Ludwik Fleck
Ludwik Fleck | |
|---|---|
לודוויק פלק | |
| Born | 11 July 1896 |
| Died | 5 June 1961 (aged 64) Ness Ziona, Israel |
| Nationality | Polish and Israeli |
| Known for | Contributions to logology Denkstil ("thought style") Denkkollektiv (thought collective) Incommensurability (niewspółmierność) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Jan Kazimierz University |
| Influences | Rudolf Weigl |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| Notable works | Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (in German, 1935; in English, 1979) |
| Influenced | Thomas Kuhn Michel Foucault |
Ludwik Fleck (Polish pronunciation: [lud.vik flɛk], Hebrew: לודוויק פלק; 11 July 1896 – 5 June 1961) was a Polish, Jewish, and Israeli physician and biologist who did important work in epidemic typhus in Lwów, Poland, with Rudolf Weigl and in the 1930s developed the concepts of "Denkstil" ("thought style") and "Denkkollektiv" ("thought collective").
Fleck's concept of "thought collective" is important in the philosophy of science and in logology (the "science of science"), helping explain how scientific ideas change over time, much as in Thomas Kuhn's later notion of "paradigm shift" (on Fleck's possible influence on Kuhn, see Jarnicki and Greif) and in Michel Foucault's concept of "episteme".
Fleck's account of the development of facts at the intersection of active elements of a thought collective and the passive resistances of nature provides a way of considering the culture of modern science as evolutionary and evidence-oriented.