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| Boris Hessen | |
|---|---|
| Name | Boris Hessen |
| Birth date | 1893-10-07 |
| Birth place | Moscow, Russian Empire |
| Death date | 1936-09-16 |
| Death place | Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Fields | History of science, Philosophy of science |
| Institutions | Moscow State University, Kazan University, Institute of Red Professors |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University, Kazan University |
| Known for | "The Socio-Economic Roots of Newton's Principia" (1927) |
Boris Hessen was a Russian historian and philosopher of science whose 1927 paper linking the development of Isaac Newton's Principia to socio-economic factors sparked enduring debate across historiography, history of science, and Marxist theory. He worked at Moscow State University and contributed to Soviet discussions involving Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, and the Marxist historiography tradition while engaging with international scholars such as Joseph Needham, Peter Galison, and Thomas Kuhn. Hessen's arguments influenced scholarship in institutions including the British Museum, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and the Max Planck Society.
Born in Moscow in 1893, Hessen studied at Moscow State University before joining academic circles at Kazan University and the Institute of Red Professors. He encountered mentors and contemporaries from institutions such as Saint Petersburg University, Kharkiv University, and the University of Göttingen via exchanges with scholars affiliated with German Empire universities and émigré networks. His intellectual formation intersected with political currents tied to Russian Revolution of 1917, Bolshevik Party, and debates with figures from Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionary Party factions. Hessen participated in seminars alongside members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and his education reflected engagements with texts associated with Adam Smith, David Hume, René Descartes, and Galileo Galilei.
Hessen held posts at Moscow State University and lectured in institutions influenced by the People's Commissariat for Education and the Institute of Red Professors. His research addressed connections between scientific development and production relations, interacting with literature from Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute. He entered debates with historians and philosophers from France, Germany, United Kingdom, and United States including scholars such as Alexandre Koyré, Herbert Butterfield, Ernst Mach, and Alistair Crombie. Hessen contributed to journals read by members of All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and his work engaged with archival materials from institutions like the Royal Society, Royal Society Library, and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
In his 1927 essay delivered to the Second All-Union Conference of Research Workers in the History of Natural Science and later circulated in German and English translations, Hessen argued that Isaac Newton's Principia was shaped by the demands of navigation, ballistics, and the expansion of capitalism in early modern England. He linked Newtonian mechanics to institutional patrons such as the Royal Society, commercial interests including the East India Company, and state apparatuses like the British Admiralty and Board of Longitude. Hessen cited contemporaneous technological challenges faced by mariners and artillery officers and drew connections to work by Christiaan Huygens, Robert Hooke, Edmond Halley, and John Flamsteed. The paper provoked responses across networks involving Soviet Academy of Sciences, Cambridge University Press readers, and international conferences where participants included Joseph Needham, Alfred North Whitehead, Norbert Wiener, and Max Weber.
Following the notoriety of his 1927 paper, Hessen remained active in Soviet academic institutions including the Moscow State University physics and history faculties and associations tied to the People's Commissariat for Education. He came under political scrutiny amid purges affecting intellectuals tied to Trotskyists, Bukharinists, and other factions within the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Hessen's academic network encompassed contacts at the University of Leningrad, the Kazan University faculty, and researchers affiliated with the Lenin Institute. He died in Moscow in 1936; his death occurred in a period marked by upheavals related to the Great Purge and controversies surrounding scholars such as Pavel Florensky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn later documenting repression of intellectuals.
Hessen's essay inaugurated sustained scholarship linking science to social and economic contexts, influencing Marxist historiography, social history of science, and non-Marxist accounts including work by Thomas Kuhn, David Bloor, and Philip Kitcher. Debates invoked comparative studies involving China and India by scholars like Joseph Needham, discussions at University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, and critiques from historians such as Alexandre Koyré and Herbert Butterfield. His work informed analyses of institutions including the Royal Society, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, British Admiralty, and East India Company and affected historiographical approaches in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. Contemporary studies in the history of technology, economic history, and science and technology studies cite Hessen alongside figures like Robert Merton, E. A. Burtt, Simon Schaffer, and Lynn White Jr.; conferences at organizations such as the History of Science Society and publications from Cambridge University Press perpetuate his influence. Hessen's legacy remains contested in literature addressing the interplay among scientific practice, patronage, and socio-economic structures in early modern Europe and beyond.
Category:1893 births Category:1936 deaths Category:Historians of science Category:Soviet philosophers