded and pluralized in an extraordinary way. In this sense, the historiography of the sciences has accompanied at least two trends from the time of its birth: on the one hand, the pluralization of science itself in a growing diversity of increasingly specialized domains. On the other, the pluralization of interpretative perspectives that was proper for the emergence of the human sciences. In its work of understanding these tendencies, the historiography of the sciences presented methodologies of study, forms of approach and markedly different theoretical systematization efforts. From the time of its birth, there were many authors who formulated theoretical- methodological proposals of how to write the history of science. In the same way, the plurality of objects implied a vast and diversified historiography. The aim of Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science is to reflect this diversity and to think it in its constituent plurality. In promoting the critical study of the reconstitution of this diversity, the history of the historiography of science (considered in this broad aspect) seeks to reconstitute these different trajectories in their plurality, comprising of their cross- references and transversals, their divergences, their points of support, their continuities and discontinuities, their innovations and impasses, their promoters, their institutions and their social inscriptions, their successes, but also their failures. In this sense, the historiography of the sciences cannot be seen as a purely dilettante discipline or as a mere epistemic curiosity. It occupies an important place in the contemporary cultural and intellectual scenario. In a way, it would not be an exaggeration to say that, since the end of the 19th century, it has replaced in our culture the role that philosophy sought to exert from the 18th to the 19th century in relation to science. This is because it is only through history (regardless of its matrix) that the sciences find their 1 Mauro L. Condé is a Professor in the Department of History at Federal University of Minas Gerais. Address: Av. Antonio Carlos, 6627 – Belo Horizonte – MG. 31.270 – 901, Brazil. Email: mauroconde@ufmg.br 2 Marlon Salomon is a Professor in the Faculty of History at the Federal University of Goiás. Address: Av. Esperança, s/n, Campus Samambaia – Goiânia – GO, 74.690-900, Brazil. Email: marlonsalomon@ufg.br 2 coherence and their meaning. It is, therefore, the meaning of the scientific phenomenon within the Western culture that is at stake in it. It is with the history of this historiography and its place within a culture that Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science intends to occupy. Thus, we cannot fail to point out that, insofar as the historiography of science contains this diversity, the use of the term “historiography of science” in the singular as spelled in the name of Transversal does not reflect the idea of a “unification of science” but it simply fits into a tradition of the English language. This diversity of approaches and perspectives appears in this number 3, that is the first issue of Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science not dedicated to a dossier. The target of our journal is to publish about twenty articles per year, with an average of ten articles per edition. However, due to the high quality of the articles referring to the Pierre Duhem dossier of the previous issue (June 2017) we decided to publish a larger number of articles than the one originally planned for that number. Now, obeying this rule of staying in about twenty articles a year, that number (December 2017) was purposely slightly smaller. Mauro L. Condé Marlon Salomon Editors-in-chief on behalf of the Editorial Board