Latour - Social Studies of Science in France

A Booming Discipline Short of Discipline: (Social) Studies of Science in France Author(s): Geof Bowker and Bruno Latour Source:
Social Studies of Science, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Nov., 1987), pp. 715-748 Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/285168 Accessed: 01/04/2010 11:06
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COUNTRY COMMENTARY
* ABSTRACT
This commentary surveys some of the work currently in train in France that reflects on science - its history, its intellectual foundations and its impact. It attempts to impart some coherence to its map of this field, and to correct several Anglo-Saxon misunderstandings regarding the nature of this intellectual activity. It ends with an analysis of the origins of the radical differences in the approach to science in France and in the Anglo-Saxon world, and a plea for more attention to the French work.
A Booming Discipline Short of Discipline: (Social) Studies of Science in France Geof Bowkerand BrunoLatour
On the one hand, France gives the impressionof being a boomingfield as far as reflectionson science, on history,its intellectual foundations and its impactare concerned. Many new collections on science and society areappearing in bookstores,new graduate arebeing set up in programmes several universities, new researchgroups are startingup in engineering schools, in universities, in governmentinstitutions,in museums of art or technology - all more or less concernedwith coming to grips with the new technology and thus helping France adaptto the 'white heat of technology', or to the new buzz notionof 'culturetechnique'('technical culture'or 'technicalliteracy'). On the otherhand, if we look for a welldefined field of scholarshipin some vague way akin to what English or American academics call 'social studies of science' or 'Science, Technology and Society' (STS), the situationis entirelydifferent:there are very few professionals, very few groups, few libraries, very few journals,1 no curricula. We could have writtena countryreportthatwould have focused only on what Anglo-Saxons2choose to call STS. It would have been a sad,
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Social Studies of Science
bleak report.In this paperwe have chosen to define the Frenchthrough French categories and notions, and to help the Anglo-Saxonschart for that seem to make the themselves a few of the basic misunderstandings Channel as vast as the Pacific. This application of the principle of symmetrywill not surprisereadersof Social Studiesof Science. We must admit, however, that we both found it immensely difficult to force ourselvesaway from our first prejudicesand to presentthe Frenchscene according to its own categories. If French or English readers feel the text bears traces of a struggleto overcome bias and that full objectivity has not been achieved, they are absolutely right! Two Definitions of Scholarly History of Science we will treat has to do with what the two The first misunderstanding sides of the Channelconsider respectableand properhistoryof science. One example will be enough to indicate the extent of the difficulties. 'C'est tout melange' ('It's all mixed up') said the editor of a leading Frenchpublishinghouse. Picturea rogue word processingpackagethat takes two texts, one an internalhistory of physics and the other on the history of the communityof physicists, and randomlypastes sentences from the one into paragraphsof the second. The resultanttext would be not withoutinterest,butwould readvery strangely.The editorthought he had such a text on his hands when a translationof Daniel Kevles's study ThePhysicists3was submittedfor consideration.From within the Anglo-Saxontraditionthis work is as neutralas can be on debatesabout the social constructionof scientific thought:it chooses a language for, and unity in, its subject such that the issue does not really arise. Yet withinthe Frenchcommunityin generalthe work shocksbecauseit does not pose a 'rupture'(this word will recur)between communityand content, but displays a continuitybetween the two. If rationalityis ignored, then a work of history seems absurdto the French;if society is ignored, it seems absurd to the Anglo-Saxon. relates to the definition of what it is to A second misunderstanding do critical work. For most readers within the Anglo-Saxon tradition, the editor's sense of shock is hardto understand,even paradoxical.We are used to French intellectualsappearingin the wings (when they do of existingorder:from Sartreandde Beauvoir as radicaltroublers appear) to Derridaand Baudrillard, Foucault and Althusser they engage through in a moral and political discourse that denies the neutrality of the most harmless phrase and sees power plays in the slightest gesture.
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Yet when science appears,these iconoclastic figureheadsgatherbehind its banner.In the course of this paperwe will see the most sociologizing of sociologists (PierreBourdieu)and the most historicizingof historical schools (the Annalists)define science as somethingsomehowapartfrom society and history. Thus if we tried to produce an article on the field of the social study of science as definedby Anglo-Saxons,we would immediately find much to surprise: it 'should' be booming, and attachedto critical sociology and philosophy; it is languishing, and attachedto positivism. History and Sociology Present on the One Side and Absent from the Other The basic misunderstanding between the two traditionsis that the two main disciplines which have contributedabroadto the boom in social studies of science are entirely absent in France. Thus we can considerthe case of one of France's leading sociologists - Pierre Bourdieu, a major figure within the world sociological community and the author of a classic article on the 'scientific field'.4 Bourdieu's great contributionin this domain has been the concept of 'symbolic capital', which he uses to analyze knowledge productionas a special case of capitalist production.5Seen in this light, knowledge can be takenas subjectto the same play betweenthe dominaproduction tors and the dominatedas permeatesthe productionand distributionof other commodities. Thus we are well away from Merton's scientific community:'knowledge', which may or may not be rational,is wielded as a weapon, hoarded like a treasure, or re-invested like capital. Bourdieu has developed this analysis, which throws into doubt the existence of any rationaldisinterested community,in variousways. One is that he has turnedit to classical questions of linguistics to attackthe Saussureanideal of an asocial language: all language use for him is integrallyconcerned with the play of power relations.6All statements are to some extentperformatives; they denote social class and command submission or recognize domination. It is impossible to abstractthis elementfromanalysisof syntax.Indeedhe launchesa severe performative in general for ignoringthe social dimension critiqueof the structuralists of language. Where the idea of symbolic capital might include the production of chunks of neutral knowledge, this development sees Bourdieuclearly moving in a directionof the impossibilityof neutrality. Another axis of his development, the study of the academic field as a
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Bourdieupours whole, seems to confirmthis trend.In HomoAcademicus scornupona new kindof academicanimal,no longer fully lodged within the university, who belongs to clubs where 'the most intellectual of of intellectualsexchangetheirvisions managersandthe most managerial of the world', or to commissions where 'researchersof administration of research gather together to decree the future of and administrators science... '.7 ThroughoutBourdieu's book academics are analyzed as successful or unsuccessfulpower brokers, and the form and content of their analysis is shown to be at the service of this quest for power. Bourdieutakes a neutralfield like linguistics and discovers society, or a neutralsocial communitylike academiaand discovers social determinationof the contentof work produced.Whathappenswhen he takes an ideologically charged field like social science, or a communitylike that of sociologists? He discovers truth. To understandthis paradox the Anglo-Saxon reader must understandthat, for Bourdieu, the term 'sociology of social science' meansepistemology.Perhapssociology will never be fully neutral,but by looking at the sociology of sociology, one can get very close to escaping 'the historical circle' and 'patternsof can domination'.8This is his view today; its theoreticalunderpinnings be seen in a collection of texts published some twenty-five years ago, currently in its fourth (essentially unchanged) edition: Questions de by a proliferation sociologie.9 The sociology of knowledgeis represented and Canguilhem,spicedwith KoyreandDuhem; of texts from Bachelard all of these figures, as we shall see, are ultimatelymore concernedwith the epistemological status of science than with its historicallocation.10 Bourdieu is more likely to follow Canguilhemand give an externalist critiqueof externalism('a weakened, or ratherimpoverishedMarxism which is developed in rich societies')"l than to give an externalist critiqueof knowledge. Indeed, his interestin the sociology of sociology reflects this will for sociologists to achieve neutralitythroughreflexive considerationof their own theories. AlthoughBourdieu's analysis is extremely useful to the sociology of science in general, what lies immediatelybehind his attitudesis a conviction thatwhat he is doing is science. Thus when one of us questioned him aboutthe sociology of science, he had the distinct impressionthat he was being answeredby remarksaboutthe science of sociology. We boththe sociology andthe history will see thatthis resultis generalizable: of science are at the service of epistemology.'2 At the last moment, an obscure twist in the fabric of his analysis has preventedBourdieufrom doing a fully fledged sociology of science. The next step is to survey the historical scene, and to look to the most
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historicizing of historians:the Annalists. These scholars have revolutionized the craft of history, developing at the same time new objects of analysis and new tools to study them with. The Annalists are not physically housed in a school, nor do they necessarily consider themselves as developing a homogeneous set of ideas. Jacques Le Goff, one of their leading representativestoday, prefersto talk of the 'spirit' of the Annales, arguingthatthey were only really unified from 1929 to 1939, when externalattacksforced internal cohesion. Since the deathof FernandBraudelin 1985, he stresses, there is no recognizable leader.13There is, however, a continuing struggle against traditionalhistory, and a powerful review which furthersthe cause. Two originatorsand leading lights of the Annalists, Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, wrote aboutthe history of science and technology. Bloch produceda history of windmills which sparkedthe debate about the 'first' industrial revolution.'4 Febvre wrote articles in which he madea ferventappealfor workin the field; one suchcall ringstruetoday: 'The historyof science is done, when it is done, either by philosophers, and this is not without causing problems...; or by scientists: but they are no more historiansthan the philosophers... 15Historiansof technology whom we interviewed recalled Febvre's influence for starting themon theirway, but saidthatthe Annaliststhemselveshadneverreally come good on their pledge to be interestedin this history. Le Goff, for the Annalists, reversed the charge: the problem was that historiansof technology did not do enough training in history. One way to characterizethe Annales school is by its sensitivity to of time. Theirhistorians have servedin Franceto free history perceptions fromthe impatient cadenceof politicalnarrative, whereeventsare a daily occurrence. They prove willing to go to the other end of the spectrum, doing, for example, the history of a glacier when looking at the slow rhythmsof change in the relationshipbetween the communityand its physical environment.Steppingup the rhythmslightly, they look at the slow, steady, continuouschangeof social history. Finally, they re-insert political history into these contexts. From Le Goff to Furet to Le RoyLadurie'6they have producedfascinatingmeditationson the natureof historicaltime. The school has been most prolix in producingworks of social history, and to this end they have pioneered the introductionof statistical analysisinto qualitative history. In recentyears, since the early 1970s, they have done somethingof an about-face,becomingmuchmore concernedwith the historicalstructureof the imagination.17 JacquesLe Goff's brilliant The Birth of Purgatory typifies this trend;18it does everythingthatcould be askedof a social historyof sciencebutdoes it for
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a chapterin the history of Christianity.The Annalistshave historicized many things which never had a history before. Tears, odour, death, glaciers are all historicized. But not science. As was the case with Bourdieu, our reader runs up against an impenetrablewall. There are a few points to make about the Annalists here. Firstly, their historicaltechniquestake a long time to assimilate.Le Goff, rather coyly, says that 'they have not made history a science... and yet that they do use scientific methods'. Secondly, it follows that for them the status of science is not really open to question: for this would cause them to question their own legitimacy. Thus Canguilhemappearedto Le Goff to be an ideal historianof science: he worked at the interface of epistemology, philosophy and history.19Again, we find this idea that we found with Bourdieu: science being what it is, the history of science has a separatestatus. To historicize science would entail a risk of relativizing the Annalists. Febvre, proponentof total history, lets slip this special status: 'Science is of its essence universal, independent of frontiersand nationalities.However, it would not be vain to follow its development in a particular country.'20 Nor, one would like to add, to look at how science has createda world in which it is universally valid. There is perhaps an overarching reason that makes the Annalists coy in their dealings with science.21 Although the Annalist school is hauntedby the problematicof Marxism, they are never militant about it. They retain throughouttheir work a sort of 'wary Marxism': thus in termsof infrastructures appearance they explain most superstructural But what sort of superstructures? and 'longue duree' ('long duration'). wariness. show their This is where they They work only in terms of as it were: soft superstructures mentalities, popularbeliefs, sometimes their most at daring, medicine and hygiene. Were parasciences or, to choose between one thing and have would science to they they study the other: their Marxismor their timidity. By steering well clear of the hard sciences, they ensure that they will never have to make such a terriblechoice. Since the people who in Francecall themselveshistorians of science are mainly epistemologists, they never have to confront the issue head one. They operate within a tacit division of labour with epistemologytakingon the hardsciences andwary Marxismdealingwith the rest of society.22 In France, then, both total sociology and total history leave science totally alone. As we shall see below, however, both the Annalists and Bourdieu, along with other workers in the field of social science, do offer highly suggestive new ways of looking at society and at discourse.
Bowker & Latour:France CountryCommentary: Shunting Anti-Empiricism Towards Society or Towards Theory
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To locate the positive features of the field we will have to discuss a wider field - one thatspans social studies of technology, social history (particularlythose works concerned with the history of 'mentalities'), the economics of researchand development,and anthropology(insofar as this approachesthe anthropologyof science). The pessimistic readercould say thatwe have hadto cast our net wide in order to find any social studies of science in France. This is not the case. The source of most misunderstandings between the two traditions comes from a socio-intellectual factor: there are no disciplines nor professions as such in France. As Michael Pollack warned us:
If you look for the discipline of social studies of science, or for that matterof any in Anglo-Saxon boundaries as these are constituted disciplinedefinedalong professional countries,you will not find it. This is not because the Frenchdo not do any interesting work, but because they divide the world up differently.23
we are And, while being acutely aware of the dangersof culturalism,24 of aware the institutional and differences between equally epistemological the academic scene in France and in, say, America. Mostof the positionsheld in academia in Franceare moreor less secure from evaluation(negative or positive) of peers. Thus it is possible for French academics largely to ignore pressure from their peers. It is possible to make a careerwithoutreadingany othercolleagues, without havingany students- this may sound negative, but it also entails being able to escape others' researchprogrammesand agendas for the field, which is a very positive feature. The result of this unique situationis to offer complete, independenttotalizing works each of which is as an of all possibleproblemsconnectedwith island, a completereformulation the subject.Anglo-Saxonsconsistentlyignorethis basic fact becausethey believe that France is highly centralized and that the Latin Quarter dominatesthe country.They always miss the dispersednatureof French intellectual life, and the unique opportunitytherein of developing in relativeisolationworks thatare incommensurable one with another.This makes the task of writing a countryreportstill more difficult: the main characteristic of the Frenchscene is the richnessof independent works, which cannot be grouped into schools or trends. The problemis not one of reviewingschools and researchprogrammes with studentsand graduates,but of presentingpersonalitieswho have producedautonomousworks. Reviewing all of the main figures would
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have been an endless task and still would not have done justice to the importanceof the work produced. Following our Ariadne's threadwe have chosen to review only the partsof those works that illustratebasic ways in which we think that the French and the Anglo-Saxons are at cross-purposes:how what we think they do and what they think we do has little to do with what either does. Duhem is a good example of the two traditions talking at crosspurposes.25Known in the English-speakingworld for being half of the Quine/Duhem hypothesis,PierreDuhemis takenin Franceas the founder of the anti-empiricist thatfacts are neverenough. FromDuhem argument (early 1900s) on, we can take this argumentto have won the day. But a major difference should be stressed here: in England Quine/Duhem was brandishedin the 1970s as a proof that we must turn to society;26 whereas in France Duhem's argumenthas been taken as a proof of the need to turn to theory (or to philosophy, in Koyre's case). In general, though, Duhem has not had a very wide institutionalinfluence. He was persecutedall his life for his right-wingCatholicviews; and stayed isolated in Bordeaux(whereasParisis arguablythe only possible power base for academics).27He concentratedon the history of science in the Middle Ages; but his most importantcontributionwas surely his forging of a link between the practice of physics and the study of its history. talkat cross-purposes is stillbetterillustrated The way the two traditions have with Alexandre what both done Koyre.28 Koyre is, with by with most associated the study of science in the person Canguilhem, France, and he is perhapsthe best-known French historianof science abroad. The key to his work is the association made therein between philosophy,theologyandtheory.Thiscomesto theforein a worklikeFrom where conflicting scientific the Closed Worldto the Infinite Universe,29 coherentconflictingphilosophies.As was theoriesareseen as representing the case with Duhem, Koyretotallyrejectedthe idea thatfactshave much to do with science, especiallyat thetime of the scientificrevolution.Thus, as partof the unanimousFrenchcritiqueof empiricism,he puts 'theory' endears atthe originof scientificity.Evenmore, in a move thatparticularly him to French academics, he shows that philosophy has been a very culture.Thus,in an analysis thanmaterial influential factor,muchstronger severely criticizedby StillmanDrake, he uncoveredGalileo's Platonism: this analysis was partly inspiredby the desire to produce a critique of Marxist attemptsto link the Galilean revolution with materialculture. of Frenchhistorians a generation againstsocialexplanaKoyrevaccinated tions of science: by makingthem acceptthe influenceof philosophyand
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theologyon science, he preventedinfectionfromthe influenceof society. If Koyreis seen in Englandas someonewho shows the influenceof extrascientific factors on the inner workings of science, this is far from the case in France.His devastating remains critiqueof any social explanation a common referencepoint. The influence of philosophydoes not shunt his work towards anthropologybut towards a sort of transcendental history. Koyre cannotbe used here to add any relativityto science, only to add a bit of historicity to rational categories. More thanDuhem or Koyre, however, GastonBachelardis the father figure for everything that is called history or epistemology of science in France;30he remains the obligatory reference point, much like is in England.31 Bachelardwas a postmaster,then a science Wittgenstein secondaryschool teacher,then a universityprofessorof philosophy.For Frenchscientistshe is the centralfigure in our field. They have all read some of his works in the compulsory philosophy course at the Lyc6es (in preparationfor the baccalaureat).He provides the wherewithalfor the curiousease and fluency with which Frenchscientistsproduceworks of spontaneousepistemology - an ease particularly markedwhen seen in the light of the reticence of Anglo-Saxon scientists to do the same. His works are difficult for the anglophoneto read, and have been little translated.They develop a certainstyle of epistemology which situates itself at the intersectionof philosophy and psychoanalysis:a deserted crossroads in England and America. In a sense, Bachelard's work is the very antipodes of the strong programme, being based as it is on a constant dissymmetrybetween knowledgeandbelief. Revolutionis the key word. Scienceis a revolution which has no other aim than its own continuingrevolution. Of course this revolution occurs only at the level of theory; it is most clearly expressed by the idea of 'epistemological rupture'. Put another way, science is the process of the negation of its own past. This renders a symmetrichistory of science impossible, for the story is always one of present knowledge escaping error through rupture. Here Bachelard simultaneouslynegates the role of common sense and social influence in scientific change by developing the idea of the 'epistemological obstacle' that is overcome in a kind of purificationrite. His work La Formationde I 'espritscientifiquedemonstrates clearly how this idea of purificationrenders science and magic utterly incommensurable.32 Bachelardis concerned,too, with the slow purgingof metaphors from scientific thought. In France he has always been extremely influential through another, symmetric, set of works: on poetry, on the psychoanalysis of fire and of the elements in ancient physics.33In these, he
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strugglesto makethe greatdivide still greater:science is obtainedby the constantpurification of the social, culturaland even scientificarguments from its own past; as to poetry, it is also obtained by purificationfrom any trace of contact with reality, common sense or scientificity. It is pure symbol, pure psychoanalyticalelement. Nevertheless, one cannot overestimate Bachelard's influence. He confirms the French in the notion of revolution;you are not a scientist if you do not engendera radicalrevolutionthattotally subvertsthe state of science (this idea is deep in all young French scientists - including those in the social sciences). He confirms the importanceof theories: they are what organize facts, which are in themselves never enough. He confirms the esoteric natureof science, which is always in rupture with what is known, and even with what has been taught at school. Science is never pure enough - it should always be furtherremoved traces.It is a function refinedof its empirical fromcommonsense, further of this generalizedrevolutionthathis influencecan stretchfrom Marxist philosophy (see the discussion of Althusser below) to mathematical curricula in the secondary schools.34 Purity, ever more purity, is the Bachelardiandictum. Duhem, Koyre, Bachelardall reinforce the French in their criticism of naive empiricism. Thus, Frenchwritersall thinkthatonce they have criticizedempiricismin favourof theories,they have done enoughcritical of the English work. This is the key to the French misunderstanding is engaged in tradition This latter of science. studies of social tradition a never-endingstruggle againstthe weight of empiricism. The English never tire of showing that the facts are never enough to convince, that of data. However, viewed from preconceptionsshapethe interpretation this side of the Channel,Bloor's, Shapin'sand Collins's work is stating the obvious.35They end where the Frenchwould start. For a born antiempiricist, the English literaturedoes not go beyond Bachelard. Since the Frenchcan producethe same demotion of empiricismat little cost, the Bath and Edinburghinsistence on social factors seems irrelevantor even gross. This misunderstanding clearly shows how startingfrom the one side of the Channel shunts same problem of underdetermination, its explanationsalong social lines, while the other shuntsthem towards a still greater insistence on the significance of theories. Two Entirely Different Ways of Being Anti-Whiggish It is throughCanguilhem'swork thatwe can most easily explore another
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source of misunderstanding.In England and America there are few supportersof a Whiggish history of science: there arejust variationson the anti-Whiggishtradition.In France, on the contrary,it has been for at least fifty years out of fashionto be anti-Whiggish.Canguilhemcould be defined as defending a militantform of anti-anti-Whiggism,which is by no meansthe same as simply being Whiggish. He is the philospher of radical discontinuity. Insofar as his philosophy of science is discontinuous it is not Whiggish; but insofar as it is radical, it is not anti-Whiggisheither - herein lies the origin of a hundredyears' war of misconceptions. In particular, Canguilhem defines the history of science as: 'the explicit realization, put forwardas theory, of the fact that the sciences are critical and progressive discourses for the determinationof what, in any given experiment, should be taken as real'.36 Thus any reconstructionof what actually happenedin the past (in the past's own terms) would miss the ability of science to escape from and judge its own past, would reduce science to the same level as the rest of culture, and would muzzle its ability to escape its social conditions. Frenchepistemologistsseek to ensure thatmere historiansdo not water down the radicalnewnessof science. Canguilhem's task, in all his books, has been to separateideologies from science, the immediateconfusing past from sharp and revolutionaryconcepts. It is not that he does not know aboutanti-Whiggish history(on the contrary,he is very well aware of it) but he simply thinks it does not do justice to the radicalcharacter of rationality- its ability to breakhistory in two. This is why his, and his Frenchcolleagues', judgementon Kuhnis that 'he has not been able to establishhimself firmly on the terrainof rationality,to which his key andof normalscience, pertain... You think concepts,those of paradigm are with critical you dealing philosophicalconcepts, whereas you find at the level of social yourself psychology',37 - which is choosing to in the basement when lodge you could swan in the penthouse. The ironyof reviewingthe misunderstandings betweenthetwo traditions is thatthe figure who seems the closest to the Anglo-Saxonapproachis viewed here as the furthestremovedfrom it - namely, Michel Foucault. He wrote books thatcould be called, in England,the social construction of clinics, of penology and so on, althoughhe has had little influence here or abroadon professionalhistory of science. First, Foucaultnever studies nor alludes to the possibility of studying the hard sciences (linguisticsand economics are the hardesthe tries).38He even says that his approachcannot be used for the theoreticalsciences.39Second, in Foucault's schema science is not socially constructedin any sense of the word 'social' that an Anglo-Saxon would be comfortablewith. The
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mediator in Foucault's reconstructionof the scientific disciplines is neverthe social;it is alwaystheory.ThatFoucault's theoriesappear radical to Anglo-Saxons comes from the fact that he departsfrom the narrow repertoireof what they call the philosophyof science (mainlylinguistic positivism). Viewed from the continent,the situationis ratherdifferent. Epistemology has a much richer repertoire. It includes lots of things (mentalities,epistemes, codes and, most important, discourse). Foucault here would be seen more as someone who epistemologicallyconstructs as such (see The economics, pedagogyand so on. The social disappears andthis is partof his success, sincehis work Archaeology of Knowledge)40 We provideda particularly strongweaponin the fightagainstMarxism.41 shouldmakean exceptionhere for Discipline and Punish,42which could easily be read as a social history because there are institutions,microtechniquesof power, inscriptions,drillsandso on. We will discussbelow the extent to which Foucaultcan be used to redefine society. between the Anglo-Saxon and The depths of the misunderstanding French traditionsabout history and science have been fathomedwhen one realizes that the only importantFrench Marxist writer - that is, Althusser- insteadof pursuingsocial studies of science insisted more than Bachelard on the necessary purity of science. His well-known works on Marx attempt to purge Capital of any trace of ideological Exactly as in Bachelard'swork, the main way definitely to impurity.43 purge history is to define a 'coupure epistemologique' (rupture)that commits Marx's Hegelian past to obscurity. In his only work about science, Althussereven offered physicists, chemists and biologists the supportof Marxist science in their task of purgingthe hard sciences of any remainingtrace of social determinism- that is, of ideology.44He defined the philosopher's task as that of establishing the distinction between pure science, on the one hand, and ideology on the other. Shunting Analysis of Discourse Towards Theory or Towards Society Those adheringto the Anglo-Saxon traditionwill not make full use of French work if they only consider that the French do not do the social studies of science they 'should' be doing. At the very least, they have thatthe situationis entirely symmetrical,and that viewed to understand from France they give the impression of not doing what they 'should' be doing. One generalcriticismthe Frenchcould make of Anglo-Saxon works in social studiesof science is thatthey are frequentlyunderwritten
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by a rathernaive view of the natureof society. Relativizingscience has too often been seen as the task of finding a one-to-one correspondence between interestsand hypotheses: one has the image of scientists with of shopping-listsof interests searchingthe shelves of the supermarket theirprejudices.Wherethe science for the productsthatbest promulgate debate has become involved, it has frequentlybeen along the lines of andtheir'community', morecloselythe linksbetweenscientists examining without looking at what constitutesa communityor what relationship there is between a communityand a society. The French strengthsand the natureof society and the weaknesses are precisely complementary: betweensocietyandintellectual discoursehavebeenexamined relationship at greatlength, but science itself (even the soft sciences)have not entered into this reworking. what One way of picturinghow each tradition comes to misunderstand of their the other does it to picture a three-dimensional representation analyses,with 'science', 'society' and 'discourse'as the x, y, andz axes. Of course, this is our own way of picturingthe task at hand, and not a universaldefinitionof what social studies of science are or shouldbe. We do believe, however, that a reworkingof what constitutessociety, science and discourse is somehow inescapable. To place the AngloSaxons with respectto these various reworkings,we find thatthey tend to work mostly either on applyingsociety to science, or on workingout the links between language and science. However, followingthroughon our principleof symmetry,the AngloSaxon can reply that the French completely fail to integrate science, society and discourse, since science escapes from the problematicof the 'philosophiedu soupcon' (philosophyof suspicion) that has proved so fruitfulin other domains. When, like Lacan, they deal with discourse, they show little interest for reworking definitions of science and of society. When, like Bourdieu,they deal with society, it is with no interest for science. When they deal with science, like Bachelard, they show nothing but disdain for a reworking of what society could mean. This criticism of the French traditionmay be just, but there is still much for the Anglo-Saxon in the French way of doing things. A step taken often in France and rarely outside of it is to jettison what people say aboutwhat they are doing or writingand look materiallyat the logic or significanceof their actions. Thus the Frenchsuggest thatthe AngloSaxonsneed to throwout the ideaof a 'rational' or scientific philosophical discourse, in a world where philosophy and science are clearly at the service of power relationships.Having takenthis step, we have entered the world of 'discourse', wherein instead of rationallyreconstructing
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FIGURE 1 The Anglo-Saxon Tradition Viewed from France
Society
Radical Science
h School Edinburg Kuhn
Discourse 4 Austin Quine

Witgenstein
Merton
(I) Science
Popper
(11)
Science
(i) Reworking science and society but not discourse (ii) Reworking science and discourse but not society
FIGURE 2 The French Tradition Viewed from Abroad
(11)
* Canguilhem Science
(i) Reworking discourse and society but not science (ii) Reworking science but not discourse and society
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'truth'we sociologically reconstructsociety. As shown in our figures, the axis of discourse attachesto 'pure' philosophy in the Anglo-Saxon tradition.In the Frenchworld of discoursewe can immediatelyperceive in general and semiotics in particular:for the promise of structuralism these offer ways of analyzing discourse simultaneouslyindependentof the intent of the author, and open to a range of socially-generatedsign accountof the birthof the clinic, systems- thusFoucault'santi-Whiggish and his antipsychiatricaccount of madness. Annoyingly for the Anglo-Saxon, and yet cogently, the French in general do not stop at this socio-logic, but frequentlyinvest it with the statusof theory. Thus Levi-Strauss's mythanalysisis both social analysis and theory.45The particularvalue of analysis of discourse is that it could revitalize the Anglo-Saxontraditionof social analysis. Thus, for the historianof science, Foucault'sworkopensthe way to treatingformal disciplines (he treats linguistics and economics, but there is no reason not to go muchfurther)as ways of disciplining,as agentsof social order. This is largely impossiblewithinthe Anglo-Saxonfield, where the entry into the world of discourse has been blocked by the analysis of 'intent' and 'interest'. JacquesLacan, on the other hand, falls into a not uncommonFrench trap: he radically rethought discourse, but left society and science alone.46He was based largely outside of the universityfield. His work continues to be a living influence: he did not publish much before his death,andeditionsof notes takenat his seminarsare still beingpublished, each volume being something of a landmark. The best introduction to his work is in the second volume of Roudinesco's superb, though massive, history of psychoanalysis in France.47At the risk (nay the certainty)of caricature, we can say that for Lacan all was discourse. He rewrote Descartes' dictum as: 'I think: "Therefore I am",' thus For stressingthatit is languagethatlies at the origin of consciousness.48 our purposes we can retain his conviction that there is an irreducible level of coherentdiscourse that governs behaviour. Lacan can be seen as the origin of the trend in France to see all life as swimming in a sea of textuality.This level cannotbe reducedto the individual,for language is social; nor to the social, for factors like economic interest have no part in his schema; nor to the philosophical, for 'irrationality'is one of its features. Because, for the French, the levels of discourse and of the social are radically inaccessible through empirical study, they shunt their antiempiricismtowardsmythical 'systems' thatpartakeof both society and theory. Anglo-Saxon anti-empiricismdoes not question the reality of
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society or of discourse; thus it tends to get shunted towards social determinism,where 'real' society determinesartefactualscience. Both anti-empiricisttendencies are anti-Whiggish, but, as we have shown, in entirely different ways. Our figures suffice to show how the French andthe Anglo-Saxonsare continuallychasingeach other'stails, andhow difficultlife is for co-authorslike ourselves, who wantto have theircake (England or America) and to eat it too (France). A Ferment of Authors The readershouldnot forgetthatthe intellectual difficultymappedabove is compoundedby the institutionalisolation of thinkersin France. The and idiosyncraticworks - the word 'idiosyncratic' resultsare important being positive this side of the Channeland ratherderogatoryon the other Englishand (thusconstitutingyet anothersource of misunderstanding!). there are no to with the fact that terms American readersshould come but in no research schools and independentand programmes France, own terms. on their of have to be which each works judged important the misundersome of cleared in our up previous sections, Having, lesser-known of rundown to a it is have that possible give arisen, standings bed of 'social studies workswithoutlayingthemon the Procustean current of science'.
Michel Serres' Anthropologyof Science Of all the French thinkers, Michel Serres is the only one to contribute to a rethinkingof science, of discourse and, in many ways, of society. However, his work is at riskof being lost to the Anglo-Saxons.He writes beautifully,but his style is extremelydifficult. His work has been undertranslated,but some of it is available in English. Hermes forms a good of his texts, which often The multi-layering to his corpus.49 introduction revolve around untranslatablephilological resonances, renders them almost opaque to the Anglo-Saxon. A second quality which is lost in the transition is his physical presence and rhetorical skill. He is a marvellousstory-teller,andcan easily commandandenchantan audience of several hundredstudents at his course.50He is a sailor, engineer, philosopher and product of the Ecole Normale Superieure (as are a large proportion of leading French academics). Leading influences on his work have been Rene Girardand Georges Dumezil: the formeris
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an anthropologistconcerned with the 'origin' of society in symbolic sacrifice, and the latter is a linguist and anthropologistwho produced the first structuralanalyses of myth. Serres is more known in the English speaking world by literature students. What he does that is so unusual is to develop the argument that there is no metalanguage:there is no superiorityof religion over science, of science over literature.What he seeks to do is to find the structure that articulates a particular religious, scientific or literary system, and to show how it works. The beauty of his texts is that you never know who is right. It might be Lucretius,or it might be the Bible - not becausethey are prescientificand thusequallywrong, but because suddenlythey are made as accurate, as precise as results in biology or mathematics. This is an inversion we do not expect. It is assumed within the Anglo-Saxon world that if science has rhetorical, religious social dimensionsthen somehowits truthis debased:Serresdisplays ?and the poetry and beauty of the truths that subtend religion and science. In this rethinkingof discourse, there is mingling of styles: anecdote, allegory and rigorous demonstrationare found side by side. Arguably it is only througha willingness to open the doors to such new methods of writing thatthe field of social studies of science will ever escape the ariddebatebetweenExternalismand Internalism,or their latestavatars. Certainly,in Serres' case, the productis stunning... but not history (he profoundly professes to have discovered fifteen 'origins' for Greek geometry, and is always on the lookout for more).51 Research Centres Inside Engineering Schools Among the original features of the French scene figures the creation, in the midst of scientific institutions,of researchcentresdevotedto fineof subjectsmuch grainedanalysisof science and society - a combination rarerin the universities (with the exception of Nantes). The first place to mentionis the ConservatoireNationaledes Arts et Metiers (CNAM), which boasts the only chair in the field in France, and, unlike the other students.It is chairedby Jean-Jacques centres,trainsa streamof graduate Salomon, who is the real instigator of the field of science policy in France, first throughhis work at OECD and then throughhis chair at CNAM. His thesis, Science et politique, remainsthe only overview in French of the social dimension of science viewed in a broad historical perspective.52Through his work at the OECD he created many links betweenpoliticalscience, the economicsof researchanddevelopment and
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epistemology. CNAM is an odd institution: it had the first chair of economics in France (held by J. B. Say), the first chair of nuclear physics, and the first chair of STS.53 Salomon chairs the only DEA54 anddoctorate explicitlyon Science, TechnologyandSociety. programme d'Histoiredes Techniques Since it is tied to the Centrede Documentation created by Daumas and now headed by J. Payen, and to the beautiful Musee d'Histoire des Techniques, and since it is also integratedwithin the only department doing the economicsof R & D, it is clearthatCNAM has a lot of potential. The Ecole des Ponts et Chausseeshas developed a researchand pedagogical centre(calledCERTES)which devotes itself to the social aspects of technical choices. Gabriel Dupuy and his colleagues are mainly concernedwith urbanism,andthe historyof technicaldecisionsin public works.55 The interest of their work is that it is very precise on the technical side and thus easily understandable by the engineers. Theirs is not seen as social science divorced from technology, but as part of the normaltrainingof engineers. It is one of the very positive features of the Frenchfield thatit has been able to integratesocial sciences much more with technology than would be possible in England or even in
America.56
Anotherproof of this integrationis given by the authors'own centre, the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, at the Ecole Nationale Superieuredes Mines de Paris. In charge of all the sociology teaching in the school, it also has a graduateprogrammefor the engineers from the school, who can thus get their engineeringdegree in sociology. The centrecovers an arrayof topics, from science indicatorsto the sociology of workto the sociology of music, passingby the sociologyof technology. The whole is unified by two analyticalthreads:an interestin the instruments of technical/cultural productionas simultaneouslysites of social solutions to scientific controversy and scientific solutions to social controversy; and an analysis of the relationship between cultural or scientific inscriptionmethodsand the content of the culturalartefactor are couchedin termsof networks,which science produced.Explanations are seen to knitthe social andthe scientifictogether.We find in the work of Michel Callon three features that are generally separateelsewhere: insertion in the industrialworld throughhis scientific trainingand his tools for the study interestin quantitative studiesof technicalinnovations; of science policy; and, finally, commitment to social and economic methodshas culminated and quantitative theory. His fusionof qualitative contributions few of one the is in co-wordanalysis, which European very to scientometrics.57
Bowker & Latour: France CountryCommentary: The Ecole des Hautes Etudes (EHESS)
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Not attached to the engineeringschools, but still not partof the university system, is the interestingwork that is done at the EHESS. Thus, Serge Moscovici's earlier work pertainsto social history of science,58but it is Edgar Morin, at the same institution, who has done most towards producinga completesociological theorythatintegratesscience, society and everythingelse togetherin a single, vast systems-theoryrepresentation of reality.59 Also attachedto the EHESS is GerardLemaine'scentre, GERS. This is lodged above the inaccessible Auguste Comte Museum near the Sorbonne. Lemaine himself (along with Jean-Jacques Salomon and his wife Claire Salomon-Bayet, and many leaders in the field) followed Canguilhem'scourses. His centre concentrateson research, having no students and very few post-graduateones (again, this undergraduate is by no means untypical). The main body of work that has emerged from this group is an analysis of the emergence of disciplines - on sleep and brain physiology, on quantumphysics and, more recently, on the IQ controversy.60 It is sociological work committedto following scientists into the laboratory.They have been somewhat influencedby the Edinburgh at present school, andtheirmaintheoretical preoccupations seem to centre roundproblemsof reflexivity and ways of counteracting the spread of relativism.61Elizabeth Crawford is associated with this group, but her work on the Nobel Prize winners does not need to be presentedto English readers.62 But it is Terry Shinn's work, in the same institution,thatis more akin to social and institutionalhistory of science - although he is leaning more and more now towards epistemology. Shinn's best-knownwork is his historyof the Ecole Polytechnique, whichused painstaking analysis of studentrecords, amongstother things, to questionthe hypothesisof the declineof sciencein Francein the latterhalf of the nineteenth century. It also provides a refreshinganalysis of the social class of the student intakeover an extendedperiod.63 His more recentinterestsincluderelabetween institutions and tionships epistemology, the popularizationof science, and to some extent the connection between metaphorsand the contentof scientificthought(thoughhe arguesthatmetaphors beginwhere
hard science stops).64
To this work that pertains directly to social studies of science, the EHESS adds much work that should be related to it. It includes for instance the only group of techno-logists (in Leroi-Gourhan'ssense), with scholarslike FrancoisSigautandPierreLemonnier.It also includes
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a very lively centre on the sociology and anthropologyof medicine. A Boom in the History of Science? There seems to be a boom in the field of history of science - most of it within the Bachelardiantradition. A recent directory of the history of science and technology includes479 names and 150 organizations!65 Jean Dhombres, Presidentof the Association Francaised'Histoire des Sciences et Techniques, counts fifty-seven historiansof science within the CNRS alone,66 and seven new DEAs in the history of science, mainly in the provinces: Nantes, Lyon, Lille, Strasbourg,Marseille. A good third of these historiansof science are scientists with more than an amateurinterestin the history of their discipline. Reportsemanating from the Academiedes Sciences and the College de Francehave fuelled the sensitizationof teachersto the history this interestby recommending of science. Thus Principle6 of the particularlyinfluential'Propositions pourl'enseignementde l'avenir' by the teachersat the College de France suggests in part that:
To compensatefor the effects of increasingspecialization,which consigns the majority of individualsto small pockets of knowledge, and notably to the ever more marked split betweenliteraryand scientificculture... it is necessaryto develop and propagate, throughoutthe course of secondary education, a culture integratingscientific and historical culture, that is to say not only the history of literatureor even of the arts and of philosophy but also the history of science and technology...67
centreslook somewhat This new impetusmakesthe only two traditional wan. Known colloquially as the 'rue du Four' and the 'rue Colbert', Bachelard'sheritage,the latterAlexandreKoyre's the formerpropagates (though it should be noted that the 1970s generation of students at rue Colbert trainedunder Rene Taton - and tended to produce works of erudition not tied to a problematicwithin either social history or the historyof ideas). Figuresassociatedwith the formerincludeFrancois Dagognet (who also holds a chair of philosophy at Lyon) and Jacques Bouveresse. Francois Dagognet's works represent the best of the he producesworksof conceptual tradition: Bachelardian history;a uniting of nature. Thus he threadof his diverse interests as the representation has written on the history of chemical classification, the history of medical representationsof the body, and the philosophy of museums. His incisive, global treatmentof these problems suggests an array of
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cultural connections that more technical histories could easily miss.68 The centre at rue du Four is not particularlyactive at the moment, but it does boast one of the few DEAs in the history of science: this allows students.The centreat rue Colbertis responsible it to trainpost-graduate for the only specialistmagazinein the field:Revued'histoiredes sciences. It has, until the present time, paid scant attentionto twentieth-century history of science; futuredevelopmentsmay remedythis situation.The centre also hosts conferences in the history of science. In the same buildingcan be foundthe group 'Pour La Science' underJacquesRoger and ErnestCoumet:this group producesthe review Revuede synthese, which is seeking ever more to set the history of ideas and culture into broadercontexts. This active field is largely unknown abroad, partly we have outlined above, but also because of the misunderstandings because of sheer nationalisticbias: French works do not get properly reviewed. Bernard-Pierre Lecuyers's work in the history of the social sciences of (especially statistics) has been influential in this respect.69He has been, togetherwith GerardLemaine,one of the maingo-betweenslinking Anglo-Saxonand French sociologists of science throughseminarseries organized at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme under the auspices of Clemens Heller's and Roy MacLeod's - now defunct - PAREX (Paris-Sussex). However, it is notable that Lecuyer's work has been typical of the Frenchinterestin the sociology of the soft sciences. Like him, many other French scholars grant that a social history of science is perfectlyfeasible, on conditionthatthe science concernedis not a hard one. The oldergeneration of historians of science, with very little interest in anthropologyor sociology, is being replacedby a new one with much broaderinterests.DominiquePestrehas writtenthe first social historyof a scientific profession writtenby a Frenchperson on French science,70 and scholars like Redondi71or Bensaude-Vincent72 manifest a keen interest for social and culturalhistory of science, as well as for more traditionalintellectualhistory. Proof of the intense activity of the field can be shown in the creation of several new research groups. One of them, headed by Rashed (a historianof Arabic science) is ratherindifferentto the social aspects of science.73 This is not the case with anothercentre, located inside the new showpiecemuseumof science and technologyin easternParis, built on the site of an abandonedabattoir.The team of the history of science and technology at the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie (CRHST) at La Villettewas finallyconstituted in 1986. It has threefull-timemembers and a numberof temporary- largely foreign- researchers.It is led by
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RobertFox, who has done muchpioneeringworkin the historyof physics in nineteenth-century Franceand, more recently,in the historyof science education in France (as part of a long-term study).74His team's twin goals are to develop the history of the relationshipbetween science and technology (mainly in industry, but also in agricultureand medicine), and the history of the diffusion and the popularizationof science. Althoughthe futureof the history of science is precariousin the context of the museumat La Villette, where twenty-first-century utopias seem this so muchmore realthannineteenth-century history, grouphas already a within the field of social studies to constitute significantpole managed of science in France. This success rests partlyon the promiseof the first professional library in this field, and partly on the enthusiasm and inventiveness of its members. It will be noted from this overview of the centres of history and sociology of science in Paristhatmost of them are not located in universities. The only notableexception (apartfrom Nantes and Paris VII) is the group GERSULPheaded by BaudouinJurdantin Strasbourg.This group sharesan interestin STS studies, and in anthropologyof science, and pursues the training of scientific students in the social dimension of science.75 This absence from the universities is a source of some strengthand great weakness to the field. Strength,because each centre boasts a numberof full-time researchersunencumbered by the need to train students. There are frequently many more staff than students. Weakness,becauseit is difficultto see how the field can develop without a studentbase - afortiori, because it is only with such a base thattexts in social studies in science will be able to find a wide enough readership to justify translationand publication. The failure of Pandore, a group which translatedBloor and collections from the Edinburghschool, is indicative:the readershipwas never more than 1000. What is more, a fair percentageof those we intervieweddid not see the lack of students as a problem:there is, in France, a self-sustainingbody of professional researcherswhose works address, in order, each other, the technocrats, andthe intelligentpublic. Thusvalidationof a centredoes not come from the number of student units one can flourish in budget battles. A Fast Developing History of Technology Another part of the field which seems to be flourishing, althoughit is still more scattered, is what could be called in England 'social studies of technology'. There are a few reasons for includingthese within our
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present survey. Firstly, those who do the history and sociology of technology use the same conceptual tools, and frequently the same methodologicaltexts, as theirhomologuesstudyingscience; thus following our desire to discover the field as it exists in France ratherthan as some a priori definition would have it, we should look at it briefly. Secondly, it is a commonplacethat within France the institutionallink between, say, engineering and science has always been stronger than elsewhere: some of the great French scientists have trained and been trainedat the Ecole Polytechnique,the Ecole des Mines, the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees... ostensibly for a career in industry. The most influential figurein this field has been AndreLeroi-Gourhan, whose work, for reasons unknown, has never been translated into English.76His works knit together palaeontology, history of primitive arts, techno-logy- in the etymological sense of the studyof techniques - and the social studies of the evolution of technical systems. He is a sort of Lewis Mumford who was particularlyinterested in the hard technicalaspectsof historyandin a morecompleteintegration of cultural, artistic and technical history. His most general work, Le Geste et la parole,77 is a general palaeontology, prehistory and history of the relations between humanity and matter. The technology of writing, recordingand inscriptionlooms large in this superbhistory of technopolitical systems. Maurice Daumas compiled a comprehensive history of technology which comes in a companionedition to Taton's historyof science. Both these overviews are somewhat unimaginative.78 Reference should be madeto Bertrand a colourful who died young. Gille, figure unfortunately He wrote almost single-handedlythe only major work in the history of technics (by the deft use of pseudonyms he made it appear more collective than it was).79His key notion is that of 'technical systems'. The book is still a long way from a social analysis of technology, but it does allow one to escape from the narrow notions of specialized historiesof technology, or from the idea of 'trajectories'.Gille includes within the one system everything that is necessary for a piece of technology to work. This allows him to group togetherbig units of change, andto producenew periodizations for the historyof technics.His system does not include many social elements, but it does include exploration of economic factors. Since he trainedvery few students,and the history of technology is generallylooked down upon in France, he has had little lasting influence. HistorianPaul Benoit pointed out to us, however, that the field had ancestorsbut no parents,for both Daumasand Gille epitomizethe great
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Frenchtraditionof not trainingany successors.80 The result of this lack of historical unity in the field is that there are several groups working from within totally different perspectives. Once the dread name of 'science' has been removed from the masthead,the field is much more open to innovativenessand fertile eclecticism. Thus Denis Woronoff, who wrote a history of siderurgy in France81 and teaches at the Ecole Normale Superieure, is currentlydeveloping two types of analysis of great potentialinterest. He is looking at the local industrialsite as the 'basis for technology' (this leads to a stress on the regional, and on the 'bricolage',elementof technologicaldevelopment).Thusfrom siderurgy of forests(whichprovidedthe necessary he has turnedto the management fuel). He finds in this emphasis on the local an inextricablemarrying of the social, the economic andthe technical.His secondtype of analysis accords with a currentpreoccupationof the French intellectualscene: nationaldifference. In particular,Woronoff is looking for the existence The group centred around of a 'French mode of industrialization'.82 PaulBenoit,which is concernedwith industrial (from history/archaeology the physical examinationof medieval sites to iconographicanalysis of the artefactsuncovered and their comparisonwith written records), is also indicative of the vigour of the field. If our brief rundownof STS was centred on institutions,and that of social studies of technology on approaches, this is a reflection of the differences between the fields. Put bluntly, everyone feels safe doing the historyof technology andtakingrisks with it, so thatit is flourishing everywhere. And yet it is flourishing nowhere: for being a very new discipline, it has not got even the institutionalbase accorded STS.
InterdisciplinaryCollages This rundownof the field would be sadly inaccurateif it concentrated only on the scatteredsigns of scholarly work. There is also a mass of fascinating interdisciplinary multimedia non-scholarly work which touches, often brilliantly,on all issues raisedin social studiesof science. First on the list must come the works sponsoredby the CentreCulturel Pompidou(betterknown as Beaubourg).One example of their work is from maps of the brain a collection of illustratedessays on cartography: As with many interdisciplinary works, to mentalmaps to world maps.83 this collection has a superb use of illustrations, and an effervescent collectionof occasionallybrilliantshorttexts. The magazineMilieuxalso producesheterogeneousessays on thatpartof the STS field which could
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be defined as the interfacebetween the history of work and workers the ecology of industrialregions and industrialarchaeology. Another related field is urbanstudies. This has fallen, in a sense, to the French disease of reconstitutingany empirical subject in terms of universal theory, but the way thatthis has been done is interestingfor us because thereis muchtalkof the social creationof space andtime, a themewhich can be appliedto the sociology of science. In this context, the work of Paul Virilio comes to mind.84 It is impossibleto describeto an Englishprofessional,used to clearcut disciplinary boundaries, the profusion of work done in the French work organization.So what we see, in general, in this interdisciplinary is a promising,but non-rigorous,breakingdown of the barriersbetween and reality; and from within the field of social science, representation studies of science we have a reservoir of researchersfrequentlywell aware of this work.
A Hypothesis 'a la Ben-David' To conclude, let us look at the social origins of the peculiaritiesof the Frenchfield - afterall, we are both sociologists of science. One current mythaboutFranceis thatits educationsystemis enormouslycentralized. Everyoneknows a version of the tale of the administrator looking at his watch and being able to tell which page of which textbookis then being studiedthroughoutthe French empire. In our field, however, we have alreadypointedout thatresearchersin Franceare widely scattered,and are often not in regular contact with one another. There may be a lot of researchers- probablymany more per head of populationthan could be found in England, America or Australia.The dispersionfactor means, however, that when researchersare evaluated (already a rare occurrence), they are not evaluatedby others of their own specialty. The main body of work in and aroundthe field is done by researchersfunded by the CNRS. Yet immediatelyhere we come back to Bachelard. The traditionalproblem within the CNRS is that researchdone by sociologists and historiansof science is not evaluated by others of their own specialty, but by those with a general training in philosophy. And these people know their Bachelardbetterthantheir Bernal. Furthermore, turningthis time to a truermyth, the variousMinistries exercise considerablecontrol over the researchthat is done in the field. Therehas reallybeen no independent sourceof interestin France.Thusin
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Englandor America, say, much of the creative inputin the history and sociology of science (Bob Young and the Radical Science Collective, Hilary and Stephen Rose, Carolyn Merchantand feminist critiques of science, and so on) has come from wider social movements that are criticalof Big Science. Yet Franceremainsthe only Westerndemocracy without a vocal anti-nuclearmovement (all the political parties have achievedconsensuson the issue), and withouta strongenvironmentalist movement.Muchof the practicalwork in STS is done underthe auspices of ministries, and appearsalways as grey (government)literature,not in professionaljournals. When we rattleoff a list of factors like this, the temptationis always to give a Gallic moue and mutter 'c'est la France'. For a unifying explanationthatmakesBachelard(or somebodylike him) inevitable,we can turn to Ben-David's idea of a contract between the state and the scientists in France.85His formulationwas that the state says to the scientists: 'You have the power, but you must stay clear of politics'. The hybrid form that mediates between scientist and politician is the technocrat. The technocratswho wield enormous power are a hybrid and half scientist. Following the terms of this breed, half administrator contract, scientistsare never to be consideredby politicians,journalists or the general public as lobbyists, nor as constitutingseparatepressure groups. The thing thatmakesthis contractappearreal (for certainly, from the version late eighteenthcenturyon, the only thing lacking is a parchment its founds in France state of it) is the way thatthe legitimacy. ultimately It never claims to mediate interestsor to negotiate within a framework of checks and balances like the American state: it claims to represent rationality(not in the Weberiansense but in a higher, theoreticalsense - as an access to universality).Universalityis the key: the stateoperates a transcendenceover history. The clear consequence is that talking of power and/in/of science is simply unthinkable. For an attack on (universal) science is an attack on the state: and not just the current political configuration, but the very idea of statehood. Even if this hypothesis 'a la Ben-David' seems thin, the massive problemis this: France is the countrywhere the link between scientists is the strongest, and the managerial,political, intellectualestablishments but it is of all countriesthe one which has least developeda field of social studies of science that links the establishmentand science. This could in itself offer us a clue: epistemology in France is the only real way of talking politics, of defining what holds all of us together - that is to say, the concept. Since politics is so rationaland universalanyway, why
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not use the language of rationalityand universalityto talk about both science and politics?86In particular, when epistemology talks about fromcommonsense' it offers a nice politicalmodelfor breaking 'ruptures from away special interests. This hypothesis would explain why for in everyone France epistemology is placed at the top of the hierarchy, and would also explain why the idea of politicizing science seems more than just absurd, totally vain. This does not meanthatthe Frencharethusmoreableto understand the social shapingof science - quitethe contrary.Whatshapesthe facts, the raw data, is not for them society or culture, but somethingelse: theory. of science. Thetheory-ladenness of factsis the stapleof Frenchphilosophy This meansthatsince they easily defeatempiricismthey believe they can, without further ado, embrace theory. Society is thus short-circuited. CanguilhemandBachelardare the two giantsof Frenchsocial studiesof science:to paraphrase Newton,Frenchworkersin the fieldcouldsee much further without those two giants standing on their shoulders.87More perversely,the Frenchuse the argument againstempiricismto discourage in advanceany field researchin social studiesof science, since it is always necessaryto have a theory to informyour data. Nothing will be learned from the empirical study of the way science is produced since every scientific argument is theory-laden anyway. Thus it is better to do epistemology (for this at least deals with theory) than sociology. The dei ex machina, however, have the final word. This survey has been perhaps ratherambiguous: everything is booming except social studies of science. What we can hope for from this and similar articles is that anglophoneworkers in the field of social studies of science will perhaps take more time to read French work in the field.88 We have underlinedthe fact that work in English gets translatedlittle and late into French (the French have only recently discovered Merton): the charge can be reversed. Bachelardand Canguilhemhave only recently beentranslated intoEnglish;Serres,Simondon,Leroi-Gourhan, Bourdieu and many others are either under-translated or not translatedat all. Further,anglophoneresearcherscontinueto treat lightly what seem to us one of the great messages to come out of the social studies of science in France: a detailed study of scientific discourse can help us recast the way that we think about science. Anglo-Saxons can criticize the French for being lost in fruitless epistemological games that can be analyzed with their sociology; equally we should be aware that the Frenchcan criticizethe Anglo-Saxonsfor theirfruitlessdebatesbetween - a debate 'Externalism'and 'Internalism'(or their latest incarnations) long transcendedin France by the defeat of empiricism.
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Social Studies of Science * NOTES
The authors would like to thank the following for having agreed to be interviewed or questioned(thoughof course they should not in the slightest be held responsiblefor the vagaries of our text): P. Bourdieu,J. Le Goff, T. Shinn, R. Fox, G. Lemaineand group, J. Dhombres,D. Pestres, D. Woronoff, F. Russo, P. Benoit, M. Gauchetand M. Pollack. B. Bensaude-Vincent and I. Stengers made valuable comments on the penultimatedraft. 1. One of us has compiled a bibliographyof the secondaryliteraturedealing with all sciences and technology: B. Latourand X. Polanco, Le Regimefrancais des sciences et des techniques:bibliographie raisonnee de la litteraturesecondaire de langue anglaise et francaise sur I'histoire des sciences et des techniquesfrancaises de 1666 a nos jours (Paris:CSI, 1987). People who want more extensive referencesshould refer to this work. There are a variety of useful reviews, but most of them are tangential to the field: FundamentaScientiae for experimentalwork, Revue d'histoire des sciences for internal historyof scienceand Revuede synthesefor the historyof ideas, Les Annalesfor mainstream history rarely covering the history of science. La Recherche and Science et avenir are carriessome respectivelythe 'serious'andthe 'popular'scientificmagazines.La Recherche history of science thanksto the popularizingwork of Pierre Thuilier. To this should be added many journals and bulletins with special interests, like Revoltes logiques for the history of labourand industry,Milieux for technology, Sciences sociales et sante for the social historyof medicine, Histoire, economieet societe for industrial history,Les Cahiers STS (publishedby the defunct STS programmeat the CNRS) for epistemology, Culture of technology,Technique for the linkbetweenprofessional technique engineersandhistorians of technology,Prospective et santepubliquefor the economics et culturefor the anthropology of medicine, and so on. 2. We use the phrase 'Anglo-Saxon' throughoutthis paper as it is current French Zealandculture. The couple shorthandfor English/American/Australian/Canadian/New Anglo-Saxon/Frenchis used to define a series of dubious culturaldifferences, often to the advantageof the French. in Modern 3. Daniel Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community America(New York:Knopf, 1979);Les Physiciens,histoirede cetteprofessionqui a change le monde (Paris: Economica, 1987). 4. For an English version, see P. Bourdieu, 'The Specificity of the Scientific Field Vol. 14 and the Social Conditionsof the Progressof Reason', Social Science Information, (1975), 19-47. 5. See also P. Bourdieu, 'La productionde la croyance: contributiona une 6conomie des biens symboliques', Actes de la rechercheen sciences sociales. No. 13 (1976), 3-43. des echanges linguistiques 6. Pierre Bourdieu, Ce que parler veut dire: I'e'conomie (Paris: Fayard, 1982). 7 P. Bourdieu, Homo Academicus (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1984). 8. Interview, P. Bourdieu (Paris, 13 November 1986). 9. P. Bourdieu, Questions de sociologie (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1984). 10. See also P. Bourdieu, J.-C. Passeron and J.-C. Chamboredon, Le Metier de sociologue (Paris: Mouton, 1983), which is almost exclusively epistemological. In his comment on the present paper, Bourdieuinsisted that he aimed in this book at no more thangiving the basicsof epistemology,andwas notconcernedwith the sociology of science. 11. Georges Canguilhem,Etudesd 'histoireet de philosophiedes sciences (Paris:Vrin, 1983), 15.
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to tracethecontinuity betweenComte,Durkheim 12. It wouldbe interesting andBourdieu on the sociology of scientific content. Attached to Comte is the unfortunatelabel of 'positivist', but he and Bourdieushare many parallels in terms of argumentsfor natural limits to science and in terms of totalizing social determinism. 13. Interview, J. Le Goff (Paris, 25 November 1986). 14. Republished recentlyin Englishin D. MacKenzieandJ. Wacjman(eds), TheSocial Shapingof Technology(Milton Keynes, Bucks.: Open University Press, 1985), as Marc Bloch, 'The Watermill and Feudal Authority', 75-78. 15. Lucien Febvre, Pour une histoire i part entiere (Paris: EHESS, 1962), 680. 16. For Le Goff, see his famous essay in Les Annales: J. Le Goff, 'Au Moyen Age: Vol. 15 Annales:economies,socigets,civilizations, tempsde l'eglise et tempsdu marchand', (1960), 417-63, and also Le Goff, Pour un autre Moyen Age: temps, travail et culture en Occident(Paris:Gallimard,1977); for Furet,see F. Furet,Penserla revolutionfrancaise (Paris: Gallimard, 1978) - Interpretingthe French Revolution(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1981); for Le Roy Ladurie, see his Histoire du climat depuis I'an mil (Paris: Flammarion, 1967). 17. Thanks to Marcel Gauchet, historian of history, for pointing this out. 18. J. Le Goff, La Naissance du purgatoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1985) - The Birth of Purgatory (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1986). 19. Interview, Le Goff, note 13. 20. Febvre, op. cit. note 15, 679. 21. The analysis developed in this paragraph was suggestedto us by Marcel Gauchet. 22. Dominique Pestre adds anotherpoint. The younger French historianshave been able to free themselves from endless quantitativestudies on the price of wheat to deal at last with soft things: death, fears, love, taste, privatelife and so on. For them, going back to science would be a retreat, not an advance. 23. Interview, M. Pollack (Paris, 4 December 1986). 24. See the final section, when we criticize culturalism while giving a culturalist explanation. 25. For a recent presentation,see S. L. Jaki, Uneasy Genius: The Life and Workof Pierre Duhem (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1984). 26. See the references in the work of David Bloor, Steven Shapin, Mary Douglas. into Francethrough Interestingly,as I. Stengerspointsout, Duhem has been reintroduced English and American intermediaries. 27. For a caveat to this idea of isolation, see Mary Jo Nye's recent Science in the Provinces: Scientific Communitiesand Provincial Leadership in France, 1860-1930 the section on Duhem. (Berkeley, CA: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1986), particularly 28. For an overview of his problems with French academia and a collection of his writings, see P. Redondi (ed.), Alexandre Koyrt: de la mystique a la science: cours, conferences et documents, 1922-1962 (Paris: EHESS, 1986). 29. A. Koyre, Fromthe Closed Worldto the InfiniteUniverse(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957). 30. For a good presentation of his work sensitive to the problemsit presentsfor AngloSaxon historians and philosophers of science, see M. Tiles, Bachelard: Science and Objectivity(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1984). 31. Everyoneinterviewed for this surveymentioned Bachelard andCanguilhem as positive models for the history and philosophy of science. This is one of the things that made it difficult for the authorsto stay symmetric. 32. Gaston Bachelard, La Formation de l'esprit scientifique: contribution a une
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psychanalysede la connaissanceobjective(Paris:Vrin, 1980) - The New ScientificSpirit (New York: Beacon Press, 1985). 33. See, for example, G. Bachelard,L'Eau et les reves: essai sur l'imaginationde la matiere (Paris: J. Corti, 1980) - Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imaginationof Matter(Dallas, TX: Dallas Institute Publications,1983). It shouldbe notedthatBachelard's psychoanalysis is somewhat idiosyncratic. 34. Witnessthe mathematics reformimposedby Bourbaki-influenced professorsacross the education system throughoutFrance within a few years, with complete compulsory retrainingof all secondary teachers - with a view to freeing the discipline from ugly empirical stuff like geometry. 35. Witness the only two reviews of English work in the field made availablein France - by B. P. Lecuyer, 'Bilan et perspectivesde la sociologie de la science dans les pays de sociologie, Vol. 19 (1978), 257-336, and Franqoisoccidentaux',Archiveseuropeennes Andre Isambert's 'Un "programmefort" en sociologie de la science', Revuefrancaise de sociologie, Vol. 26 (1985), 509-27. 36. Georges Canguilhem,Etudesd'histoireet de philosophiedes sciences (Paris:Vrin, 1983), 17. 37. G. Canguilhem,Ideologie et rationalitedans I 'histoiredes sciences de la vie (Paris: Vrin, 1977), 23. The notion of 'paradigm', so dear to Kuhnianhistorians, is seen as an obvious and unproblematicrewording of the word 'theory'. 38. Michel Foucault, Les Mots et les choses: une archeologie des sciences humaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1966) - The Orderof Things:An Archeologyof the HumanSciences (New York: Random House, 1983). 39. Interview in L'Arc, Vol. 70 (1970), 23. du savoir (Paris:Gallimard,1967). See particularly 40. Michel Foucault,L'Archeologie the introductionto the English edition, The Archaeology of Knowledge (Buffalo, NY: Pantheon, 1972). betweenthe opposing to makea list of all the misunderstandings 41. It wouldbe instructive armiesof academicson the two sides of the Channel.Foucault'srelationto Marxismshould figure on the list. Tied to Marxismabroad,he is seen here as having produceda powerful here becomes, throughthe mediumof Sealink, critiqueof it. Epistemologicaldeterminism transmutedinto social determinism. Will the Chunnel change this? 42. M. Foucault, Surveiller et punir: naissance de la prison (Paris: PUF, 1975) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Random House, 1979). 43. L. Althusserand E. Balibar,Lire le Capital(Paris:Maspero, 1968), and Althusser, Pour Marx (Paris: Masp6ro, 1970), both translatedinto English in the New Left Books series. This series further complicated matters by publishing Althusser's disciple's and Foucault(class DominiqueLecourt's- panegyricof praisefor Bachelard,Canguilhem position notwithstanding). 44. L. Althusser, Philosophie et philosophie spontanee des savants (Paris: Masp6ro, 1977). As is often the case for 'great figures' in France, Althusserhad few followers the only Marxist study of science is Dominique Lecourt's. It should be pointed out that there is no equivalent in France of the Radical Science Collective (which has published a variety of works), apart from two or three short-lived experimentspublished as part of the Seuil collection 'Science Ouverte'. 45. See, for example, C. Levi-Strauss,L'Hommenu (Paris: Plon, 1970), Conclusion - The Naked Man (New York: Harper& Row, 1981). 46. See J. Lacan, Ecrits (Paris:Seuil, 1966) - Ecrits:A Selection(New York: Norton, 1982). See particularlythe enormously influential article on the 'Purloined Letter'.
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47. E. Roudinesco,La Bataillede cent ans: histoirede la psychanalyseen France(Paris: Seuil, 1986), Vol. 2. Roudinescois careful to distinguishLacan's constantrewritingsof the past of French psychoanalysis (and hence his own past) from an explorationof the actual development of the field. 48. J. Lacan, 'La science et la v6rite', Ecrits 2 (Paris: Points, 1971), 230. 49. See Michel Serres, Hermes;Literature,Science, Philosophy, ed. J. H. Harariand D. F. Bell (Baltimore,MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982). For the sociologist, see Serres, TheParasite, trans. L. R. Schehr(Baltimore,MD: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1986). 50. Paradoxically,Serres holds one of the four or five chairs in History of Science in France, but he does little recognizablehistory of science; his colleague at the Sorbonne, JacquesRoger, does do historyof science, butholds the chairin the Philosophyof Science. 51. For an introductionto Serre's oeuvre, see B. Latour, 'Enlightenmentwithout a FrenchPhilosophy(Cambridge:Cambridge Critique', in J. Griffith(ed.), Contemporary University Press, forthcoming). 52. J.-J. Salomon, Science et politique (Paris: Seuil, 1970) - Science and Politics: An Essay on the Scientific Situationin the Modem World(Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1973). See also Salomon, 'Science Policy Studiesandthe Developmentof Science Policy', in Ina Spiegel-Rosing and Derek de Solla Price (eds), Science, Technologyand Society (London:Sage, 1977), 43-70. Morerecently,see Salomon,'Sciencein the PoliticalArena', in Roy MacLeod (ed.), Technologyand the HumanProspect (London: Frances Pinter, 1986), 101-18. 53. This is partly a feature of the French university system: both sociology and psychoanalysis,despite a strong intellectualheritagein France, have found it difficult to break in. This point is covered in Roudinesco, op. cit. note 47. Michel Pollack (author of an OECD-sponsoredsurvey of the stateof sociology in France)and BrunoLatour(coauthorof this paper), both worked at CNAM. This interestin surveyingthe institutional scene is not, be it noted, peculiar to CNAM. 54. The Dipl6me d'Etude Approfondie(DEA) is what allows a studentto certify that he/she is qualified to write his/her dissertation. 55. See, for example, GabrielDupuy, Urbanisme et technique:chroniqued'un mariage de raison (Paris: CRU, 1978). 56. Witness, for instance, the work of Jean-PierreDupuy, translatorand presenter of Ivan Illich. His group (called CREA) is part of the network of Ecole Polytechnique research centres,anddeals with politicalphilosophyas well as with economicsandcognitive sciences. 57. This centre does not need to be describedin such detail to readersof Social Studies see M. Callon, of Science, since it publishesmainlyin English.For two recentcontributions, J. Law and A. Rip (eds), Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology(London: Macmillan, 1986), and Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Milton Keynes, Bucks.: Open University Press, 1987). 58. See, for example, S. Moscovici, Essai sur l'histoire humainede la nature (Paris: Flammarion,1967), and Moscovici, L'Experiencedu mouvement: J. B. Baliani, disciple et critique de Galilee (Paris: Hermann, 1968). 59. Edgar Morin, La Methode:Vol. 1, La Nature de la nature; Vol. 2, La Vie de la vie (Paris: Seuil, 1977, 1980). 60. See, for example, GerardLemaine, Psychologie sociale et experimentation (Paris: in the ScientificCommunity',in H. Tajfel Mouton, 1969); Lemaine,'Social Differentiation (ed.), The Social Dimension (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1984), Vol. 1,
746
de recherche 338-59; Lemaine,G. Darmonet S. El Nemer (eds), Noopolis:les laboratoires fondamentale, de l 'atelier I 'usine(Paris:CNRS, 1982); Lemaineand B. Matalon(eds), Hommessuperieurs, hommesinferieurs(Paris: ArmandColin, 1985); G. Ramunni,Les Conceptionsquantiques de 1911 a 1927 (Paris: Vrin, 1981). 61. See, for example, GerardDarmon, 'The Asymmetryof Symmetry', Social Science Information, Vol. 25 (1986), 743-55, and B. Matalon, 'Sociologie de la science et relativisme', Revue de synthese, IVeme S6rie (1986), 3, 7-9. 62. ElizabethCrawford, The Beginningsof the Nobel Institution:The Science Prizes, 1901-1915 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1984). 63. T. Shinn, Savoirscientifiqueetpouvoir social: I'Ecole Polytechnique(1794-1914) (Paris: FNSP, 1980). 64. Interview, T. Shinn (Paris, 27 October 1986). See, for example, T. Shinn and R. Whitley (eds), Expository Science: Forms and Functions of Popularisation in Science (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985). 65. ChristineBlondel (ed.), Guide de 1'histoiredes sciences et des techniques(Paris: Belin et Soci6et Franqaised'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques, 1987). it fundsmuchof the research 66. CNRS is the CentreNationalde Recherche Scientifique: in the social and physical sciences that is carried out in France. de 1'Avenir',elabor6esa la demandede Monsieur 67. 'Propositions pourl'Enseignement le Pr6sidentde la R6publique par les Professeursdu College de France(Paris, 1985), 22. science: historicize of Principle1 suggeststhatthe resultwill not radically The very statement to scientific to conciliatethe universalism inherent 'A harmonious educationmustendeavour thought and the relativism that is taught by the human sciences. ..' (5). 68. F. Dagognet, Tableauxet langages de la chimie (Paris: Seuil, 1969); Philosophie de l'image (Paris: CNRS, 1985); Le Musee sans fin (Paris: ChampsVallon, 1984). He has also written a book about Bachelard. 69. B. P. Lecuyer, 'L'hygiene en France avant Pasteur', in C. Salomon-Bayet(ed.), Pasteur et la revolutionpastorienne (Paris: Payot, 1985), 65-139. See also, P. Besnard and the Foundingof FrenchSociology (ed.), TheSociological Domain: TheDurkheimians (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1983); A. Desrosieres, 'Histoiresdes formes: et sciences sociales avant 1940', Revuefrancaise de sociologie, Vol. 26 (1984), statistiques 277-310. 70. Dominique Pestre, Physique et physiciens en France, 1918-1940 (Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 1985). See also Pestre, 'Y-a-t-il eu une physique "a la franqaise"entre les deux guerres?', La Recherche,Vol. 69 (1985), 999-1005. For some recent, excellent work by Pestre see: D. Pestre, 'La naissance du CERN, le comment et le pourquoi', Relations internationales, No. 46 (1986), 209-26. 71. P. Redondi,L 'Accueildes idees de Sadi Carnotet la technologiefrancaise de 1820 a 1860: de la legende a 1'histoire(Paris: Vrin, 1980). 72. See, for example, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Les Pieges de 1'elementaire: contributiona 'histoirede 'elementchimique(these de Doctorat, Universit6de Paris I, dans la chimie franqaise',Annales 1981); see also her 'Une mythologie r6volutionnaire de science, Vol. 40 (1983), 189-96. 73. For an article by Rashed, see R. Rashed, 'La Notion de science occidentale', in E. G. Farbes (ed.), Human Implicationsof Scientific Advance (Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press, 1978), 45-54. 74. For some recentwork by RobertFox, see his 'Science, the Universityand the State in 19thCenturyFrance', in G. Geison (ed.), Professionsand the FrenchState, 1700-1900 (Philadelphia,PA: University of PennsylvaniaPress, 1984), 66-147; 'Science, Industry
Country Commentary: Bowker & Latour: France
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and the Social Orderin Mulhouse, 1789-1871', BritishJournalfor the Historyof Science, Vol. 17 (1984) 127-68; and 'L'attitudedes professeursdes facult6s des sciences face a en Francede 1850 a 1914', in C. CharleandM. Ferr6(eds), Le Personnel l'industrialisation de I 'enseignement superieuren Franceau 19emeet au 20eme siecles (Paris:CNRS, 1985), 135-49. In the same group is Christine Blondel, who wrote Ampere et la creation de 1820-1827 (Paris: BibliothequeNationale, 1982). I'electrodynamique 75. Together with Michel Paty, now in Paris, they produce FundamentaScientiae, a bilingual review on epistemology. Baudouin Jurdant'spresent work concerns the link between money and science in Ancient Greece. 76. Another interestingwriter is Georges Simondon, the only French philosopherof technology, and authorof Du mode d'etre des objets techniques (Paris: Aubier, 1969). Simondonremainedwithoutstudents,but showed a concreteway of doing the philosophy of technical artefacts. 77. A. Leroi-Gourhan,Le Geste et la parole (Paris: Albin Michel, 1965), 2 Vols. 78. R. Taton (dir.), Histoire generale des sciences (Paris: PUF, 1964), 5 Vols.; M. Daumas (dir.), Histoire generale des techniques (Paris: PUF, 1964), 5 Vols. 79. BertrandGille (ed.), Histoire des techniques:techniqueet civilisations, technique et sciences (Paris: Gallimard, 1978). For furtherwork by Gille, see his Les Mecaniciens grecs: la naissance de la technologie (Paris: Seuil, 1980), and Les Ingenieurs de la Renaissance (Paris: Seuil, 1978). 80. They went as far as not reproducingtheir own chairs. France is probablythe only developed country to have not one single chair in history of technology. 81. D. Woronoff,L 'Industrie en Francependantla Revolution et l'Empire siderurgique (Paris: EHESS, 1985). 82. Interview, D. Woronoff (Paris, 29 October 1986). 83. Cartes etfigures de la terre (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1980). 84. See, for example, P. Virilio, L'Espace critique (Paris: Bourgois, 1986). 85. JosephBen-David,'The Rise andDecline of Franceas a ScientificCenter',Minerva, Vol. 6 (1969), 160-79. 86. As suggested by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, this is precisely what Comte had in mind when he put sociology (that is, for him, philosophy of science) at the helm of society. 87. Thanks to H. Krips for a first version of this aphorism. 88. For instance, the first work in scientometrics was that of a French-speaking Swiss, Alphonse de Candolle, whose L'histoire des sciences et des savants depuis deux siecles was first published in 1837, and was republished in 1987 by Fayard, Paris.
Geoffrey Bowker is research fellow at the Centre de Sociologie de I'lnnovation at I'Ecole des Mines de Paris, working on the history of the Schlumberger geophysical prospecting company. His PhD thesis was a comparative study of the social and scientific perceptions of time in England and France during the 1830s. Bruno Latour is associate professor at the same centre. He has recently published Science in Action (Open University
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Press, 1987) and The Pasteurization of French Society (Harvard University Press, forthcoming); current areas of interest include social history of French science. Authors' address: Centre de Sociologie de I'lnnovation, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines, 62 Boulevard Saint-Michel, 75006 Paris, France.

Latour - Social Studies of Science in France

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A Booming Discipline Short of Discipline: (Social) Studies of Science in France Author(s): Geof Bowker and Bruno Latour Source:

Social Studies of Science

Bowker & Latour: France CountryCommentary:

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Bowker & Latour:France CountryCommentary:

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Country Commentary: Bowker & Latour: France

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Discourse 4 Austin Quine

FIGURE 2 The French Tradition Viewed from Abroad

Bowker & Latour: France CountryCommentary:

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Social Studies of Science

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Bowker & Latour: France CountryCommentary:

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Bowker & Latour:France CountryCommentary:

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Bowker & Latour:France CountryCommentary:

Social Studies of Science * NOTES

Bowker & Latour:France CountryCommentary:

Social Studies of Science

Bowker & Latour: France CountryCommentary:

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