The reception of Hessen’s famous essay titled The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia has undergone various stages or, to put it in Bourdieu’s terms, labeling processes (marcature) through which Hessen himself has come to be regarded as a precursor !gure in a wide range of debates. Readers of his work have o"ered a variety of interpretations of it based on their speci!c positions within these debates. In the following pages, I will outline the various phases of the circulation of Hessen’s theses from the 1930s to the present day.