Research Program on the History of the Max Planck Society, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany.
Departments of Community Health Sciences and History, The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
J Hist Neurosci. 2023 Apr-Jun;32(2):71-80. doi: 10.1080/0964704X.2023.2179779. Epub 2023 Mar 22.
To further our understanding of the transformations of the modern, globalized world, historical research concerning the twentieth century must acknowledge the tremendous impact that science and technology exerted and continue to exert on political, economic, military, and social developments. To better comprehend a global history of science, it is also crucial to include Germany's most prominent research organization: The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (MPG). Despite the existence of numerous institute chronicles and selected anniversary editions, the overall development of the MPG-historically situated in more than 80 institutes with more than 250 research service departments (of which approximately 50 have reached into the wider field of neuroscience, behavioral science, and cognitive science)-it remains largely from a scholarly perspective. From June 2014 to December 2022, the Research Program on the History of the Max Planck Society (GMPG) opened previously neglected vistas on contemporary history, academic politics, and economic developments of the Federal Republic of Germany and its international relations by raising questions such as these: Who were the key scientific actors? In what networks did they work? In what fields had the MPG paved the way for cutting-edge innovations? What were its successes and where did it fail? In what ways were its institutional structures connected to its scientific achievements and its historical legacies? What is specific about the MPG in comparison to other national institutions in and outside of Germany? These questions relate to the emerging interdisciplinary field of the neurosciences. They refer in part to the MPG's founding years-from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s-which faced significant challenges for a "normalization process" in biomedical research and the burgeoning field of neuroscience. This special issue of the is composed of an introduction, five articles, and two neuroscience history interviews. It reflects on the multifold dimensions of behavioral psychology, brain research, and cognitive science developments at the MPG since its beginning through the reopening of several former Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. After World War II, the extra-university research society-named in honor of physicist Max Planck (1858-1947)-was eventually established in the British Occupation Zone in 1946, in the American Zone in 1948, and in 1949 in the French Zone, unifying the MPG as the successor umbrella organization of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes (KWIs), now transformed into Max Planck Institutes. Chronologically, the research period covered in this special issue ranges from 1948 to 2002.
为了进一步了解现代全球化世界的变革，有关 20 世纪的历史研究必须承认科学和技术对政治、经济、军事和社会发展产生的巨大影响。为了更好地理解全球科学史，还必须包括德国最著名的研究机构：马克斯·普朗克学会促进科学（MPG）。尽管有许多研究所编年史和精选的周年纪念版，但 MPG 的整体发展——历史上分布在 80 多个研究所和 250 多个研究服务部门（其中约 50 个已经涉足神经科学、行为科学和认知科学领域）——在很大程度上仍然是从学术角度出发的。从 2014 年 6 月到 2022 年 12 月，马克斯·普朗克学会历史研究计划（GMPG）通过提出以下问题，为当代历史、学术政治和联邦德国及其国际关系的经济发展开辟了以前被忽视的视角：谁是关键的科学行为者？他们在哪些网络中工作？MPG 在哪些领域为前沿创新铺平了道路？它的成功在哪里，失败在哪里？它的制度结构与科学成就及其历史遗产有何联系？与德国国内外的其他国家机构相比，MPG 有什么特点？这些问题涉及到新兴的神经科学跨学科领域。它们部分涉及 MPG 的成立年份——从 20 世纪 40 年代末到 60 年代中期——当时生物医学研究和新兴的神经科学领域面临着重大的“正常化过程”挑战。本期的特别问题由一篇引言、五篇文章和两个神经科学历史访谈组成。它反映了自成立以来，MPG 在行为心理学、大脑研究和认知科学发展方面的多方面维度，直到几个前凯撒威廉研究所重新开放。第二次世界大战后，这个非大学研究协会——以物理学家马克斯·普朗克（1858-1947）的名字命名——最终于 1946 年在英国占领区、1948 年在美占区、1949 年在法占区成立，将 MPG 作为凯撒威廉研究所（KWIs）的后继伞形组织统一起来，现在这些研究所已转变为马克斯·普朗克研究所。从时间上看，本期特别问题所涵盖的研究期从 1948 年到 2002 年。
