Marshall Clagett

Historian of medieval science, author of Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Qualities and Motions (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Pr., 1968). Matters to this vault as the actual footnoted source behind Wikipedia's "Precursorism is considered to be a form of Whig history" classification sentence — a citation the vault's own claim-note had misattributed to James E. McClellan III until a 2026-10-04 cross-model audit traced the page's footnote markup directly and found it pointed at Clagett instead. Clagett's own quoted line — "No field of historical study seems so to dispose its adherents to find anachronistic forerunners and adumbrations as does the history of science" — supports Wikipedia's "special problem among historians of science" clause but does not itself use the word "Whig"; the Whiggism language is carried by McClellan's separate, neighbouring footnote.

References

• claim-precursorism-is-named-and-classified-as-a-form-of-whig-history — the claim-note whose classification sentence traces to Clagett 1968, per the 2026-10-04 correction appended to its audit_status
• claim-mcclellans-whiggism-precursoritis-quote-is-case-specific-to-teresi — distinguishes Clagett's footnote (the general classification) from McClellan's (the case-specific Whiggism diagnosis)
• entity-precursorism, entity-james-e-mcclellan-iii
• question-verify-mcclellan-2002-precursorism-whig-history-classification
• Captures: 2026-10-04-does-mcclellans-2002-science-review-itself-classify-precursorism