How to Open Pandora’s Box: A Tractable Notion of the History of Knowledge

Abstract

At first sight, the concept “history of knowledge” may seem too unwieldy to be covered by any definition. After all, is there any human activity that cannot be seen as “knowledge”? We may try to open Pandora’s box more cautiously, however, so as to keep the history of knowledge tractable. Over and above the history of science, many would agree that the history of knowledge should include the history of other knowledge disciplines such as the humanities and the social sciences.1 A first tractable notion of the history of knowledge could thus correspond to the history of the (natural and social) sciences and the humanities taken together.