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Einstein, Evolution of Knowledge, and the Anthropocene: A Critical Reading of Jürgen Renn's Historiography

Weinstein, Galina (2025) Einstein, Evolution of Knowledge, and the Anthropocene: A Critical Reading of Jürgen Renn's Historiography. [Preprint]

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Abstract

This article offers a critical engagement with Jürgen Renn’s historiographical approach, with particular focus on "The Evolution of Knowledge" and "The Einsteinian Revolution" (co-authored with Hanoch Gutfreund). It explores how Renn reinterprets Albert Einstein’s contributions to modern physics, especially special and general relativity, not primarily as the product of individual insight, but as emergent from broader epistemic structures and long-term knowledge systems. The discussion centers on key concepts such as “challenging objects,” “epistemic matrices,” “mental models,” and “borderline problems,” and situates Renn’s framework within broader debates involving Thomas Kuhn, Ludwik Fleck, and Mara Beller. While recognizing the historiographical strengths of Renn’s structuralist approach, the article raises questions about its implications for understanding individual agency, conceptual creativity, and the philosophical dimensions of scientific change. The paper contends that a balanced account of scientific innovation must preserve both the historical embeddedness of knowledge and the originality of conceptual breakthroughs.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Weinstein, Galinagaliweinstein.mc2@gmail.com
Keywords: Einstein, Anthropocene, epistemic, borderline, Kuhn, Fleck, Beller, scaffold, longue-durée, Golem, Copernican, evolution, knowledge, collective, Dialogism, Lorentz, Mental, heuristic, equivalence, electrodynamics, mechanics, Entwurf, metric, Ricci, tensor, Galileo, Maxwell, Besso, Gestalt
Subjects: General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics
General Issues > Explanation
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
General Issues > Science and Society
General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science
General Issues > Structure of Theories
General Issues > Theory Change
General Issues > Thought Experiments
Depositing User: Dr. Galina Weinstein
Date Deposited: 07 May 2025 12:30
Last Modified: 07 May 2025 12:30
Item ID: 25248
Official URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03450
Subjects: General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics
General Issues > Explanation
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
General Issues > Science and Society
General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science
General Issues > Structure of Theories
General Issues > Theory Change
General Issues > Thought Experiments
Date: 5 May 2025
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25248

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