IN INSIDERS OUTSIDERS THE & OR, OF SOCIOLOGY SCIENCE; HOW CAN WE FOSTER AGNOSTICISM?

Bruno Latour

for of Volumeshave been written evaluatingthe prospects development social scientificmethodologyas rigorousas that of the natural sciences. They ask, should social scientists attempt to experiencethe "lived world" of the peoplethey are studying?Or, in the pursuit of objectivity, as shouldsocial scientistsattempt to distancethemselves much as possiconfidentlyexpectthe eventual ble from their subjects? Can sociologists of appearance a Newton of the social world? Or should they ignore the canon of the hard sciencesand formulate new forms of measurement, deficientby the standardsof natural scientificinquiry but suited to the distinctivecharacteristics the socialworld? However interestingthese of
Knowledgeand Society:Studiesin the Sociologyof Culture Past and Present,volume 3, pages19-216. Copyright @ f98f by JAI PressInc. All rights of reproduction in any forrn reserved. ISBN: 0-89232-161-X

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questionsmay be from the standpointof most social scientists,they arc peculiarly inappropriatefor those sociologists who are concernedto erplain the conduct of scienceitself. All methodological argumentsin the social sciences are basedor onc' tacit assumption:that scientificactivity is distinct from all other forms oi activity.t All methodological disputescan be viewed as arguments abour the place that social scientific method occupies on the objectivesubjective continuum.2Most of the debatesconcern the direction the continuumsocialresearchshouldtake. But whetherthe conclusionis that more objectivity or more subjectivityis neededin socialscientificinquiry. the existenceof the continuum itself is never questioned. For the studentof science,the legitimacyof this continuumis questionHence. is ablebecause natureof the hard sciences itself problematic.3 the How can the sociologist literatureis rendereduseless. the methodological of sciencebe expectedto approachhis researchwith "scientific objectivthat scientific ity" when the result of his researchis the demonstration "facts" are quintessentially Why advisehim to consocial phenomena? when he knows siderthe "meaning" that socialactionhasfor participants that this "meaning" is inextricablefrom the scientificresultsproducedin Why opposethe rationality of scientific the laboratory he is studying?a activity of the "lived world" when he knows inquiry to the emotion-laden that there is no suchthing as "pure" rationality?All of thesemethodological injunctionsare premisedon the belief in pure and exact knowledge. What is left when this premise is itself taken as the object of study? alternativescan one offer?sTo get an ideaof the What methodological peculiar problems sociologistsof science have when they formulate methodologyfor their own field, considerthe following example.Everyone agreesthat a scientisthas to be somehowboth "inside" and "outside" the object under study. To combinesomedegreeof "insiderness" and "outsiderness" can indeedbe taken as the most generalmethodological injunction. Even this does not hold for the sociologistof science, you however.If you say to a biologist, "You cannotstudy a frog because are not a frog," you will be laughedat. Similarly, the sociologistcan who says that the sociologist defend himself against the businessman cannot study businessbecausehe has not participatedin corporatelife; the businessman'sobjections are explained away as defensesof his vestedinterests.Only when scienceis the object of study is the merit of the outsider'spositiondenied.IfI sayto a group ofphysiciststhat (a) I do not needto be a physicistin order to study physics,(b) I ought not to be a physicistin order to study physics,(c) I shouldnot have to believein the in rationality of the natural sciences order to accountfor them in my own even in my own terms, and (d) I shouldnot use any tool from any science be analysisof physics-no doubt I would immediately thrown into an

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of asylum.This is curious, in contrastto what is expectedof a sociologist of religion,for example.No one deniesthat the sociologist religioncan be but of both an agnosticand a good sociologist, a sociologist scienceis not permitted to be an agnostic. princiWhen such a fundamentalinversionof the usualmethodological ples occurs, we have evidently nearedthe referencepoint for all these principles. All the methodologicaladvice points toward what one may of metaphoricallystyle the magneticpole of Exact Science.Regardless whether one sails to the North. East, South, or West, once one reaches go the magneticpole, all compasses wild. This is what happensin the sociologyof science,common senseno longerholds. Thosewho want to travel toward this pole need to find anotherway of orientingthemselves. The solution to the problem seemsto be that one can study scienceby being somehow outside science. In the first part of this article I will examinewhat it might meanto be outside.In the secondpart I will show that it is impossibleto be outside sciencebecausethis position requires scienceto have an inside. In the final part I will considerthe constraints thus imposed on the sociologyof science.6

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

must derive from this axiom: no accountqualifiesas an All methodologies explanationif it simply restatesthe account i is supposedto explain. The which permitsus differencebetweenthe two accountsis the qualification to seeone accountas an explanationof the other.TThere are, of course, principles,but this is the most important other important methodological How have socialscientists studyonefor the purposesof this discussion. ing science beenexplained all?In order at dealt with it? Have the sciences to answer these questions,I will consider seriatim a variety of actual solutionsto the problem of studying science,leading the reader on a journey throughthe lookingglassof science. seven-stage We are goingto be led in a direction opposite to the one that prevailing methodologies usuallyindicate. 1. All analysesstart with the assumptionthat scientistsare "mere practitioners" in their fields and are entirely unconscious the meaning of of their activity. Suchanalysisof scientificpracticeusuallyfocusesnot on ordinaryscientists but on Great Scientists. TheseGreat Scientists are, as leaders their fields (not infrequentlyrecipientsof the Nobel Prize),the of "insiders". They are so high in the scientifichierarchythat they essential interpretthe mysteries of sciencenot only to laymen but also to their fellow scientists. Library bookshelves full of the thoughts,reflections, are memories and opinions of theseGreat Scientists.s But though this group

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is certainly the most vocal of those explaining scienceto the public at large, it is rare to meet a social scientistwho takes its opinions at face value;it is easyto show that the Great Scientists'explanation scientific of discovery is mere tautology, mere celebrationof victories in scientific battles. Hence, a secondgroup comes into the picture: the social scientists who treat the Great Scientistsas "informants" whose "explanations" have to be carefully checkedby other methodscomingfrom other sciences. 2. How does this group implementour central methodological axiom? First, thesehistoriansand sociologists want to understand scientificactivities as much as possible,and have througha variety of meansmastered the technicaldetailsof the fields they study, thereby transformingthemselves from "outsiders" into "insiders."e But they do not lose their "outsider" statusaltogether, they approachscience for from the perspecpublish the resultsof their work tives of history and sociology,and they not in scientificbut in sociological historicaljournals. Their accountof or is science thus in conformity with our centralaxiom and might count asan explanation.But these studentsof sciencesucceedso well in achieving "insider" status that they lose their "outsider" perspective,failing to account even in the most basic of their own terms for the explanations made by their informants.roCertainly, they make a show of defiance toward Great Scientists, they qualify the testimonygiven in individual for accounts. But they do not question the collective assumptionsof the scientificcommunity. We might comparethem to a hypotheticalstudent of witchcraft practices,who returnsfrom the field expectingboth a Ph.D. and recognitionfrom fellow sorcerers. matterhow hard working these No studentsof scienceare, they cannot transcendtheir contradictoryloyalties. In fact, they replaceour centralmethodological axiom with another: scienceis its own justification, and only sciencecan explain itself.rr 3. The third group of students science of meetsour standard retaining of their "outsider" statusby a peculiar strategem---complete ignoranceof science.One does not need to be a physicist to count the number of Ph.D.'s in physicsfrom the earliestdays of the field to the present.But this group mimics "insider" statusby adoptingwhat they believeto be the methodsof the natural sciences,emphasizing quantitativemeathe suresof scientificactivity.12 One subsetof this group is the sociologists of sciencewho work in the Mertonian tradition; they sharethe quantitative bias of this group as a whole but approach sciencewith an agnostic phenomenon. attitude, treating it as if it were any other sociological The Mertonians have developed concepts to study science which did not originatein scienceitself, analyzingsciencein such terms as "invisible colleges," "cocitation clusters," "stratification patterns," "norms of science" and the like. Unfortunately, Mertonian methodshave not pro-

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duceda true "outsiders"' analysisof science, thosewho employthem for sufferfrom completeidentificationwith the ethosof science. no point At is this identificationtaken as the problemto be studied.Another problem with the Mertonian approach is that it leads to the study of scientists rather than science.A second subset of this group merely repeatsthe technicaldetails of the field they are studying, making only minor modificationsin framing. Finally, a third subsetleavesthe groundto scientists entirely, and repeats the scientific establishmentstrategy in its own attemptsto establishitself. It should now be clear to the reader how the game is played among historiansand sociologistswho study science.The right to explain can only be basedon "inside" knowledgeof a field, and such claims can be that suchknowledgeis lacking.The result refutedonly by demonstration is a process of infinite regress, such as that summarizedin Figure l. by claimant Whateverposition one takes, it can be negated a subsequent who baseshis caseon a greaterdegreeof "outsider" status.We are now approachingthe middle of the diagram,further from mere practitioners of science,but more in keepingwith the central axiom that we must study scienceand not merely repeat it.l3 has definedits positionin opposition 4. A fourth group of investigators to the previousgroups.Their theoreticalapproachis derivedfrom anthropologicalmethod. What do they hope to learn from anthropology? They they attemptto realize can follow the centralaxiom in a new way because insiderness and outsiderness. the anthropologicalgoal of simultaneous The investigator has no desire to become a scientist, an insider, and acceptson face value not a word of his informants' claims. Whatever information the sociologistrepeatsmust be translatedinto the terms of the sociologist's own explanatory scheme. All of these "taken for granted" acts becomeproblematic:duplicatingan experiment;writing a paper;draftingan article; accounting a discovery;defininga test ofan for as On hypothesis; choosingto seesomething a problem.ra the other hand, however, this fourth group of investigatorswants to study scienceat much closerrangethan any of its predecessors. methodis like that of Its as an anthropologist studyingan unknown tribe. It treats scientists strangers, yet observesthem in the midst of laboratory activity.15 Viewed in insufthese terms, all previous investigatorshave been simultaneously ficiently and excessively involved with science; they neither account for scientific activity nor follow this activity closely. independently Have we now reachedthe limit of the central axiom and found that There is one belief that we sharewith sciencehas as last been explained? scientists-the possibility of studying science "scientifically"on which "If we baseour disbeliefin scientificprejudices. sociology,"writes Bloor, "could not be applied in a thorough-going way to scientificknowledgeit

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would mean that science could not scientificallyknow itself."r6 This fourth group, like other studentsof science,also imitatesscientists,but, unlike them, it imitates scientistsby adoptingthe critical, disrespectful and slightly iconoclastic aspect of science. The same movement that of in debunkedreligion is now leadingto the demystification science, the name of science.It is not only the generalprogram of sciencethat we share,it is also the safety, pleasure,rewards,and prejudiceof academic of science.We producea new subdiscipline-the anthropology scienceother approaches. in order to achieve credibility and supercede axiom, we must 5. Hence, in order to obey our central methodological find a form of investigation that is outside the realm of professional science.Many people,amongthem Marxists of somesort, claim to bring of to their analysisof sciencethe perspective anothersociety,even if that society is hypotheticalrather than actual. No matter what the value of their work, these people are certainly methodologicallysound. If you and sharematerially the vested interestsof the scientificestablishment, share intellectually the beliefs and ethos of science(no matter which is ones),you lose the right to explainwhat science all about; you can only repeat it, and add a science to the other sciences. The Marxist investigatorslT urge us to adopt the same method employedby science fiction writers; they formulate a "thought experiment" by urging us to imaginethe form sciencewould take in a societywith an entirely different Thus, we can become consciousof the form of social organization.lE degree to which science and technology are historically determined, "bourgeois" phenomena. diagram,the problemis no longerto be At this point on our regressive outsidesciencebut to be sufficientlyinsideit to be able to say something aboutit. This new problem is as hard to overcomeas the former one. The resultis easyto imagine:sciences criticizedin a very generalway, but are nothing in particular is really said.reDiscussionquickly entersthe realm the of abstraction.In the caseof Marxist investigators, problem is compoundedby the claim that Marxism itself is a science! Marxists denounce and bourgeoisscience, themselves but havethe most crude sort academic of "scientific" pretensions.These contradictionsare not easily overcome.Hence, we must now considera sixth sort of approach the study to of science. 6. For many people, investigatingthe nature of sciencerequires not academicresearch(even of a Marxist variety) but active interventionof processomesort. From materialmodificationwe learn the fundamental ses of science.These activists are evident outsiders;their notion of criticism of any scientificactivity-recombinant DNA research, creation of alternativetechnology,work with nuclearpower-is politicalpressure. The fact that scientificwork can be altered by political pressureconsti-

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tutes experimentalproof that any ostensibly"purely" scientificor technical issueis fraughtwith socialfactors.What is soft?What is hard?What is logical? What is political? What is scientific?All these questionscan One such experimentinvolved the Camonly be solved experimentally. bridge City Council in the recombinant DNA controversy. It can be shown that each of the council membersunderwentan intellectualtransformation as the result of the controversy,becomingaware,for example, that conflictingjudgments about the necessarylevels of safety precautions are functionsofthe diverseinterestsofthe partiesto suchdisputes. These activists are much more efficient than the anthropologistsof they provide the only experimental basisfor a science science. of science; They bring into the sacred ground of sciencea disreputablecrowd of outsiders,overcomingeach successive setbackwith a renewedinvasion lawyers, and even some of mixed protestors-politicians, businessmen, In respected scientists. consequence, thoughthey add nothingto the body of scholarlyliteratureon the culture of science,they legallyor politically modify the flow or outcome of a given scientificcontroversy.20 This last group of investigatorsdemonstrates that the boundary between scientific outsiders and insiders is very vague, subject to the fluctuationsof social debate. When this boundary becomesindeterminate, it is difficult to extend applicationof the centralaxiom. There is one further way to appreciatesciencefrom the outside:to imaginesomeone who could accountfor elementaryconceptslike "observing," "explaining," "studying," or "recording" in entirely new terms. We are so imbued with the notion of the scientific vision that we can scarcely conceiveof a person who could look clearly dt this vision. But we can imaginea hypotheticalinvestigatorcapableof such skepticism,someone a suchas lalo Barassowah, hunter from the nation of Youme in the lvory Coast. What if Ialo, not I, a Europeansocial scientistto whom scientific Sucha activity seemsnatural, spenttwo yearsin a biology laboratory?2r the distancebetweenthe inside situationrepresents maximumpossible and outside of the natural sciencesand then also representsthe best possibility for really explaining science.If we cannot stage such a situation experimentally, we can approximateit through literature. The most famous characterwith whom we can identify is Ulrich in Musil's The Man Without Qualities.Ulrich has an intimateknowledgeof several (mathematics engineering), he strivesto distancehimself sciences and but from them, so that he never repeats them. throughthe studyofscience. This is the end ofour seven-stagejourney we look at the progression led us from the practitioners the pure to lf that we see that our reflexive qpproachto sciencehas dictatedan outsiders, prescription. approachantitheticalto the usualmethodological Generally, get closer to science.Here, objective treatment of one is enjoined to

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(naturaland sciencerequiresone to draw away from it. In most sciences social),the problemsof methodare spreadalonga continuumlinking the maximumof objectivity to the maximumof subjectivity.Whethera given scientistwants to go upward or downward along this continuum,he will not cut across the regressiveline that forms when the same general principle is applied to the study of science.The two lines---one leading toward science,the other away from it-are obtained by applying the sameprinciple,and do not reachthe samepoint; at the bottom of the first line there is a state of pure unconscioussubjectivity; at the end of the progressionaway from science,there is a maximum of awareness and objectivity. Our conclusionis paradoxical:if the main problem in many fieldsof science how to getin (the data, the field, the "meaning"), in the is study of sciencethe main problemis how to getout; it seems if there is as no outer space where one can go to forge an explanationof it. The paradoxis inescapable: the readertakes scienceseriously,he has first if to go to science.But once there he has to go away from it, in order to accountfor it. If, like most, he stops midway, this is the best proof that scienceis not taken seriously since it cannot explain itself.

,,BEWARE PURITY,IT IS THE VITRIOL OF

OF THE SOIJL''22 The progressionin the foregoing analysis was made possible by one assumptionthat I want now to question.Why do I want to questionit? Becauseit still arises from scienceand then precludesany analysisof The centralaxiom statesthat no accountis scienceif it is not challenged. taken as an explanation if it simply repeats what is supposedto be explained.I did not questionthis axiom sincethere was no alternativeto it. I did not use it as it stands,however. I used it as an interpretationof this axiom which goesas follows: the first accountand the secondare not proposedor uttered by the sameperson All along I supposed that there were mere practitionersand others(calledscientists) explainingwhat the mere practitionerswere doing. It is this hidden assumptionthat I want have undertakento demonstrate now to question.Ethnomethodologists that there is no qualitative differencebetween observationsmade by a "competent member" and a sociologist.The sameis true, I think of a scientistand a sociologist,as I will show with illustrationsfrom my own work. I With Steve Woolgar23 showed that after a few years of work with betweenhis insiderand can no longerdistinguish biologiststhe sociologist outsider roles. He cannot decide if the biologists are like him, or if whatever differences obtain between him and them are of degree or of kind. This occurs less becauseof the familiar processof assimilationof

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the observer into the group he is observingthan becausethe difference between "practice" and "explanation of this practice" is largely artificial. The sociologistexplains what his informants are doing. But his informantsdo that as well. In fact, his informantsdo their own autosociology, and they do so in order to go about their work. When a project interestsa given scientist,he mustjustify his interest.How doeshe do so? Contrary to our expectations,he does so with referenceto social and personalfactors. The following quotation from a conversationbetween two scientistsillustratesthis point.
But they don't know their business. may be that they seeprogesterone It which has been known for years to be an analgesic. . Also there is a flag in all that. The English have discoveredthat, they push it. That's normal.

In one singleutterance,the statement disputeis rephrased the use in by of four "extrascientific" allusions:to the incompetence one group of of experimenters; their ignorance; their nationality;and to the normsof to to science-in this casethe counter-norTns. is not possible It here to discriminate between a "pure" scientific sentence,and an explanationof it provided by the sociologist.Insidersare constantlyusing "outside" conceptsand tools to accountfor any fact in construction.The centralaxiom is applied,but the samepersonor group providesthe explananda and the ad explanandum. this processthe sociologistis not really an outsider: In he feels very much at home in a laboratory becausehe does the same thing.2a The pervasivepresence ofautosociologyis striking even in a "harder" science.I showedelsewherez5 a peptide chemist wishing to modify that the chemical nature of a given molecule could not rely on a logical process.He had to use many heterogeneous "accounts" of his former moves in order to decide the next modification.(The accountsincluded: colleagues'strategies; evaluationof the reliability of chemicalfactories; various interpretationsof the samebit of chemical knowledge;chances and outcomes of the "black art" of chemistry; reception of previous articles;reactionsof patent lawyers; availability of supplies,and so on.) reconstruction the reThere is no differencebetweenthe sociologist's of searchprocessand the actual negotiationofthis processby the scientist; the latter does not fit the stereotypes either the relentlesslylogical or of entirely unselfconscious researcher. Indeed, the chemist had to practice autosociology, his constantlyreconstructing prior activity, in order to go on with his research. He had to synthesizea mass of contradictory accountsof his and his colleagues'behavior-rationalizations,pure lies, systematicclassifications, literary devices,and somelogical rules. How, for example,is the chemistto assimilate seriesof paperswhich may all a

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identify an identical changein a moleculebut in each instancefollow a of The differencebetweenthe inside and different sequence reasoning? when one looks empiricallyat the research outsideof sciencedisappears process:the inside of scienceis full of outside factors. So the central not because axiom of this paper is applied by the scientiststhemselves, they are more competent sociologiststhan the sociologist,but because the sociologistof scienceis often, as we say in French, "plus royalistes que le roi."26 What is clear in a hard field is even more evident in a soft science. Invited by a group of primatologiststo observe their meeting, I was caught in a very strange situation. I had written a preliminary paper, "Observing ScientistsObservingBaboonsObserving. ."27 This paper infuriated two primatologistswho did not wish to be observed,and I was persuaded sign a waiver that I would not "observe" the meeting. to Interestingly,though, the conferencememberswere also observingtheir colleaguesintensely, doing just what I would have done. They were observingeach other's reactions and taking notes on the attitudes and positions they held. Moreover, they were "explaining" these attitudes and positionsby referring them to "social factors": nationality,gender, career history, ideology. The concept of "dominance" that a zoologist usedwas, for example,criticized by otherson the basisthat the zoologist was male, American, a student of De Vore (a major exponent of the theory of dominancehierarchiesin primate studies),that he used field noteswritten ad libitum, and that he followed his baboonsand observed them from the top of a Land Rover. An older woman, working in an quite anthropology department England,saw the conceptof dominance in differently,but it was notedthat shehad filled in observation sheets, had a backgroundin the humanities,had followed her baboonson foot, and psychoanalysupportedthe Labour Party. The primatologists discussed philosophy,not in order to make microsociology sis, cultural history, and smalltalk but in order to definetheir work and to probe their preferences for theoretical approachesand data selection. The most ironic scene occurred when the gentlemanwho had tried to exclude me from the meetingasked all of us to fill in a sociologicalquestionnaire order to in check if the positions we had taken could be related to our educational background.The amount of autosociology was so astounding that, without breakingmy pledgeto not observe,I could gatherexcellentsociological data on the field, simply by writing down what they said about themselves. All theseexamplesshow the erroneous character the hiddenassumpof tion. You cannot study sciencefrom the outside becausethis would be admittingthat sciencehas an inside. Conversely,it is quite easyto apply the central axiom in every field of science,because distancerequired the

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by the axiom is always there: scientiststhemselves at somedistance are from their own field so they canexplainsciencein differentterms.A field is a heterogeneous world that has to be observedfrom the outsideonly in the sociologist's the textbook writer's imagination. get into it and to or To apply the centralaxiom with the help of the many scientists engaged the in same work is not much of a problem. It is only by granting at the beginningthat there are internal and externalboundariesbetweenscientists and nonscientists,scientific assertionsand "indexical" assertions that the study of scienceis forestalled.2s The hidden assumptionis not limited to science.It is a generalprejudice, a belief in boundaries.On one side there are objectsof study, on the other there are people studying these objects. This belief in boundaries is essentialto the study project. But in order to study scientific practicewe must take the drawingof theseboundaries the objectof our as study. I do not mean to suggest that there are no boundaries,no differencesbetweenhard and soft sciences, expertsand laymen,scientificand unscientific procedures, laboratory rats and people studying them, ethnographers tribesmen.I am sayingsimply that the constructionof and thesedichotomouscategoriesis not unproblematical, and that this must be recognized if science is to be really explained. My point is best illustratedwith the hypotheticalcaseof Ialo from the Ivory Coast. What could be the result of allowing this preliteratehunter to observeWestern science for the first time? We cannot assumethat science would be completelyinaccessible, that would be grantingtoo much to science. for No mind is altogetherunscientific,and the differencebetween science seen from inside and outside is not that great. Scientistsdo too much autosociology persuade ofthe existence to us ofan inside,and conversely, every outsidercan get into scienceas easilyas scientists can get out. Oncethe impositionof boundaries broughtinto focus, the violenceof is the operationappearsin full light. Was the readerconsciousof the use I madeof "small" wordslike "pure," "mere", "absolutelypure," "automatic," "irreflexive," "unconscious"? I imitatedwhat occursso often in "pure science,""purely logical" and science texts.2e the expressions In so on, the crucial featuresare not the words "science" and "logical," but the small word "pure." I showedper absurdurnwhere a pure study of would lead(outside anything believe). cannow showwhy. science of we I It is the belief in purity that imposed the hidden interpretationof the central axiom: on one side of the line pure objects, on the other pure minds, with no contactbetweenthem. One hasthe duty to explainand the other must be explained.If we are to be agnostictoward sciencewe must give up even this last belief, this religiousrespectfor purity.30 the end At of the first sectionof this paper I proposeda paradoxicalstrategy:if we take scienceseriouslywe must both move toward andaway from it. Short

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of this, scienceis a belief that cannotbe accounted for. Now this position seemsuntenable,for if we take scienceseriouslywe cannot analyzeit from the outsidebecause has no inside, no boundarythat can be taken it for granted. Short of that, scienceis a belief that cannot be explained.

A CHEAP AND IMPURE RESEARCHSTRATEGY

position of someone We saw the peculiarmethodological who intendsto study science.We saw how the usualnavigationinstruments to tell us fail in which direction to go. And finally we decidedthat this confusionof all limits between inside and outside, scienceand nonscience,object and to subject,is essential our analysisand shouldnot be eliminated.We now "provisional moral"-as Descartes would say-to get have to concoct a in our study of sciencewithout losingour way and without findingour by way back to the usualpath (which as we now know leadsus to believeor to repeat Scienceinstead of explaining it). This provisional moral has three components:a stylistic one, an ethical one, and an economicone. Continentalsemioticsand British ethnomethodology have approached the study of sciencefrom a linguisticor evena stylisticpoint of view.3rIn these approachesthe difference between scientific styles appearsas a differencein the literary genrethat is used.The genreis madeof a corpus of literary devices(or linguistickeys and frames)which can be empirically studied.All these devicescan also be deconstructed a careful use of by other genres.It is no coincidencethat many of the most fruitful insights into the workings of sciencehave been made by people whose style is completelyat variancewith thc usualscientificmode,peoplesuchas Paul Feyerabendor Michel Serres. Most studies of scienceare, however, measuredby the degreeto which they approximatescientific styles of scholarship,rather than by their distancefrom scientificstyle. I recommend,instead,that the studentof science someliterary research, as do so to becomefamiliar with the stylistic tricks employedby scientists.32 By drawingon thesetwo sources(fiction and science) socialscientistwill the soon realize that there is in fact only one large literary genre: that of sciencefiction (the best part of which is not written by sciencefiction writers). Sociologists scienceare beginning put togethera picture of what a of to scienceis. tt is made of three main elements:an inscription device of some sort (questionnaire, field notes, bioassay,mass spectrometer and and an agonistic so on), a body of scriptures field of somesort.33 Through the use of inscription devicesthe scientistmight be able to modify the statusof an assertioninside the body of scriptures(its modality),if he is ableto win in an agonistic encounter. The agonistic field is madeof people like him who stop being interestedin the use-value this assertion,and of

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any other, and becomeexclusivelyinterested their exchange value;this in value is defined in the market of the field only as far as it allows other scientiststo acceleratetheir own cycle of production. Needlessto say, this "capitalist economicsof truth" as Michel Foucault says, bears no relation whatsoeverto truth. Truth effect and reality construction are only the consequences successful of movesinside(or outside)the agonistic field to stabilizesomecontroversies. Now, here is the ethical requirement. Knowing what a scienceis madeof, we shouldnot want to develop one. Instead of fighting for more chairs, insteadof excluding scientists and laymen alike from the study of science by drawing boundaries, insteadofenforcing stricterrules ofaccessto the field, insteadofcreeping inside ministriesand corporaterooms to advertiseour trade and extend the domain of applicationof our market words and concepts-instead, in a word, of imitatingthe peoplewe shouldstudy, we haveto do everything to make clear that we do not want and do not intend to be scientists. The constraints that we put on agnosticismare inescapable.It would be unethicalfor a studentof scienceto ask for the garment,statusand role of a scientist. A study of scienceis not economicallyfeasible.It takes yearsto show that a scientificfact fabricatedby a group of biologistshas been socially constructed.3a study scienceand technologywould require as many To social scientistsas there are scientists.Not only would this be absurdly expensive,it would only result in duplicating the sciencein a similar amountof scienceof scienceand so on ad infinitum (and ad nauseum). A cheaperstrategyis possibleif we act on the implicationsof the second section of this essay. Sciencehas no well-definedinside. Scientistsare themselves fightingto definethe boundaries their fieldsand to exclude of or includesocialdeterminants. Disciplines, especially younger,softer, the more appliedand more controversialones, are heterogeneous full of and gaps and loopholes in which the sociologist can easily find his way. Many scientificissuesare alreadyunder attackby many outsiders(seethe discussionof the sixth group in the first section), and each social and political controversy in which science figures representsa cheap and convenientexperimentfrom which the studentof sciencecan learn. The student of sciencemust recognize that he has allies whom he has not exploited effectively, either becausehe despisesthem or becausehe admires them to excess. I recognize that an alliance between Great Scientists,well-connectedsocial scientistsand high-rankingadministrators, would not be a very illuminatingone, but all sorts of other alliances are imaginable,given that the territory which science occupies is so controversial.So long as a scientific discipline is still in the processof formation, it is possiblefor the student of scienceto apply the central axiom with little difficulty. Once a disciplineis solidified,it becomes

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increasingly costly and difficult to show that the disciplineitself, and the Thus, the facts on which it rests, must be viewed as sociallyconstructed. third injunction of my small provisional moral is that the student of the so must enroll as many alliesas possible, as to decrease cost science of explaininga given scientific issue.35 One final exampleshouldilluminatethe extentof the problem.After the primatology meeting I discussedearlier I was appalledto see that the which had published and the autosociology reportsomitted all the debates provided the dynamic behind the proceedings.The participants had formally ignoringall materialprobchosento imitate the hard sciences, have adopted lems and social controversies.Becausethe primatologists the this strategy,the cost to the studentof sciencewho would persuade reader that primatology is a social constructionis very high. If, on the other hand, my primatologistfriends had chosento presenta reflexive, of soft and subtle understanding baboon watching, it would be easy to show that my "explanation" of primatology is in fact made by many scientiststhemselves.But becausethe primatologistshave chosen to present an image of their discipline which is in keeping with the stereotypepeople have of science,the student of sciencehas a much harder time to expose the social production of facts. They made the very high, althoughthey were barriersbetweenscienceand non-science almost ready to accept that they were not different from non-scientists. How then shouldfuture studentsof scienceproceed?Shouldthe study Shouldit be linked of sciencebe cheap,impure, heterodox,unscientific? to with the constant strugglebetween scientistsand nonscientists forge Should it strive to abrogatethe usual boundsome scientificassertions? Shouldit repudiatescientificstyle ariesbetweenscienceand nonscience? If answer and the strategy of the scientific establishment? sociologists thesequestionsin the affirmativethey will be departingfrom their usual ideals.Strangethoughit may seem,however,they will be methodological following the only possiblecourse to take if they wish to take science seriously,to reveal what it is made of and to be truly agonistic.

NOTES
them. As will could be found that I do not want to consider l. So many counterexamples methodological analysisin social becomeclear, I am not seekingparity with sophisticated treatingtheseissues ofsciencejustines Only the peculiarsituationofthe sociology science. so crudely. 2. The defenceof subjectivityhas been made by writers like Cicourelor Goffman. P. (London:Routledge and KeganPaul, 1958) is Winch's seminalTheIdea of a SocialScience character premised the oppositionofthe socialand naturalscience, and the subjective of on the former.

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3. Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life (Lond,on;Sage, 1979). 4. K. Knorr, "Producing and Reproducing Knowledge:Descriptiveor Constructive?" SocialScience Informotion 16(1978): 669-96;B. BarnesandJ. Law, "Whatever ShouldBe Done with Indexical Expressions?"Theoryand Society3(1976): 223-37. 5. One cannotspeakof methodwithout credentials empiricalwork. This excursionin in methodologyis based upon: a one-yearstudy of black engineers the Ivory Coast; a in two-yearstudy of a biologylaboratoryin California;a one-year studyof primatologists; and a current three-yearwork on Pasteur. 6. "Science" is an absurdlygeneral term that has no strict meaning. useit in this article I because usingthe word the belief in science reinforced;an enchanted by is circle is drawn aroundany enterprise I designated "science". SinceI intendto generate as disenchantment, am not botheredby the magicalquality of this generalterm. 7. "Repetition" shouldbe understoodin a narrow sense.If I record with great care a myth that is told to me, I am not repeatingit; rather I am putting it in a new framework (field study,sheafof papers); this is enoughto fulfill the requirement the axiomevenif I haveno of theory or grand explanationof this myth. Also this article does not deal with the further requirementthat an explanationbe good; it starts only from the minimum requiredfor a study to take place. 8. Many names can be proposed illustrateeachstepwe aregoingto follow: Whitehead, to Einstein, Medawar, Monod and Jacob are good examples. (New 9. The exemplaryworks are D. Edge and M. Mulkay, Astronomy Transformed York: Wifey Interscience, 1976);andG. Lemaine,ed., Stratgies Choix dansIa Recheret che (The Hague: Mouton, 1977),at least in the narrow domain of sociology of science. and see 10. For a more complete discussion Latour and Woolgar( 1979) the works citedin note 14. ll. lt is in France that this new axiom has receivedits grealestextension.Peoplelike Bachelard, Canguilhem and Althusser have so worshipped sciencethat no history---or at least no social history---of sciencecan be developed.A generalhistory of thought or of the institution of scienceis added to the grandioseunfoldingof "scientificity." The idea of "explaining" scienceis made to seemblasphemous. 12. Quotologyhas mainly developedaroundthe ScienceCitation Index inventedby E. Foundation Garfield;the Indicatorshavebeenespecially developed the NationalScience by and the work of J. J. Salomonat the OECD in Paris. The quantitativeapproachis best represented D. de Solla Price. The semiquantitative by approachis well represented by Merton, Hagstrom,Cole or Ben-David.For a bibliography and seeI. Spiegel-Rsing D. de Solla Price eds., Science, Technologyand Society: A Cross-DisciplinaryPerspective(London: Sage,1977). 13. D. Bloor, Knowledge and and SocialImagery(London:Routledge KeganPaul, 1976). or of 14. SeeH. Collins,"The SevenSexes:A Studyin the Sociology a Phenomenon, the Replicationof an Experimentin Physics," Sociology9 (1975):205-24;B. Latour and P. en Fabbri, "Pouvoir et Devoir dansun Article de ScienceExacte," Actes de la Recherche ScienceSociale 13 (1977:8l-95); K. Knorr, "From Scenesto Scripts" (forthcoming); Woolgar,S., "Writing an IntellectualHistory of ScientificDevelopment, Social Studiesof Science6(1976): 195-422;Pinch, T., "Theoreticiansand the Productionof Experimental en Anomalies:The Caseof the Solar Neutrino", Callon, M', "De Problemes Problemes: Itineraire d'un Laboratoire" in Soclblogy of the Sciences: A Yearbook. The Research ProcessK. Knorr, R. Krohn and R. Withley (eds.), 1980. 15. The frrst long-termlaboratory study was performedby myself, but severalstudies is have since been made by other social scientists.The field study of laboratories not a say they do by panacea bul it has a unique virtue-it allows us to check what scientists observingwhat they do.

How Can We FosterAgnosticism?

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16. Bloor, 1976:40. 17. In England the most representativeare grouped around the Radical ScienceJournal and the work of Bob Young. In Italy, it is the work of A. Cicotti. In France,the groups gatheredaround Impascience and J. M. Lvy-Leblond. 18. I use this word not to destroy the illusion that the actual experiments have taken place,but only because is true that all sciences part of science it are fiction.A niceexample for ofthis is providedin the book published Science the People:ChinaScienceWalkson by Two Legs (New York: Locust Books, 1974),which is exactly like a good science-fiction novel by, say, LeGuin. 19. Except for Bernal, Marxist scholars havenot beenvery interested science. in This is they are not interested particularissues, because in but they are excluded not only because from the placeswhere scienceis done. Once again, ignoranceof the working details of sciencehas been most extreme (see Althusser,for instance). 20. It would be wrong to confine this label to militant groups such as Nader's Raidersor Sciencefor the People. The most important group is the administralors of science.At the U.S. National ScienceFoundation or at the French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique the influenceof high executivesin directing financialsupport and scientific prioritiesenormously outweighs that of leftistgroups.Their objectives similar,however; are they want to manipulate and interpret sciencewithout permitting scientiststo do so. 21. For a more elegant,tentativeformulation,seeLamarosse, "Le pygmet la licorme "d'ascse," Art PressInternational,(Summer1979), specialscience issue.I do not mean all who are outsidescience, the very rare caseofpeople who are outsideofscienceand but looking in at a very intimate and detailed part of the production of knowledge. 22. This is what the captaintells RobinsonCrusoejustbeforethe shipwreck.I allude,of course,not to Defoe's crude character,but to M. Tournier's wonderful Vendredi,ou les Limbes du Pacifique,(Paris:Gallimard, 1967). 23. Latour and Woolgar (1979). 24. The easiestway to presentthe issueis to the following: either you have a science, then a science science, then the third-degree review of the science science, of of and so on ad infnitum; or you have the science science a subsetof science, of as science itself taking only a subsetof everyday practice. The consequences clear: in the first approach, are gain reflexivityand consciousness a right to exist; in the second, reflexivityand consciousnessare only subsets ofpractices.Theseare the consequences peoplewant to avoid by that using the hidden interpretation of the central axiom. 25. B. Latour, "Is It Possible Reconstruct Research to the Process: Sociology ofa Brain Peptide," Sociology of the Sciences:A Yearbook(1980). 26. Thebeliefinsciencemightbetheinventionofepistemologists,philosophers,andnow the sociologists science-that is, peoplewhosemethodis patentlyunscientific of but who worship scienceand scientists.Many of these points are obviousto a scientistbut quite absurdto a sociologistof scienceor an epistemologist. 27. B. Latour, "Baboon Field Studies:Myths and Models," WennerGrennSymposium, New York, June 1978.All the following references are to this meetingor to the papers (unpublished). 2E. This is not the resuscitation the prejudiceof the first groups(Part l); I do not say of that only scientists can explainscience because oausiders incompetent; say that many are I times it is the outsider'sbelief that makesscienceunexplainable that "walking into a and laboratory" is enough to demonstratethat there is no inside becausescientistsare as much outsideas outsidersare. 29. I refer of courseto Kant's use of the word "pure" but also to the lessconspicuous antinomies-hard/soft, rigorouslflzzy, strong/weak, perfect/imperfect-that are employed to differentiatesciencefrom nonscience.

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30. SeeD.Bloor, "PolyhedraandtheAbominationsof Leviticus,"BritishJournalforthe History of ScienceI l(1978: 245-72),in which Mary Douglas'santhropological classifications are appliedto mathematical disputes.The most stimulatinginsightsare Nietzsche's No. 344:"Why are we still so devout?" aphorisms Die frhliche Wissenschaft, in especially 31. A review of the semiotic literature can be found in A. J. Griemas,Semiotique et sciencesociale,Paris: (Seuil, 1976);the unpublished work of FrancoiseBastide,(Paris, CNRS), is crucial for issuesof scientific"genre." 32. Latour and Fabbri, op. cit. 33. The term "scriptures" is borrowedfrom Knorr (1978);for a descriptionseLatour and Woolgar (1979). 34. Steve Woolgar spent four years reconstructingthe discovery of pulsars; Michel Callon spent two years following the social negotiations surrounding the choice of the problems in fuel-cell research in the 1950s;Francoise Bastide has already worked three yearson a handfulofarticles by ClaudeBernard.Even ifthere are, as Harry Collinsargues, points to study, the sizeofthe task is beyondthe reachofa few socialscientists. strategic 35. Their most useful allies must be intellectualhybrids-alienated, marginalmen of researchwho make ideal double agents: anthropologists who have turned to science; physicianswho have turned to history; militants who have tumed to epistemology; consumerists turned to the social history of technology; engineerswho have turned to the philosophy of science,and so on. With their help, we will find so many gaps in the will finally be boundaries sciencethat the distinctionbetweenscienceand nonscience of obliterated.

KNOWLEDGEAND SOCIETY: IN OF STUDIES THE SOCIOLOGY CULTUREPAST AND PRESENT

Annual A Research Editors: ROBERT ALUN IONES
of Department Sociology of Illinois Uniaersity

HENRIKA KUKLICK
Department Historyand of of Sociology Science of Uniaersity Pennsyluania

VOLUME 3 . 1981

Aftx

PRESS rNC.

Greenwich. Connectic ut

Copl-risht A l98l JAI PRESS INC. 165 West Putnam Avenue Gre enu,ich. C on nec tic ut 06830 All rights reserved. No part of this publication m!- be reproduced, srored on a rerieval system, or lransmifted, in an.vform or bv any means, electronic, mechanicol, flming, photocopl,ing, recording or otherwise u'ithout prior permission in v'riting front the publisher. I SBN N UMBER : 0-89232-16 I -X Manufactured in the United States of America

Volumesl and 2 published RESEARCHIN SOCIOLOGYOF KNOWLEDGE, as: SCIENCESAND ART

CONTENTS
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
vii

SOME SOCIAL ROOTS OF THE MAD GENIUS CONTROVERSY GeorgeBecker COOLEY'S "GENIUS, FAME AND THE COMPARISON OF RACES" Robert M. Greenfield SKINNERIAN PSYCHOLOGY AS FACTORY PSYCHOLOCY Barry Schwartz THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND ADAM SMITH'S CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE Josep R. Llobera THE FUNCTIONS OF CLASSICAL THEORY IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH: THE CASE OF MAX WEBER Kiku Adatto and StephenCole

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PROBLEM CHOICE AND THE SOCIOLOGY AND SCIENTIFICCOMPETION: AN INTERNATIONAL CASE STUDY IN PARTICLE PHYSICS Daniel Sullivan, Edward J. Barboni and D. Hywel White 163 WHO IS AGNOSTIC? OR WHAT COULD IT MEAN TO STUDY SCIENCE? Bruno Latour THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF ARTISTIC STYLE: IMPRESSIONISMIN FRANCE AND CRITICAL REALISM IN RUSSIA Liah Greenfeld AFFLUENCE AND AFTER: THEMES OF SUCCESS IN NOVELS. 7945-7975 AMERICAN BESTSELLING Elizabeth Lons

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