Dr André Berge : médecin et psychanalyste, est directeur médical du Centre psycho-pédagogique Claude Bernard. Les données traditionnelles, toutes les valeurs, tous les principes sont discutés et sans cesse remis en cause. Et pourtant, personne ne saurait échapper à la nécessité d’adopter dans l’existence une ligne de conduite — c’est-à-dire une morale — sous peine de sombrer dans l’incohérence. Mais l’homme, s’il a besoin d’une morale, n’en est pas moins enclin à l’utiliser pour s’écraser lui-même et tend parfois à transformer (...) cet instrument en une arme qu’il lui arrive de retourner contre sa propre personne. C’est cela qu’il s’agit d’empêcher. Ce que veut établir cet ouvrage, ce sont les bases d’une morale psychologique tendant à remédier au désarroi des esprits et à contribuer à l’avènement d’un nouvel humanisme. (shrink)

These three books illustrate some key themes in the history of science and the history of microscopy. First is a new enthusiasm among some historians and philosophers of science to embrace the history of microscopy as an area worthy of study, a recognized area of investigation for the historian and philosopher of science. In so doing these historians have redefined the subject area from the more traditional and much researched history of microscopes, with its emphasis on the technical, to a (...) consideration of the community of practitioners of microscopy and the theoretical contexts in which they carried out their studies. They have attempted to view the practice of microscopy and its practitioners within a conceptual, philosophical, and social context. They have by no means excluded technical considerations, but have argued that those alone can explain neither the rise, flourishing, and apparent decline of microscopy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, nor its resurgence in the nineteenth century. Rather, they have argued that an analysis of microscopy must include social and conceptual considerations in addition to the technical. With these three books we have moved at last from the history of microscopes to the history of microscopy, within the context of the history and philosophy of science. The history of microscopy can now take its place within the larger inter-disciplines of HPS and STS. (shrink)