The Social Background of Classical Science

In the Age of Reason—the inductivist era—practically all researchers were amateurs whose interest in discovery was motivated by curiosity and by the love of truth, often also by the love of fame, but by no financial interest. This fact is overlooked by the relevant literature that often proposes the opposite impression; so much so that Thomas S. Kuhn declared the typical twentieth-century scientist as the paradigm, thus implying that all researchers were always professional. They were not. They acted in an international organization centered round national and local societies and academies, with no ties to universities. The traditions and customs of this set of organizations were intentionally fitted for the purpose of recruiting all possible amateurs and directing them to be self-trained researchers. The organizations were open and their members eager to recruit.