The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument: Historical Studies

In this volume, seven historians of science examine the historical creation and meaning of a range of scientific textual forms from the seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries. They consider examples from the fields of chemistry, medicine, physics, zoology, physiology, and mathematics, exposing the rich possibilities for a new, historically rooted approach to our scientific cultural heritage.

Peter Dear presents the case for "taking texts seriously"—asking historians of science to confr...