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Students ‘disciplining’ the cameral sciences

By Anne Por In late 1794, the then twenty-year-old former cameralism student Ferdinand Beneke criticized the expectations placed onto students regarding their choice of study. In his extensive diary he explains that he regrets the decision he made when he was fifteen to study both law and cameralism instead of just cameralism. He made this decision because he wished to be useful to the state, and because ‘properly’ joining the military was… Read More »Students ‘disciplining’ the cameral sciences

The Icarus Flight of Speculation 

Why did nineteenth-century German historians and physicists habitually warn against vices that they believed philosophers in particular embodied: speculation, absence of common sense, and excessive systematizing? Sjang ten Hagen and Herman Paul answer this question in their essay, “The Icarus Flight of Speculation: Philosophers’ Vices as Perceived by Nineteenth-Century Historians and Physicists,” published in open access in a special issue of the journal Metaphilosophy. 

How academics review books (and each other)

By Sjang ten Hagen. This blog was originally published on the LSE Impact Blog on 1 December 2022. The editorial guidelines for academic book reviews regularly instruct authors to focus on the content of the works being reviewed, rather than the authors. But, how far does this hold true in practice? Drawing on evidence from historical book reviews, Sjang ten Hagen argues the personal has in fact played a prominent role in… Read More »How academics review books (and each other)

Topsport en wetenschap – en een beetje DWDD

Door Rembert Duine, hoogleraar Theory of Nanoscale Systems aan de Universiteit Utrecht en deeltijdhoogleraar Theory for spin-based nanoelectronics aan de TU Eindhoven. Er is al veel geschreven over wetenschap en topsport. Aan de ene kant maken sporters en hun teams steeds vaker gebruik van wetenschappers en hun wetenschappelijke inzichten, bijvoorbeeld met betrekking tot voeding. Ook worden sporters en wetenschappers vaak naast elkaar gezet:  “Wetenschap is topsport”, schreef Marcel Levi, voorzitter… Read More »Topsport en wetenschap – en een beetje DWDD

Writing the History of the Humanities: with a chapter on virtues and vices

Project leader Herman Paul has edited a volume entitled Writing the History of the Humanities: Questions, Themes, and Approaches (2022). The volume showcases a range of perspectives from which the history of the humanities can be written. One chapter is devoted specifically to virtues and vices. Focusing on Geisteswissenschaftler in late nineteenth-century Strasbourg, it examines what virtues they cared about, what vices they warned their students against, and how these… Read More »Writing the History of the Humanities: with a chapter on virtues and vices

Historians’ Virtues: Open access book by Herman Paul

Why do historians so often talk about objectivity, empathy, and fair-mindedness? What roles do such personal qualities play in historical studies? And why does it make sense to call them virtues rather than skills or habits? Historians’ Virtues is the first publication to explore these questions in some depth. With case studies from across the centuries, the Element identifies major discontinuities in how and why historians talked about the marks… Read More »Historians’ Virtues: Open access book by Herman Paul

Evaluating Knowledge, Evaluating Character: New Article by Sjang ten Hagen

The latest issue of History of Humanities contains an article written in the context of the Scholarly Vices project: “Evaluating Knowledge, Evaluating Character: Book Reviewing by American Historians and Physicists (1900–1940)” by Sjang ten Hagen. Drawing on hundreds of book reviews, the article shows that categories of virtue and vice were attributed not only to authors (characters), but also to their output (books), ideas (theories), and research habits. Epistemic virtues… Read More »Evaluating Knowledge, Evaluating Character: New Article by Sjang ten Hagen

Historical Vice Epistemology: History of Humanities Meets Vice Epistemology

Three team members presented papers on scholarly vices in a panel at The Making of the Humanities – the annual gathering of historians of the humanities, held online this year. Sjang ten Hagen showed how historians and physicists in nineteenth-century Germany accused philosophers of speculation, to the point of “othering” philosophers into an antitype of a properly empirically oriented scientist. Herman Paul drew attention to the now almost forgotten vice… Read More »Historical Vice Epistemology: History of Humanities Meets Vice Epistemology

Not in Print: Shaping Scholarly Selves in Informal Settings

by Kim Hajek In early September, Anne Por (PhD candidate) and Kim Hajek (postdoc) from the Scholarly Vices Team joined forces with Maarten Derksen (University of Groningen) for a conference panel exploring the virtues and norms that shape scholars interactions with their peers. The setting was the 41st annual meeting of the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences (ESHHS) held in Berlin at the Sigmund Freud PrivatUniversität.… Read More »Not in Print: Shaping Scholarly Selves in Informal Settings

What Kind of People Make Good Scientists? Scholarly Virtues at the ESHS Conference, Brussels.

by Kim Hajek Postdocs Sjang ten Hagen and Kim Hajek from the Scholarly Vices team raised this question to a filled room of participants at the conference of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS), held in Brussels from 7–10 September. The two co-presented their findings—developed together with project leader Herman Paul—on American scientists’ use of virtue-talk in the second half of the 20th century. If other historians… Read More »What Kind of People Make Good Scientists? Scholarly Virtues at the ESHS Conference, Brussels.