ABSTRACT The idea of expertise in early modern Europe has attracted significant attention from historians of science and technology in recent years. Some find the term useful in describing the rise of a productive and flexible combination of practical and theoretical knowledge, for which a contemporary word did not yet exist. Others criticize the term as a pernicious anachronism that not only distorts our understanding of the pre-modern past, but also serves to promote a neo-modernization theory of the history of early industrialization. The goal of this article is to ask whether an admittedly anachronistic term such as ‘expertise’ can be a useful and illuminating concept in studying early modern history; whether it can do so without warping our view of the past beyond recognition; and whether it can be decoupled from current versions of modernization theory and other whiggish historical notions.

中文翻译：

---

以任何其他名称命名：早期现代专业知识和时代错误问题

摘要 近年来，近代早期欧洲的专业知识理念引起了科学技术史学家的极大关注。一些人发现这个词在描述实践和理论知识的富有成效和灵活的结合的兴起时很有用，当时当时还没有一个词。其他人批评这个词是有害的时代错误，它不仅扭曲了我们对前现代过去的理解，而且有助于促进早期工业化历史的新现代化理论。这篇文章的目的是询问一个公认的不合时宜的术语，如“专长”，是否可以成为研究早期现代历史的有用和有启发性的概念？它是否可以在不扭曲我们对过去的认识的情况下做到这一点；