Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science ( MPIWG ) is a research institute of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (MPG) in Berlin- Dahlem and deals with an oriented on systematic issues and theoretically guided history of science. The Institute describes itself as "the world's largest research institute for the history of science ".
History
The institute was founded in 1994 with the aim to create an international science history of science in Germany. The Institute began its work in March 1994, with the establishment of an independent research group and an independent research group, the Institute completed its construction phase in 1999. As a founding director in 1994 and the science historian and philosopher Lorenz Krüger was provided which his reputation due to illness could not accept, and died in the fall of 1994.
Objects of the Institute
The Institute has three research departments:
- Structural Change in Systems of Knowledge,
- Ideals and Practices of Rationality,
- Experimental Systems and Spaces of Knowledge.
The research activities of the Institute focuses mainly, but not exclusively, on the development of scientific thinking, while the methodology is oriented cognitive and cultural studies. Contributions to the development of a " historical epistemology " are the common research goal of the three departments of the Institute.
The historical epistemology is concerned with the historical development and the technical, cultural and social conditions of scientific knowledge processes. On the basis of detailed studies of the history of individual sciences are fundamental concepts of scientific thinking as " number ", " force ", " exercise ", " field ", " gene ", " organism ", as well as central epistemological categories like "representation", " causality ", " experiment", "deduction ", " objectivity ", " determinism " and " probability " are reconstructed in their development.
The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science is also a leading role in European Cultural Heritage Online, a web site that is to become a digital collection of cultural heritage and at the same time is a research platform for the Humanities.
Publications
The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science published since 1994, the series " Preprints ", published in the preprints since then over 420 (as of end of 2012). Many of the preprints are available online. Furthermore, the Institute published every two years with the English " Research Reports " regular reports on the work done and the people involved.
Infrastructure
The Directors College at the Institute consists of Hans -Jörg Rheinberger, Lorraine Daston and Jürgen Renn. One of these directors acts alternately as an Executive Director.
The end of 2006 a total of 121 employees at the institute, including 42 scientists and 34 junior researchers; in addition there were 5 year externally funded and 53 guest researchers.