Piama Pavlovna Gaidenko as Historian of Science

Abstract

During her early career Piama Gaidenko was a subtle and erudite interpreter of 19th century German philosophy, primarily of Fichte. Her turn to philosophy and the history of science occurred rather by chance, when in 1969 she became a staff member of the Institute of the History of Science and Technology. Still became one of the leading historians of scientific thought, displaying high stan­dards of skill and professionalism to succeeding generations. P.P. Gaidenko is es­pecially remembered for her works on philosophical and scientific programs of Antiquity and Modernity. Since the 1990s she has also been actively address­ing the topic of religious – primarily Christian – premises for the development of scientific thought. Her work is an example of a philosophical (or conceptual) history of science that looks not at the social and material conditions for the de­velopment of scientific practice, but at the general ideas about matter, motion, and the methods of their knowledge incorporated into scientific theories. Often, within this approach, the researcher uses historical material to illustrate general theses about the course of scientific progress. We will consider the application of this approach on the example of P.P. Gaidenko’s works on the formation of the modern science.