Styles of Thinking in Science and Technology - Hosted by the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Cooperation with the Austrian Academy Federal Ministry of Science and Research (CD-ROM)

In 1994 the late Alistair Crombie published his monumental work Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition. He distinguished between six styles of inquiry, demonstration and explanation diversified by their subject-matters, by their general conceptions of nature, and by scientific experience (publishers prospectus): postulation, the experimental argument, hypothetical modelling, taxonomy, probabilistic and statistical analysis, historical derivation. Fourteen years later it is time to reconsider this fascinating topical subject, in order to broaden earlier, Eurocentric approaches. Which philosophical, cultural, religious, political, economic influences can be identified that led to certain styles of thinking in science and technology all over the world and that influenced their further development? Cross-cultural influences and interrelations are of special interest. How are such traditions of thinking transmitted to later generations, to other cultures? How are they modified in the course of history? The Third Conference of the European Society for the History of Science would like to give a platform to all historians and philosophers of science and technology who are interested in these questions. Vienna with its scientific and cultural institutions that played a crucial role in the history of science is an ideal city for such an event.