Fleck:

The Forgotten Ancestor

Abstract

On at least two occasions, Thomas Kuhn referred to Ludwik Fleck. He did it in the Preface to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and years later in the introduction to the English translation of Fleck’s work. On the first occasion, he states that Fleck “anticipated many of my own ideas”, but he did not specify which. On the second occasion – although much more specific – he is still not very abundant. If we read Fleck’s work, we will notice that this influence is greater than we expect from these two quotations. In this article, I intend to rescue the historical memory of Fleck’s conception of scientific knowledge. Fleck influenced not only Kuhn, but also a vast current that thinks that science does not consist of isolated theories, but of structures that evolve over long historical periods, termed paradigms, research programs, traditions, Gestalten, or structures. After synthesizing the main points of Fleck epistemology, I will reconstruct his thought collective, considering – in a circular argument – he had a philosophical environment in which he developed his research,  a community that guided it.