[M-ZZ50] Studies of Geoscience : historical, philosophical and STS studies

[MZZ50-05] Mochizuki Katsumi and the Historiography of Geoscience: Considering the General Interest in the History of Science in the 1940s

*Toshihiro Yamada¹ (1.Taisho University)

Keywords:Mochizuki Katsumi, Historiography of Geoscience, General Interest in the History of Science, History of Geotectonics, 1940s

This paper examines the background for the historiography of geoscience of Mochizuki Katsumi (1905-1963), then Professor of Shizuoka Higher School, in his 1940s journals. First, he began to survey the history of geology, stimulated by an attempt of making dictionaries by the Society of History of Science, Japan, in 1943. The Society was established in 1941. Second, he studied the history of geotectonics, consulting such works as Karl Alfred von Zittel’s History of Geology and Palaeontology to promote his own study of geotectonics in Asia-Pacific. Third, after WW II, he summarized a Japanese history of geoscience from the collection of materials and notes for lectures, covering premodern periods until the first half of the twentieth century. The book was published in 1948 as Nihon chigaku-shi. There was a tremendous trend to utilize the history of science for both research and education, even in the field of geoscience.