Abstract

The history of science is a highly promising field of inquiry for contemporary scholarship. Alexandre Koyré and Ernst Cassirer are among the major protagonists of the twentieth century and offer an interesting perspective in understanding the development of the history of science in relation to the history of philosophical ideas. The aim of this paper is to show several crucial aspects of both Koyré’s and Cassirer’s work, particularly concerning the role of Platonism in the rise of modern science and the concept of “scientific revolution” underlying their historical analysis. According to the author, it is nonetheless impossible to distinguish Koyré’s and Cassirer’s own reconstructions of modern science from their respective philosophical backgrounds, which belong to very different philosophical traditions such as Husserlian phenomenology and Marburg neo-Kantianism.