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biography; epistemology; Ludwik Fleck; Research in Science Education.
In this Thesis, we aim to investigate the dialogicity between the biographical genre
and the epistemology of Ludwik Fleck (1896–1961). We answer the following
question: How can we write about the life trajectories of individuals who make or
made science in a way that is pertinent to the field of Science Education Research?
Initially, we seek to understand both the limitations and the potential of biography
through sometimes synchronic and sometimes diachronic readings of the academic
establishment, placing the biography in suspicion since the beginning of the 20th
century, based on the English tradition. Next, we aim to learn about and compare
records on the writing of Brazilian biographers-journalists who wrote recent books
containing empirical and methodological aspects for biographical research. In
addition, we analyze research in the History of Science and Science Education that
reflects on the biographical genre and its writing through what Ludwik Fleck (1896–
1961) called journal science. Finally, we explore the Fleckian primary sources in
epistemology and articulate them with the biographical perspective in order to
support the field of Science Education Research with an open way of investigation of
the human dynamism that we perceive to exist in the processes of knowledge
construction. The dialogicity that exists between biography and epistemology makes
biographical investigation even more complex, since it implies situating the subject of
the biography in relation to thought collectives and styles, sometimes in esoteric
circles, sometimes in exoteric circles, sometimes as an agent of intracollective
circulation of ideas, sometimes as an agent of intercollective circulation of ideas,
sometimes more and sometimes less conditioned by coercions in these collectives.