1

Science Studies and the History of Science

Lorraine Daston

Introduction: Hard-hearted Adamant

The

current

brings

to

minus

the

relation

mind

the

fairies,

Demetrius,

who

the

used

Lysander.

promises,

suicide

between

opening
high
to

perfervid

and

of

but

your

now

ofadolescence

hyperbolic

but

breathless

the

Midsummer

comedy

Helena,

atmosphere

all, the

studies

of

school

love

threats,

mity, and, above

science

scenes

sense

of

wood

of

choice):

loves

hangs

sincere

history
Night's

of

over
of

(or,

Helena

loves

who

loves

play:

rash

Hermia,

pledges

science

Dream

the
love

and

en-

everything being constantly up

for grabs.
Transposed

from

disenchanted
the

role

groves

of

the

the
of

enchanted
academe,

spurned

it

Helena,

is

Oberon

and

to

the

studies

that

fancies

itself

in

now

rejected

by

the

science

once

courted

but

Titania

history of science. Sheila Jasanoff, speaking qua president of the Society for
the

Social

Studies

of

Science,

recently

complained

of

"somewhat

one-

sided love affair" with the history of science and a certain "jitteriness about
being
our

caught
major

some

of

out

in

risque

history

of

science

its

highest

company

prizes

[that]

departments." 1
to

historians

marks
While

of

the

hiring

her

science,

society
those

practices
has

of

awarded

ungrateful

De-

metriuses were off flirting with the discipline of history, which in turn was
in

hot

pursuit

of

cultural

anthropology.

What

fools

these

mortals

be.

Yet

there was a time when Helena was wooed by Demetrius, and the history of
science

once

was

smitten

by

science

studies.

The

story

of

infatuation

subsequent estrangement follows, I suspect, a more general pattern in the

1. Sheila Jasanoff, "Reconstructing the Past, Constructing the Present: Can Science Studies
and the History of Science Live Happily Ever After?" Social Studies of Science 30 (Aug. 2000):
623, 622.
Critical Inquiry 35 (Summer 2009)
2009 by The University of Chicago. 0093-I896/09/3504-0008$10.00. All rights reserved.

and

relation between disciplines and interdisciplinary clusters that

same subject matterin this case, science and technology. My
essay is to trace that pattern.
This

is

twilight,

as

Hegel

zlement

ends.

It

its

days

last

the

history

other

crepuscular

quarters.

Put

less

The

be

still

more

ludicrous

to

has

decreased

the

science
But

the

absurd

leaders

owl

poetically,

would

and
of

undertaking.

said.

to

claim

of

Minerva

reflection
that

suggest
studies

flies

begins

science

studies

that

cold

attractions

ofscience

address
aim in

of

only

at

when

bedaz-

has

entered

shoulder

science

themselves

the
this

from

studies

bemoan

in
lack

of vigor, even a crisis, in their field. David Edge, founder of the pioneering
Science
asks,

Studies

Unit

at

the

"Has

the

heady

combination

of

academic

good?"2
might

Bruno
study

Latour,

dissolved

the

close

to

other,

we

sense

tribe

recantation,

witnessed

and

studied

Papua

distinction

New

between
"but,

that

the

of

Edinburgh

interdisciplinary

priority

who

in

University
of

practical

laboratory
Guinea

fortunately
black

life

of

the

seductive

disappeared

actor-network

fortunately!),

for

ethnographers

nonhumans,

science

elegiacally

the

way

whose

and

(yes,

boxes

1966,
of

urgency,

and

humans

in

adventure,

theory

has

one

remained

come

after

the

closed

and

that it was rather the tools [of science studies] that lay in the dust of our
workshop,
objects

of

disjointed
some

and

solidity." 3

broken.

Put

Admittedly,

simply,
Edge

critique
and

was

Latour

are

useless
wringing

hands over different disasters; Edge, like Jasanoff, sighs over the fact that
2. David Edge, "Reinventing the Wheel," in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies,
ed. Jasanoff et al. (Thousand Oaks, Calif., 1995), p. 3.
3. Bruno Latour, "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of
Concern," Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter 2004): 242.

L O R R A I N E D A S T O N is the director of the Max Planck Institute for the

History of Science in Berlin and visiting professor in the Committee on Social
Thought at the University of Chicago. At the Max Planck Institute she has
organized research projects on the history of demonstration and proof, the
varieties of scientific experience, the moral authority of nature, the common
languages of art and science, and the history of scientific observation. Edited
volumes resulting from these projects include Biographies of Scientific Objects
(2000), The Moral Authority of Nature (2004) (coedited with Fernando Vidal),
and Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science (2004). Her books
include Classical Probability in the Enlightenment (1988) and, with Katharine
Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750 (1998), both of which were
awarded the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society. Objectivity,
coauthored with Peter Galison, was published in 2007. She is currently working
on a book about the link between moral and natural orders.

against
their

the insights of science studies have been studiously ignored by those who
have the most to learn from them, while Latour suspects that there is little
to be learned. Neither, however, is stridently confident about the present
and future of science studies.
What has happened to the fizz and feistiness of science studies, once the
most ebullient of interdisciplinary ventures? Ou sont les programmes forts
d'antan? How has it drifted apart from the history of science, its former
muse and claque? What can these developments tell us about disciplinarityits preconditions, its practices, its ethos? In the short compass of this
essay I can offer no more than sketchy answers to these questions. I shall
argue that despite intensive and fruitful exchanges between science studies
and the history of science in the 1970s and 1980s the two fields came to
diverge in their conceptions of what they initially had held in common,
namely, the subject matter of science. I shall first set the scene with a very
brief, highly selective, and no doubt maddeningly tendentious account of
the relations between science studies and the history of science since circa
1970 and then examine how their paths forked in the 1990s, as the history of
science became ever more historical and science studies ever less. My conclusion reflects on the morals of this tale for understanding sciencestill
the shared and urgent challenge to both science studies and the historyof
science.

A Very Short and Partial Relation of a Relationship

Science

studies

tery

of

and

foremost

phy,

gender

Science,

the

mercifully

perspectives

sociology,

but

also

studies,

and

history.

and

Society

has

represent

short

turned

Technology,

Sociology of
studies

is

disciplinary

and
upon

clear

anthropology,

It

overlaps

on

and

political

with

programs,

abbreviation

science
but
the

is
one

bat-

technology:

for

first

science,
not

philoso-

identical

hand,

and

to
the

Scientific Knowledge on the other. Both STS and SSK (science

a

mania

powerful

for
and

acronyms
not

that

always

rivals

that

consistent

of

federal

impulses

bureaucracies)

within

science

studies: on the STS side of things, an urgent desire for more rational science
policy

and

for

more

broadly

educated

and

socially

responsible

scientists

and

engineers; on the SSK side, a radical critique of the epistemological claims of

science and technology to social authority. Depending on which of these natal
stars was in the ascendant, science studies aimed either to humanize science by

4. For a brief overview of the history of science studies, see Edge, "Reinventing the Wheel,"
pp. 3-23. And for the history of science, see Lorraine Daston, "History of Science," in
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, ed. Neal J. Smelser and Paul B.
Baltes, 26 vols. (New York, 2001), 10:6842-48.

making it more social (or at least sociable) or to tame it, also by making it more
social (or at least sociological).
The

iridescent

studies.

(Its

Studies

of

word

flagship

social

was

journal,

Science.)

The

and

Science

adjective

remains

Studies,

social

the

was

was

talisman

soon

of

science

rechristened

conveniently

protean,

Social
depend-

ing on which noun it modified. It could signify sobriety and conscience (as
in

"the

social

in "the

construction
social

responsibility

social context of
of

science").

were

smacking
from

of

the

erwise

social

these

registers

(which

not

disciplinary

and

drew

to

of

psychology
embrace).

the

all

in

ample

proaches

In

complexity

was

their

approaches

was

agency.

Moreover,

especially

heavily

upon

To

the

reveal

the

merely

emphasis

resonances

an
by

on

the

accidental

omission

its

strategies

scientific

of

anything

science

in

(as

of

institutions

debunking

that

connectivity

(as in "the social

repudiation

encircled

The

ideology.

and

devastating critique

Durkheimian

of

individuals

science"),

resolutely

list

not

of

science"), or

studies'

oth-

and

structures,

critical

cadences,

of

Marxist

category

(for

ap-

example,

race) or a scientific claim (for example, the passivity of the ovum in human
conception)

was

socially

constructed

was

ipso

facto

to

challenge

its

validity

and to imply a covert political agenda.As these affinities suggest, science studies could and did
retrospectively
lay

claim

Durkheim

to

but

Fleck's

distinguished

also

Karl

lineage:

philosophy-cum-sociology

of

approach

policy,

Marxist
ogy,

Ludwig

life,

and

to

science

Wittgenstein's

Michael

not

Mannheim's

biomedical

Karl

of

and

knowledge,
J.

Douglas's

reflections

explorations

Marx

of

research,

Mary

philosophical

Polanyi's

only

sociology

on

D.

"personal

Bernal's

cultural
rules

Emile
Ludwik

anthropol-

and

forms

of

in

sci-

knowledge"

ence. But as a self-conscious field of inquiry science studies first came into
being in the

1970s, and its touchstone

text was a

work in the

history of

science: Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.This book took the social
sciencesas
philosophy
as

well
of

readers.

terpretations.
ence
the

studies

Science
But,
and,

self-avowed

Studies

Unit

as

scienceby

at

studies
from
more

the

was

the

"strong

of
storm

no

outset,

specifically,
programme"

University

course

and

of

the

generated
exception

one
the

almost

to

reading

this
in

sociology

developed
Edinburgh

history

and

many

readings

as

multiplication
particular

of

by
(which

scientific
the

the

Science
sociolo-

gist Barry Barnes, the philosopher David Bloor, and the historians Steven

5.

See Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), which
offers the most lucid account and analysis of social constructionism and its impact.

6. See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962; Chicago, 1970).

insci-

knowledge:

brilliant

included

of

stamped

Shapin
a

and

Donald

hermeneutics

almost

Kuhn's

The

MacKenzie).

Structure

as

The

variegated

of

Scientific

strong
and

programme

convoluted

Revolutions,

and

has

as

given

that

intend

rise

to

spawned
neither

by

to

re-

hearse nor to enlarge that literature here.4567 For my purposes it is enough to

draw

attention

to

no

satisfactory

ers

could

winning
truth

one

component,

of

why

some

to

the

truth

or

From

the

standpoint

appeal

claims.

or

key

account

falsehood

ofscientific

namely,

the

scientific
superior
of

beliefs

priori

claims

epistemological

explanation

was

in

symmetric.

postulate

triumphed

solidity

science
Neither

that

over

oth-

of

the

studies,

the

property

was

a sufficient explanation for how and why scientists came to hold the beliefs
they

did

ence

studies

theses,
ysis

rather
vied

and
as

than

with

programs),

manifesto

philosophers

of

alternatives. 8

the

theology
scholars

of

With

in
in

with

"symmetry

principle"

its

doctrinal

fondness

science

studies

interpreted

relativisman

science

the

whom

interpretation
they

were

they

at

for

(sci-

principles,

Kuhn's

anal-

with

many

on

almost

shared

loggerheads

every other issue.Historians of science drew a somewhat different lesson from Kuhn's
book,

one

teleology
The

be

history

progress
about
in

probably

must

of

problem

revolutions,

solving
which

of

the

segregation

win
the

science

sheep,
the

in

would
of
of

science

end,
what
its

rewrote
have

with

Kuhn's

narrative

form

the

longer

an

own
to

had

abandon

past

normal
that

the
the

litany

of

did

not

By

language

of

sheep,

my

error.910

Instead,

in

own

its

as

terms,

the

steady

the

truth

progress

survive

scientific

implication,
winners
Priestley

must

that

science.

made

undergraduate
they

of

of

science

game.

namely,

history

understood

goatsLavoisier

the

from

of

views,

the

approximation

called

termsterms
rules

own
in

be

ever-closer

Kuhn

from

goat,

truth
of

tune
no

the

sheep

Lamarck

winnowing

stand

best

as

could

some

At

ans

in

science

toward

nature.

more

repudiated

strive

reconstructing

and
goat;

historilosers,
Dar-

teachersand
to
the

underreason-

ableness if not the timeless rationality of the arguments on all sides.

At first it seemed as if the difference between these two interpretations

7.

For an overview, see Jan Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the
History of Science (Cambridge, 1998).
See Barry Barnes, Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory (London, 1974) and T. S.
Kuhn and Social Science (London, 1982), and David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery
(London, 1976).

8.
9.

Kuhn confronted his critics among the philosophers in "Reflections on My Critics," in

Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (Cambridge,
1970), pp. 231-78.
10. On changing narratives in the history of science since the eighteenth century, see
Daston, "The Historicity of Science," in Historicization-Historisierung (Gottingen, 2001), pp.
201-21.

was slight. The common enemy ofboth science studies and the historyof
science was a positivist vision of science as a compound of logic and empiricism, rigorously defined by a more or less mechanical method and
sharply demarcated
from
both
ambient
society and
less-successful
intellectual pursuits like theology or astrology. Moreover, both symmetry and
science in context turned scholarly attention toward scientific controversy
and the interaction of science and society as promising sites of inquiry.
This promise was abundantly fulfilled with a bumper crop of remarkable
studies of how scientists reached consensus in both the past and the
present.11 Contacts between science studies and the history of science, particularly in Great Britain among the programs in Edinburgh, Bath, and
Cambridge, were close and mutually stimulating, if not always harmonious. On the continent, the ethnographic approaches to the laboratory of
Latour in France and Karin Knorr Cetina in Germany imparted a strong
impulse to the study of minute, concrete practices in the history of science.12 In North America, science studies was invigorated by feminist theory13
and
political
movements
launched
by
scientists
themselves. 14
The
1980s crackled with debatemuch of it sharp, some of it sparkling, all of it
animated. For the first time in living memory, meetings of the History of
Science Society were punctuated by raised voices rather than by gentle
snoring.
Science
studies
burgeoned;
the
history
of
science
was
transformed.
The
from

political
the

implications

surface.

Societies

of

these

saturated

academic
with

discussions

science

and

never

lay

technology

offered a whole new optic to view their past development and present

10.

Among the most influential empirical monographs were H. M. Collins, Changing

Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (London, 1985); Steven Shapin and Simon
Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton, N.J.,
1985); Martin J. S. Rudwick, The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific
Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists (Chicago, 1985); and Trevor J. Pinch, Confronting
Nature: The Sociology of Solar-Neutrino Detection (Dordrecht, 1986).
See Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts
(1979; Princeton, N.J., 1986), and Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and
Engineers through Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1987). See also Karin D. Knorr Cetina, The
Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science
(Oxford, 1981).
See Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific
Revolution (San Francisco, 1980); Donna Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in
the World of Modern Science (New York, 1989); and Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex?
Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass., 1989).
See Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York, 1981); Richard C. Lewontin,
Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin, Not in Our Genes: Biology, ldeology, and Human Nature (New
York, 1984); and Jonathan R. Beckwith, Making Genes, Making Waves: A Social Activist in
Science (Cambridge, Mass., 2002).

11.

12.

13.

far
were

choices. Many scholars in science studies were openly and ardently engaged in political debates about science, technology, and medicine. All
were acutely aware that the symmetric analysis of scientific controversies,
even if conducted from a position of neutrality, had the overall effect of
strengthening the losing side by taking its arguments far more seriously
than reigning scientific orthodoxy would. 15 Between 1985 and 1995, contingent, negotiation, and work were the refrain of the most provocative work
in science studies and the history of science. The course of scientific development and the outcome of scientific controversies was contingent; everything from consensus about rival scientific theories to the definition of
scientific
entities
was
negotiated
among
parties
with
opposed
interests;
and apparently Gibraltar-firm scientific findings and facts actually had to
be stabilized by a great deal of work. In short, nothing was self-evident,
straightforward, or secure; even the data were no longer a given.
Some

scientists

were

simply

Few

ever

in

the

puzzled

started

or

States,

holding

its

had
senator

Haraway.

The

furor

humanities
causes

of

mid-1990s

than

in

science
lay

stopped

studies,
Those

science

studies

effects

responsible

reckon

being
unleashed
the

by

sciences

studies

elsewhere,

with

and
in

the
and

the

the

the

Sokal
in

any

history

ways

in

of

affair

was

case

blew

in

compliment
of

improbability
of

involved

especially

cancellation

work

most
science.

directly

left-handed

the

but

history

were

scientists,

the

mammoth

in

the

they

few
for

the

immersed

reading

unless

studied.

to

or

They

science

blasphemous, 16

even

paid

unsettling

funding

irritating,

being

who

gressman

this

bored.

reading

controversies

United
search

found

of

Latour
far

their
a

or

of

science

parting

which

they

understood

of
recon-

Donna

stormier

over

the

in

the

quickly.17

The

ways

the

in

their

shared

object of inquiry and practiced their crafts of research and explanation.

What Is Science?
It
when

is
the

easier
relation

to

pinpoint
between

exactly
science

when
studies

Demetrius
and

the

dumped
history

Helena

of

science

than
be-

came more distant. But by the end of the 1990s it was an open secret. In a
plenary address delivered in 1999 to a joint session of the Society for the

14.

See Pam Scott, Evelleen Richards, and Brian Martin, "Captives of Controversy: The
Myth of the Neutral Social Researcher in Contemporary Scientific Controversies," Science,
Technology, and Human Values 15 (Oct. 1990): 474-94.
See Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its
Quarrels with Science (Baltimore, 1994).

15.

16.

See Science Wars, ed. Andrew Ross (Durham, N.C., 1996); Alan D. Sokal and Jean
Bricmont, Intellectual Impostures: Postmodern Philosophers' Abuse of Science (London, 1998);
and The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy, ed. the editors of Lingua Franca
(Lincoln, Nebr., 2000).

Social Studies of Science and the History of Science Society, commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the former society and the seventyfifth anniversary of the latter, Jasanoff observed that she and her coeditors
of the Handbook ofScience and Technology Studies (1995) had found contributors
in
"sociology,
anthropology,
philosophy,
political
science,
rhetoric, women's studies, to name a few. Only history is strangely absent." 18
Her lecture was auspiciously subtitled, "Can Science Studies and the History of Science Live Happily Ever After?" but the doubts that justified the
question mark in 1999 would have been barely conceivable a decade earlier.
What had happened in the interim?
After

Kuhn,

adopted
they

did

so

standings

of

on

the

faith

both

science

position
for

of

studies

and

the

estrangement

different

reasons

science

and

how

to

claim

that

current

history

toward

that

study

ultimately
it.

science

led

Science

scientific

of

contemporary
to

divergent

studies

doctrine

had

deliberately

science,

refused

come

to

but
under-

to

accept

be

widely

accepted because it was true or at least truer than any of the extant alternatives.

First

of

proposition

opposed
a

to

full-dress

of
a

factors,

lieve)

about

form,

science

visiting

nothing

for

parency;

by

science

was

reason,

in

the
of

exclusive

studies'

analysts

involved
what

adherence

to

granted.

whom

The

steadfastly

aim

and

nor

sense)

social

scientists

estrangement

Martians,

argued,

sufficient

philosophical

often

regardless
their

studies

neither

explanation

nitive

of

all,

to

for

its

political
report

as

In

the

tabula

was

alien

science

studies'

warily

refusing

to

falsehood

well

(and

latter.

of

or

explanation

acceptance.

and

to

everything

truth

may
the

aspired

the

necessary

its

most

who

estrangement

privilege

the

as

cog-

sincerely

rasa

and

(as

Second,
be-

extreme

perspective
could
was

take
trans-

scientists'

own

accounts of how they did what they did, analysts sought to crack open the
"black

boxes"

of

science

and

technology

that

had

been

opaque

to

public

scrutinyand hence to public surveillance.

Historians
or
But

ofscience

self-deceptions
historians

of

were

entertained

fewer

contemporary
deeply

suspicions

scientists

skeptical

about

about

apropos
descriptions

the

deceptions

of

current

of

past

science.

science

in

terms of present science. It was all very well for the chemist or mathematician down the hall to report on his or her research just as he or she saw it;
it

was,

Robert

however,
Boyle

or

an

invitation

Leonhard

to
Euler

distortion
into

to

modern

translate

the

work

terms

or

notation.

translations almost always occluded the pastness of the past, the strange18. Jasanoff, "Reconstructing the Past, Constructing the Present," p. 622. Conversely, when
Jasanoff refereed "History of Science," an article I had authored for the new edition of the
lnternational Encyclopedia ofthe Social and Behavioral Sciences, she remarked upon the absence
of science studies references.

of,

say,
Such

Lorraine Daston / Science Studies and the History of Science

ness that made the history of science genuinely historical. Historians of

science had come to fear, albeit belatedly by the standards of general history, the besetting sin of anachronism, the equivalent of ethnocentrism in
anthropology
and
anthropocentrism
in
ethology.
They
refused
the
accounts of present science so that they could immerse themselves in past
science. Although they too, like the ethnographers of the laboratory, might
have imagined themselves as strangers in a strange land, they saw no reason to distrust the natives. On the contrary, historians of science wanted to
understand chemistry (or rather "chymistry") as Boyle had, not to trump
his explanation with one of their own. This is probably the principal reason
(rather than any political antipathy) why scientists stopped reading the
history of science; it had succeeded all too well in making past science
wholly unfamiliar, even (or especially) to a reader well versed in present
science.
The

contextualization

history
the

of

science

motto

"science

alleged

of

in

different

in

autonomy

science

context,"

and

also

pulled

directions.
what

hegemony

was

with

science

studies

science

studies

was

end

When
implied

respect

to

an

ambient

and

the

trumpeted
to

science's

society.

Science

was shot through with social interests and political struggles; it was the
of

science

studies

to

science

that

hoisted

tions.19

But

the

deepened

to

lay
the

them
banner

exploration

include

bare.
of

of

concepts

Originally,

"science

in

historical

and

studies
context"

context

categories

in

the

had

similar

gradually

unheard

of

in

job

history

ambi-

broadened
the

of
and

social

sci-

ences, at least in their Anglo-American branches.

It

was

(ancient,

precisely

medieval,

distinguish

not

the
and

only

historians
early

past

of

science

who

specialized

modern)

periods

who

were

most

at

also

past

from

from

present

science

but

in

premodern
pains

to

present

society. Insofar as they looked to sociology for inspiration it was to the likes
of

Norbert

Elias

to

theories

of

their
in

titles.

contracts.
about

was

and

court

class

Science

Florence

patronage

on

interest
at

the

certainly
symbolic

Historians

calling

what

society or

of
they

or

court

actor
in

not

premodern
studied

science

Mauss

networks.

ofRudolfII

enmeshed
display,

Marcel
in

politics,
that

of

science
at

all,

on

gift

Culture

Prague
but

replaced

or
it

Cosimo
was

grantsmanship
grew
and

exchanges, 20

the

the

de

politics

and

scientist

skittish
when

See, for example, Natural Order: Historical Studies of Scientific Culture, ed. Barnes and
Shapin (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1979).
See, for example, Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture
of Absolutism (Chicago, 1993), and Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and
Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley, 1994).

18.

of

industrial

applied to Archimedes or Galileo set their teeth on edge. This was not so

17.

in

Medici

increasingly
word

not

society

Criticallnquiry / Summer2009 10

much finickiness (although it was also that) as a desire to capture lost

disciplines
(scientia,
natural
philosophy,
mixed
mathematics)
and
personae (courtier, sage, philosopher) that were crucial for accurate historical
reconstructions.
In

his

(not

introduction

coincidentally

marked

that

to

the

the

The

historian

position

of

Science

of

early

science

Studies

Reader,

modern

studies

Mario

science)

with

Biagioli

perceptively

respect

to

its

re-

object

of

inquiry is unusual:
Science

studies

significant

does

way,

science

studies

take

to

the

is

practices,

object

no

true),

are

how

to

their

that

so

look

at

that

scientists

(actually
set

of

socially

result,

some

not

what

the

in

is

enterprise

scienceas

As

It

only

onremains
it.

because,

study

of

simply

matter

pre-packaged.

obliged

and

you

subject

comes

aspects

but

institutions,

matter

its

matter

fundamental

often

tists'

define

subject

practitioners

be

opposite

not

its

science

the
scien-

delineated

studies

tends

not to ask what science is but rather how science works.Among historians of science, only
specialists

in

allow

to

themselves

the
take

twentieth

their

ponder

the

"disunity

of

science

are

crucially

concerned

subject

matter

century
for

granted,

in

their

period. 2122

with

what

science

science"

All
is,

other

as

can

and

even

they

historians

well

as

of

how

it

works.
This

is

not

philosophers
knowledge
rather

primarily

used
differs

because

as we

of

all

study

science,

lizedslowly,
and

materials

the

of

science

demarcation

other
natural

manual,

candidates
knowledge

the

princely

the

from

ing

became

of

designed
the

arguments
torians

they

legal

evidence;

science

rational
before

must

are

exercised

by

criterionhow

for

genuine

before

explain

contingentlyout

became

article;
museum;

that

but

falteringly,

that

journal
tory

from

they

historians

call

what

scientific

knowledgebut

science

and

scientists

now know them came into being. They do not doubt the distinctive

character
tual

because

to

for

other

laboratory;

the

from

engineering

mechanics.
science

More

became

the

humanist
that

character

crystal-

both

intellec-

artisanal

letter
became

indices
feats

that

practices,

purposes:

the

Wunderkammer

arguments

how

of

that

in

generally,

trials

of

that

became

the

the

natural

his-

became

ballistics
the

"pre-packaged"

probabilistic

and

challenge
is

to

to

his-

explain

how

local knowledgefor contextualized knowledge is always rooted in a par-

19.

Biagioli, "Introduction: Science Studies and Its Disciplinary Predicament," in The

Science Studies Reader, ed. Biagioli (New York, 1999), p. xii.

20.

shipbuild-

See Peter Galison and David J. Stump, The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts,
and Power (Stanford, Calif., 1996).

11

Lorraine Daston / Science Studies and the History of Science

ticular place and timebecame universal science, that is, how context
eventually erased itself. History of science attempts to pry open the one
black box science studies accepts from science without peering inside.
The

divergence

versus
the

of

estrangement

given

versus
in

practices.

range

the

social

methods.

The

left

ported.

The

borrowed

tion

and

bit

pedestrian.

analysis

in

historians
ing

of

science

aggregated

by

historiography."
embed

what

to

be

studies
of

also

pieced
coherent

accidents
since

in

then,

and

in

the

they

locate

collage
or

large

the

part

as

to

data

and

own
years

of
the

ago

promptthe

of

scholars

common

mandate

become

they

contri-

"whether

have

which

has
im-

collec-

approaches,

of

and

perhaps

Twenty

accretion

science

broad

been

collection

because

of

discipline

have

wonder
a

methods

their

of

to

just

and

historians

these

described

practitioners

history

material

of

as

striking

on

explanation." 23

of

more

drawing

unproblematic,

however,

suspicion
(science

empirical

which

dryly

discipline

of

context,

disciplined,

is

together

is

testing

reliable,

"methods

still

to

its

from

analysts,

distinguished

But

science

consciously

of

led

for

and

assumed

matter

ecumenical,

disciplines

most

the

24

refinement,
home

domain
its

is

sociological

subject

has

humanities

methods

are

science

of

of

the

studies
and

as

and

explanandum)

Science

Science

the

one

history

to

Verstehen)

the

development,

been

bution

as

sciences

largely

(estrangement

historical

science

divergence
of

positions

as

have

to
self-

submitted

themselves is history.
In

the

received
tiated
history
of

1980s

into

the

to
their

field.

Pierre

to

the

the

the

cultural
and,

interpreted

those

bodily

of

images,

and

vantage

of

the

in

closer

which

mental

the

of

onerous

in

historians

doctoral

were

and

historians
science

these
a

the

close-up
of

habits,

sensory

materials.

This

division

and

older

studies
and

training,
focus

between

began

historians

symbols

had

of

of

the

the
the

21.

Gary Bowden, "Coming of Age in STS: Some Methodological Musings," in Handbook

of Science and Technology Studies, p. 65.

22. Charles Rosenberg, "Woods or Trees? Ideas and Actors in the History of Science," lsis
79 (Dec. 1988): 570.

of

laborathan

in

making

of

great

ad-

and

nal" history of science; highly technical procedures (for example, how to

in

science
work

values

began

work

the

"internal"

by

experience

embedded

in

ini-

hired

science

steeped

science

were

the

riddled

decades,
twist;

terms

of

was
that

of

level,

subsequently

contacts

teleology

with

home,

less

manipulation

in

but

to

"culture"

and

these

of

the

collegial

and

historians

gestures,

dissolving

by

courses,

turn,

at

research,

both

context

number

history

anachronisms

other

tory, they

increasing

in

archival

history

Like

Bourdieu

an

Spurred

into

about

responded

of

general

inquiry

worry

1990s,
training

rites

departments.

teaching

serious

and

supplementary

"exter-

make precision measurements at high temperatures) might turn out to

stem from cultural competences (for example, brewing beer).25 More subtly but inexorably, immersion in the scientific practices that eventually
created
scientific
disciplines
ledby
a
kind
of
mimesisto
historical
practices that turned the history of science into a discipline.
In
the

this

fashion,

ethos

of

historians

historians.

most clearly seen in

decade.

The

steep

the

improved

rise

in

of

The

science

impact

mastered

of

their

the

handiwork and heft of

craftsmanship

disciplinary

of

the

practices

disciplinary

and

adopted

apprenticeship

is

work produced in the

footnotes

standardsfootnotes

alone

being

would

to

past

signal

historians

what

joints are to carpenters, that is, the place where the trained eye looks first to
test

the

genre
lead

quality

and
of

another
ture

of

often

texture

in

recent

general

historians.

grand

philosophical

science;

in

archivally
like

see

universe

in

has

the

in

Davis
of

been

studies

in

of

Carlo

Ginzburg

illuminating

of

about

In

one

or
na-

descended,

hands

of

microhistory

cosmic

in
the

the

have
the

shift

following

support

microhistories
detail.

sand,

marked

again

generalization

exquisite

or

science,

case

swarm

narrated

grain

also

of

sociological

place

Zemon
a

are

or

and

Natalie

There

historiography

Gone

their

based

virtuoso
the

workmanship.26

of

themes

a
can

on

hand

from a single, richly described episode. 27 Alas, virtuosi are rare in all fields,
and

the

heavily

average
on

nominalist,

microhistory

the
the

context

and

science

who

"micro";

aesthetic

practices

is

has

apprenticed

in

the

the

history

texture

pointillist.
been

is

The

followed

themselves

to

of

science

places

fine-grained,
call

with

from
a

the

science

vengeance

historians

to

do

the

accent

metaphysics
studies
by

is

to

heed

historians

sowith

the

of
par-

adoxical result that the history of science and science studies have ever less
to say to one another.
Insofar

as

there

has

been

counterweight

to

these

miniaturizing

ten-

dencies in recent work in the history of science, it has been supplied not by
science

studies

namely,

the

self

trained

there

was

but

by

philosophical
by
a

the
kind

history

French
of

still

more
of

historian

prearranged

thoroughgoing

Michel
of

Foucault.

science

harmony

form

Foucault

Georges

between

of

the

historicism,
was

him-

Canguilhem,
topics

originally set out to historicize so radicallymadness, natural history,

25. For this particular example, see H. Otto Sibum, "An Old Hand in a New System," in
The Invisible Industrialist: Manufactures and Productions of Scientific Knowledge, ed. Jean-Paul
Gaudilliere and Ilana Lowy (Houndmills, 1998), pp. 23-57.

23.

The history of scientific and scholarly practices has produced a study of the footnote.
See Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (Cambridge, Mass., 1997).

24.

On the implications of "thinking by cases" in history, see Penser par cas, ed. JeanClaude Passeron and Jacques Revel (Paris, 2005).

so

Foucault

biopowerand
the
traditional
preoccupations
of
historians
of
biomedicine. But the shock waves triggered by Foucault's concerted attempts to
write
the
history
of
the
ahistoricalsexuality,
the
self,
truth
itself
reached far beyond the human and life sciences. 28 Topics like proof, experience, and objectivity, which historians had previously assigned to the
timeless contemplations of the philosophers, suddenly seemed fair game.
Moreover, the Foucauldian mode of historical investigation of these ethereal abstractions was painstakingly concrete, dovetailing with the new disciplinary consciousness of historians of science. It was close reading,
archival burrowing, and minute inquiry into specific practices, not philosophical argument or sociological analysis, that would yield up the invisible history of objects that had become inevitable, providing the evidence
for the history of the self-evident.
Once
tion

again, projects in the history of

by

impulses

experiment

or

direction

once

rience.29

It

came

But

Rome

or
the

epistemological

of

experience

did
to

in

Isaac

assembled

Swammerdam

what

devout?
either

This
the

bedrock

of
an
of

the

scientific

to

experience

late

were

its

in

treatises

the

Academie

science

on

to

Royale

rational

the

science

or

it

studies

in

beParis

Robert Boyle

religious

and

in

demonstrations

Sciences
a

its
me-

obelisks

Cambridge

des

be-

century.

origins,

erect

College,

to

its

experimental

making,
or

seventeenth

forms,

used

Trinity

the

expe-

of

rapturous attentiveness of
in

new

history

the

of

appeals

being

observation

in

the

by

What

in

ethnography
off

that

envisioned

rooms

epistemology

philosophy

of

Amsterdam;

Newton's

making

case

machines

artisans; the
is

the

the

factsveered

commonplace

exactly?

in

example,

scientific

machines

company

of

working

ships

"proofs"

the

the

the

to the
Jan

in

of

unload

performed

as

science that had been set in mo-

studiesfor
of

example,

How
relate

construction

for

kind

chanics

science

historicized,

kind

practices?

fore

the

is,

what

from

observances

looks

nothing

would

or
of
like

understand

under that rubric. Simply put, the more historical the history of science
28. On Foucault's impact on history, see Foucault and the Writing of History, ed. Jan
Goldstein (Cambridge, Mass., 1994).
29. Seminal book-length studies include Shapin and Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump;
Krzysztof Pomian, Collectionneurs, amateurs et curieux: Paris, Venise, XVle-XVllle siecle (Paris,
1987); Galison, How Experiments End (Chicago, 1987); The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the
Natural Sciences, ed. David Gooding et al. (Cambridge, 1989); Giuseppe Olmi, Llnventario del
mondo: Catalogazione della natura e luoghi del sapere nella prima eta moderna (Bologna, 1992);
Alain Desrosieres, La Politique des grands nombres: Histoire de la raison statistique (Paris, 1993);
Findlen, Possessing Nature; Peter Dear, Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the
Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1995); Christian Licoppe, La Formation de la pratique scientifique:
Le Discours de l'experience en France et en Angleterre (1630-1820) (Paris, 1996); and Harry M.
Marks, The Progress of Experiment: Science and Therapeutic Reform in the United States, 19001990 (Cambridge, 1997).

became the less the science it studied resembled the prepackaged subject
matter ofscience studies.

Conclusion: Beyond Realism and Relativism

The

bald

conclusion

draw

from

the

developments

have

so

telegraphi-

cally described is that the history of science (somewhat to its own surprise)
has

in

and

the

an

even on
opment

the

counts
of

decade

or

while

science

the

least

and

not

as

fret

eral

historians

that

has

if

occurred

as

in

indicators

more,

the

that

cultivated

that

are

of

not

rapprochement

recent

not

science

studies

positions,

devel-

worldwide

Moreover,
recognized

methods

and

pursuing

register.

specialist

science.

yearsDemetrius

necessarily

sufficiently
of

practices

interdisciplinaryand,

would

university

history

they

the

with

remained

suspect

not

societies

constantly

discipline,
has

insiders, undisciplined. This is

counted,

despite

studies

institutional

many,

scholarly

science

become

some

usual

have

at

so

testimony of

that

Although
nals,

last

ethos,

jour-

historians
by

gen-

perspectives

indifferent

Her-

mia. But it is the ways in which graduate students are trained, the grounds
upon

which

works

that

these

indices

tory
other

of

young
are

and

point

science,

and

are

hired

and

that

reveal

emulated

toward

closely

influences

definition of

scholars

read

less

modeled

inspirations.

eclectic,

on
30

tenured,
core

more

history,

above

still

one

permeable

argue

science

self-described
tion,

that

the
of
histo
this

a discipline in terms of its practices and ethos rather than its

institutions is itself the fruit of the newly disciplined history of

contrast,

All

disciplined

more

might

all,

values.

classically

albeit

(Reflexively,

and,

academic

sometimes

studies,

as
in

despite

"marginal"
defiance,

handbooks
and

but

and

annual

"adolescent"sometimes

always

polemically,

with

science.) In

meetings,
the

in
full

still

is

exasperaand

usu-

ally justified expectation of being contradicted by a colleague.But an outside observera

philosopher,

perhaps,

or

philosophically

inclined scientistmight demur, contending that the history of science

30. As a historian of science, I am not convinced that this turn of affairs is an unadulterated
good. Until recently, individual career paths into the history of science were usually sinuous
rather than straight, and the field was a haven for people from every corner of the academic
map who wanted to combine the technical with the hermeneutic, the particulars of history with
the universals of philosophy, and thick description with sharp analysis. This blend gave the
history of science a certain yeastiness that at once intrigued and rattled the neighboring
disciplines of history, philosophy, and sociology, as well as the sciences. Some of what was
produced was audacious and brilliant; much was unreadable, even at the time. The current
history of science is almost always readable, engaging and instructive even, but curiously
inertfinely wrought but flat. The price of disciplinarity has been a convergence toward the
mean; fewer clunkers, but also fewer meteors.
31. Contrast, for example, the articles by Bowden, "Coming of Age in STS," and Richards,
"(Un)Boxing the Monster," Social Studies of Science 26 (May 1996): 64 -79, 323-56.

and science studies are still united in a relativist campaign against science.
For

such

social

critics

it

hardly

constructionism

of

science. Relativism

it

touches.

Some

matters

whether

of

science

is

relativism,

scholars

in

studies

the
or

the

they will

science

relativism

question

historicism

insist,

studies

in

seem

of

and it
to

is

the

history

corrodes

have

come

the

all

that

around

to

this view as well. Latour writes feelingly about how criticism sullies all that
we

hold

dear;

critics']

would

when

science

we

willingly consign

pawnshop"?3132

sordid

studies

finds

"our

Malcolm

itself

on

own

Ashmore

the

side

valuables
finds

of

big

to their

it

[the

"embarrassing"

tobacco

corporations

in

a suit brought by a dying smoker, on the grounds that what now counts as
persuasive
then.

33

scientific

A recent

Technology
that

proof

issue

Studies

contests

about

the

the

Cornell

of

Newsletter

"the

view,

dangers

smoking

University

carries

by

some

held

of

Department

broadside
in

didn't
of

against

the

count
Science

intelligent

scientific

back
and
design

community,

that

science studies undermines science."These doubts and self-doubts are, in my opinion, more
accurately
aimed

at

reason

that

have

the

(riddled

studies

science
methods

with

those

of

of

to

logical

but

scientists.

conform

to

empiricists,

at

has

the
the

the

history

remained

science

"principles"

many

than

studies

positivism)3435

odies
not

science

studies

of

closer

often

faith

been

philosophical

assumptions

On

this

if

actual

in

textbooks

account,
set

forth

alternative

is

the

paradoxical

sciences.

Not

self-consciously

its

only

empirical

for

the

and

accounts

in

science
to

data

wanton

that
are

only

scientistic

at

times

par-

Manichean,

science
or

can
the

fabrication

be

like
shown

treatises
or

of

ideology.

If facts are not discovered, then they are ipso facto invented. To claim that
science

is

caricature,
the

black

socially
of

constructed

course,

boxes

of

but

only

science

is

to

slightly.
and

impugn
When

both

validity

science

technology,

the

and

studies
word

honesty.

tried

to

crack

transparency

often

implied "unmasking."
In contrast, to historicize the category of the fact, objectivity, or proof is
not thereby to debunk it, no more than to write the history of the special
theory

of

relativity

thereby

undermines

it.

This

is

point

perhaps

made

more easily in ethics than in epistemology; the fact that the judicial ban on
torture arose in a specific historical context carries no weight in arguments

25. Latour, "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?" p. 241.

26. See Malcolm Ashmore, "Ending up on the Wrong Side: Must the Two Forms of
Radicalism Always Be at War?" Social Studies of Science 26 (May 1996): 305-22.
Kevin Lambert, "Opinion Piece: Intelligent Design," Cornell University Department of
Science and Technology Studies Newsletter (Spring 2006): 15.

27.
28.

See, for example, Collins's defense of "scientific criteria" in "In Praise of Futile
Gestures: How Scientific Is the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge?" Social Studies of Science 26
(May 1996): 229-44.

Criticallnquiry / Summer2009 16

concerning its moral validity. Analogously, the fact that scientific objectivity arose in a specific historical context neither supports nor undercuts
its epistemological validity. "If historical, then relative" is a non sequitur.
Why then do so many philosophers (as well as scientists, sociologists, and,
yes, historians) nonetheless believe it follows? Why has historicism, especially in its Foucauldian form, been so consistently conflated with relativism?
To

do

these

questions

justice

would

require

another

essay,

yea,

another

book. Here I can do no more than suggest lines of inquiry. Certain epistemological

categories

knowing
of

that

being

made

orsbecause

have

they

become

have

been

eternalmuch

eternity

and

so

fundamental

paid

like

the

the

Romans

immutability,

to

dubious
used

according

modern

ways

philosophical
to

to

deify
an

of

compliment
their

emper-

ancient

Platonic

prejudice, designated the ontos on, the really real. Even though many, if not
most,

philosophers

have

tices

of

their

own

ical

is

that

which

Aristotle,

Aquinas,

broken

discipline

with

instill

withstands

Descartes,

or

Platonism,

the

view

the

the

the

that

ravages

Kant

that

of

can

characteristic
genuinely

timethose

be

prac-

philosoph-

passages

understood

by

of
suffi-

ciently intelligent undergraduate with no further historical background.Historians of science, for

their

part,

rarely

reflect

on

such

matters.

Prob-

ably most historians of science these days, if asked about an episode like the
refinement
statistical
socially

at
some

aspect

That

techniques
that

is,

given

the

world;

metaphysically

such

they

or

the

scientific

depend

context

twentieth-century
of

nor

answer

real.

in

early

inevitable

measurement

would

and

hand

Prussia,

capture
cally

precision

constructed

resources
izing

of

correlations,

formulation

practices

crucially

on

are
the

(mid-nineteenth-century

eugenics-obsessed

they

work.

true.

Rather,

But

are

are

cultural
industrial-

Britain)

they

they

of
both

and

neither

they
histori-

contingent

to

certain time and place yet valid for certain purposes.

As of yet, a new vision of what science is and how it works has yet to be
synthesized
by

some

from
twenty

that

made

that

from

the

history

candidate

for

the

the

rich

years
history
of

of

scattered

possible

science

task.

but

historicized

itself.
new

militate
Science
form

and

history

of

fragmented
of

against
studies

materials

science.
such

The
a

seems

interdisciplinarity

very

synthesis
a

still
must

Philosophy, anyone?

36. For the ferocious debate sparked by a more genuinely historical approach to the history
of philosophy, see Teaching New Histories of Philosophy, ed. J. B. Schneewind (Princeton, N.J.,
2004).

gathered
practices

less
be

coming
likely
forged.