[Revised entry by Wojciech Sady on December 18, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
In the 1930s, Ludwik Fleck (1896 – 1961), a Polish-Jewish microbiologist, developed the first system of the historical philosophy and sociology of science. Fleck claimed that cognition is a collective activity, since it is only possible on the basis of a certain body of knowledge acquired from other people. When people begin to exchange ideas, a thought collective arises, bonded by a specific mood, and as a result of a series of understandings and misunderstandings a peculiar thought style…

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