Three views of the renaissance of science

pp. 300-320

in: Joseph Agassi, Science and society, Berlin, Springer, 1981

Abstract

The Renaissance of culture has been seen as (A) an abrupt change, (B) continuous development, or (C) a rather abrupt, but not entirely discontinuous, process. Historians of culture used to accept the first, radicalist view (A), and now they generally accept the third, semi-radicalist view (C). The second, conservative view (B) was always unpopular, and defended by lovers of the Middle Ages, romantic or dogmatic; most of these few "mediaevalists' were apologists and thus not very considerable scholars; only a handful of them are to be considered as serious, and even great, historians of culture.