ABSTRACT
The new interest in the study of science in the last twenty years has given birth to different perspectives on the development of science. Generally these historical studies can be divided into ‘historical writing’ and ‘theoretical research on history’ (Lepenies 1977). The basic difference is that the former looks at history as a continuity and is written in a narrative form; theoretical research in history, on the other hand, tries to reconstruct different stages in history. While the former tries to present history ‘as it happened’, the latter claims that it is impossible to present everything in writing. However, there are many who have clearly used a narrative form stressing that theirs is only a partial picture and the whole is impossible to attain (e.g. Ricci 1984; Seidelman 1985). In that sense the difference is relative.
