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|Major Contributions=The way the work of George Sarton has influenced views of scientific change mainly involve the way scientific change is conceptualized in its essential elements and the general patterns that scientific change embodies. These are succinctly encapsulated in the “three principles” Sarton lays out in one of his main philosophical works, “The New Humanism”:
(1. ) Human Knowledge is essentially a function of the advance of positive knowledge[[CiteRef::Sarton (1924)|p. 9]].(2. ) The progress of each branch of science is essentially a function of the progress of all other branches. – This second principle expresses the unity of knowledge[[CiteRef::Sarton (1924)|p. 10]].(3. ) The progress of science is not due to the isolated efforts of a single people but the combined efforts of all peoples. – This third principle expresses the essential unity of mankind[[CiteRef:: Sarton (1924)|p. 11]].
The way that these principles are in general related to the views of scientific change Sarton held throughout his life are described below.
In total, one can see Sarton as occupying a middling place in the eventual distinctions that would become central in the history and philosophy of science as the century wore on: those between micro and macro-histories, those between rational, methodological reconstruction and an appreciation for the diversity of scientific practices, and the focus on the socio-cultural versus the rational forces behind scientific change and knowledge. This should not be surprising, however, for it reflects the central thrust of Sarton’s entire body of work: His wish to develop a “new humanism”, based on the unity of knowledge and cultural experience, reflecting the unity of mankind, and the broader unity of nature[[CiteRef::Cohen (1957)|p. 295]]. This idealist project, in the eyes of more contemporary historians, is appreciatively, though honestly, acknowledged to have been impossible within the context of the history of science[[CiteRef::Dear (2009)|p. 92]].
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