This paper discusses the intellectual justification of scientometrics through the claim that it is part of the quest for a quantitative science of science. Initially, I will make a brief description of scientometrics' historical background. Next, I will explain that those disciplines that have been satisfactorily mathematized always contain two distinct basic components: an axiomatic, defining the operations that can be realized with the available data, and an interpretation of their meaning. Counting papers and citations is a way to collect statistical data about scientific activities, and therefore the axiomatic basis of scientometrics comes from statistics. Regarding the interpretation of scientometrics, I will argue that the meanings attributed to their key concepts are usually borrowed from economics. Then I discuss how the promise of a science of science becomes a too well adjusted historical narrative that apparently justifies the economic concerns of governments and private corporations.

O darwinismo desempenha um papel central na psicologia jamesiana. Com efeito, os conceitos de variação e seleção fornecem uma maneira de escapar tanto do determinismo fisiológico quanto do determinismo sociológico. Ademais, o darwinismo permite a James mostrar a função e a eficácia causal da consciência na evolução dos seres humanos. Este trabalho pretende, por meio de uma análise histórico-conceitual, discutir tais questões que informam a primeira psicologia científica feita nos Estados Unidos.

Darwinism plays a major role in jamesian psychology. In fact, the concepts of variation and selection provide a way to escape from both physiological and sociological determinism. Moreover, Darwinism allows James to show the function and the causal efficacy of consciousness in the evolution of human beings. By means of an historical and conceptual analysis, we discuss these questions which inform the first scientific psychology developed in the United States.