Suchergebnisse

Este artículo analiza cómo los historiadores de hoy saben que el conocimiento que producen no es más que una de las modalidades de la relación que las sociedades mantienen con el pasado. La memoria, sea colectiva o individual, las obras de ficción, al menos algunas de ellas, también remiten a una presencia al pasado; a veces de una manera más poderosa que la que establecen los libros de historia. A través del pensamiento de grandes autores como Paul Ricoeur y Michel de Certeau, entre otros, se efectúa un recorrido que permite identificar los parentescos narrativos o retóricos entre la ficción y la historia. Ello nos hace recordar que la especificidad de la historia, dentro de las ciencias sociales y humanas, es su capacidad de distinguir y articular los diferentes tiempos que resultan contemporáneos en cada momento histórico. En una época en que nuestra relación con el pasado está amenazada por la fuerte tentación de crear historias imaginadas o imaginarias, la reflexión sobre las condiciones que permiten sostener un discurso histórico –como una representación y una explicación adecuada de la realidad que fue– es fundamental y urgente.

Résumé
Cette note critique pose trois questions, formulées essentiellement à partir des deux premiers tomes de l'Histoire des sciences et des savoirs, entreprise dirigée par Dominique Pestre.Tout d'abord, elle examine les relations entre « sciences » et « savoirs ». Est-il possible de tracer une nette frontière entre les unes et les autres? Ou faut-il considérer les savoirs « scientifiques » (avec ou sans guillemets) comme une classe particulière de savoirs? Et, dans ce cas, doit-on les définir à partir d'un certain nombre d'opérations spécifiques? Ensuite, l'interrogation porte sur l'acceptation, la critique ou le refus de la définition classique de la « révolution scientifique », datée du XVIIe siècle et caractérisée par la rencontre entre la mathématisation de la nature et la pratique expérimentale. Faut-il lui substituer d'autres perspectives, qui portent l'attention sur les reconfigurations des champs de la connaissance ou sur la pluralité des révolutions? Enfin, est discutée l'attention portée aux histoires connectées des savoirs, qui rompent avec l'européocentrisme et introduisent de nouveaux acteurs. Mais ces circulations n'effacent pas l'asymétrie des échanges, les stigmatisations des savoirs indigènes ou l'imposition impérialiste de la science occidentale.

This review article poses three questions, essentially based on the first two volumes of Histoire des sciences et des savoirs, a collective undertaking edited by Dominique Pestre. First, it considers the relationships between "science" and "knowledge." Can a clear line be drawn between them? Or should "scientific" knowledge (with or without quotation marks) be considered a particular class of knowledge? And, if this is the case, must we define it according to a certain number of specific operations? Second, the article turns to the acceptance, criticism, or rejection of the traditional definition of the "scientific revolution," dated to the seventeenth century and characterized by the mathematization of nature and the introduction of experimental practices. Should this be replaced by other perspectives, highlighting previous reconfigurations of fields of knowledge or the plurality of "revolutions"? Finally, the article considers the attention paid to connected histories of knowledge, which move away from Eurocentricism and introduce new actors. Recognizing these circulations does not however efface the asymmetry of exchanges, the stigmatization of indigenous knowledge, or the imperialistic imposition of Western science.

Resumo: Este estudo da peça Vida do grande Dom Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança, de Antônio José da Silva liga três histórias: a história das adaptações teatrais da Segunda Parte de Dom Quixote, a história de uma prática teatral poucas vezes reconhecida, a do teatro de marionetes, situado entre o divertimento popular e a ópera, e a história de um dramaturgo, três vezes confrontado com a Inquisição e que viveu a dolorosa condição dos conversos às voltas com suas crenças íntimas e as permanentes suspeitas dos Inquisidores. O trágico destino de Antônio José da Silva oferece assim um caso limite para enfrentar a questão da relação entre as experiências de vida e as próprias obras.

The Order of Books was published in France in 1992 and translated into English in 1994. I have to confess that I had not reread it since, and perhaps I would have never read it again had I not been invited to do so for this exercise. The central aim of that book was to try to understand something of how in the period between the fourteenth and the eighteenth century the written word was classified, organized, and perceived by all the actors involved within the trajectory of the text, from authors to publishers and printers, from the printing shop to the library. I will begin by recounting some of the factors in my own intellectual life that I believe led up to that book, and go on to reflect on the arguments that I posited in 1992, in the hope of giving some account of the ways in which that earlier work might today be supplemented.