ABSTRACT
Major events in the long history of paradoxical sleep research, such as the crisis of the monoaminergic theory of sleep, as well as subsequent discoveries and theoretical functional hypotheses, are presented from an epistemological and a more general philosophical point of view.
Subject(s)
Philosophy , Serotonin/pharmacology , Sleep, REM/physiology , France , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , Male , ResearchABSTRACT
At the beginning of the First World War, the numbers of members from French speaking countries in German Academies and the number of members from German speaking countries in French Academies were roughly the same, and equally high. For instance the French Academy of Sciences had 23 members belonging to German speaking countries, of which 17 from Germany. The Berlin Academy of sciences had 16 members from French speaking countries, the Gbttingen Academy 18 members, and the Bavarian Academy 13. The Leopoldina had also a great number of French members, as a result of a long-lasting policy. These data show that the relationships between France and Germany in the fields of natural and human sciences were traditionally very well developed. However, these relationships were so damaged by the First World War that they could revive only slowly after the Second World War. The sometimes vivid discussions, which took place within several Academies of the Institut de France regarding the mea- sures to be taken in the field of scientific cooperation against the Central Powers, will be commented in this paper.
Subject(s)
Academies and Institutes/history , Internationality/history , France , Germany , History, 20th Century , Natural Science Disciplines/history , World War IABSTRACT
This paper is based on Canguilhem's text on the concept of scientific ideology, which he introduced in 1969. We describe Canguilhem's attempts at designing a methodological framework for the history of science including the status of kinds of knowledge related to science, like scientific ideologies preceding particular scientific domains (like ideologies about inheritance before Mendel, or Spencer's universal evolutionary laws preceding Darwin). This attempt at picturing the relationships between science and ideology is compared with Jürgen Habermas's book Technology and Science as 'Ideology' in 1968. The philosphical issue of human normativity provides the framework of this discussion.
Subject(s)
Historiography , Philosophy/history , Science/history , France , Germany , History, 20th Century , HumansABSTRACT
In 1666, the Paris Academy of Sciences was founded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert. This foundation had several political and scientific dimensions, which will be discussed in a synthetic way. The intellectual and scientific activity which took place in Paris in the first half of the seventeenth century will be presented from the point of view of its self-organization. The political intention and legitimation of this foundation will be discussed in the context of the interior and foreign policy of the French kingdom. The founding process, the structure, the beginnings and developments of academic activity, the progress of the institution in its definition and later structuration will be described. The belated birth, compared with similar institutions in Europe, will be commented.
Subject(s)
Academies and Institutes/history , Natural Science Disciplines/history , Politics , Science/history , History, 17th Century , ParisSubject(s)
Neurosciences/history , Female , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
Two aspects of psychology and physiology of time are dealt with in this paper: the way time perception was increasingly studied during the 19th century by scientists, including many physicists, and the way the temporal properties of the nervous system were discovered and explored by physiologists. The neurophysiological correlation between both aspects still remains to be explained. The relationship between time consciousness and consciousness mechanisms was often guessed by philosophers and looked for by scientists. It remains a major subject of investigation in neuroscience as well as a philosophical puzzle.
Subject(s)
Neurophysiology/history , Psychology/history , Animals , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans , Perception , TimeABSTRACT
Marey's works in cardiology are good examples of the author's position ahead of European physiology for the studies of movement. Since his first published works, and his thesis defended in 1859, until his book Le mouvement, in 1894, Marey never ceased to deal with the cardiovascular system. He is a pioneer in the recording of the pulse, in the mechanical simulation of heart and vessels properties, in the heart catheter, and in the building of artificial hearts and blood circulation systems. Biological physics allowed him to understand physiology and pathology.