ABSTRACT
The first and major obstacle standing in our way and hindering us from discovering what kind of thing that science is of which we want to write the history, is the apparent specialness of science. For if science is different in kind and quality from all other subjects, from all other pursuits, and from all other truths, then presumably different criteria would apply to the writing of its history than the historian would apply elsewhere. If the practice of science really is an intentional activity then some most important consequences follow, with respect both to the activity of people in the past and to our practice as historians of science today. In the first place, people in the past could only have intended to engage in science if they had the concept of science as an activity they could engage in. People can only intend to do what they know, what they have a concept of.
