Moving away from the scientist as heroic genius: Twentieth-century historiography of science through the eyes of Reijer Hooykaas

I chronicle the changing ways in which, broadly speaking, twentieth-century historians of science have conceived of “heroes” in science. Firstly, I describe how the image of the genius scientist who unearthed certain, “positive” knowledge was discarded by the first generation of professional historians of science in the first half of the twentieth century. Secondly, I explain how subsequent contextualization waves from the 1960s onwards caused a further decrease of strongly positive evaluations of individual scientists in professional historiographical works. In order to both limit the scope as well as to provide specific examples, I use the work of Dutch historian of science Reijer Hooykaas as a looking glass through which to describe the broader developments in the historiography of science.