This 1983 book is a lively and clearly written introduction to the philosophy of natural science, organized around the central theme of scientific realism. It has two parts. 'Representing' deals with the different philosophical accounts of scientific objectivity and the reality of scientific entities. The views of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Putnam, van Fraassen, and others, are all considered. 'Intervening' presents the first sustained treatment of experimental science for many years and uses it to give a new direction to debates about (...) realism. Hacking illustrates how experimentation often has a life independent of theory. He argues that although the philosophical problems of scientific realism can not be resolved when put in terms of theory alone, a sound philosophy of experiment provides compelling grounds for a realistic attitude. A great many scientific examples are described in both parts of the book, which also includes lucid expositions of recent high energy physics and a remarkable chapter on the microscope in cell biology. (shrink)

Western philosophers have traditionally concentrated on theory as the means for expressing knowledge about a variety of phenomena. This absorbing book challenges this fundamental notion by showing how objects themselves, specifically scientific instruments, can express knowledge. As he considers numerous intriguing examples, Davis Baird gives us the tools to "read" the material products of science and technology and to understand their place in culture. Making a provocative and original challenge to our conception of knowledge itself, _Thing Knowledge _demands that we (...) take a new look at theories of science and technology, knowledge, progress, and change. Baird considers a wide range of instruments, including Faraday's first electric motor, eighteenth-century mechanical models of the solar system, the cyclotron, various instruments developed by analytical chemists between 1930 and 1960, spectrometers, and more. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a cardboard dissected globe made in 1813 by Edward Mogg, a cartographer and map seller, to instruct children in the principles of astronomy. Since little is known about the maker or the specific object, I draw on evidence beyond the sphere itself to construct an account of how the object might have been used. In particular I address conversation as a key part of astronomical education and examine the way in which the cardboard plates of (...) the sphere, the presentation slipcase and the accompanying booklet would have prepared young learners for polite astronomical discourse around large instruments in later life.Keywords: Dissected globe; Edward Mogg; Educational toys; Astronomy; Conversation. (shrink)

In considering the appropriate use of the terms “science” and “scientific instrument,” tracing the history of “mathematical instruments” in the early modern period is offered as an illuminating alternative to the historian's natural instinct to follow the guiding lights of originality and innovation, even if the trail transgresses contemporary boundaries. The mathematical instrument was a well-defined category, shared across the academic, artisanal, and commercial aspects of instrumentation, and its narrative from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century was largely independent from (...) other classes of device, in a period when a “scientific” instrument was unheard of. (shrink)

Over the past twenty years or so, historians of science have become increasingly sensitized to issues involved in studying and interpreting scientific and medical instruments. The contributors to this Focus section are historians of science who have worked closely with museum objects and collections, specifically instruments used in scientific and medical contexts. Such close engagement by historians of science is somewhat rare, provoking distinctive questions as to how we define and understand instruments, opening up issues regarding the value of broken (...) or incomplete objects, and raising concerns about which scientific and medical artifacts are displayed and interpreted in museums and in what manner. It is hoped that these essays point historians of science in new directions for reengaging with scientific objects and collections. (shrink)

This response from the museum workplace to the previous three “Focus” essays has two main thrusts. First, it seeks to place the recent interest in museums from historians of science within the broader study of museums in general and points to the value of this broad context for locating scientific practice. Second, it reminds historians of science that museums are not only objects of study but also living resources for public communication, and it reflects on how the “Focus” essays relate (...) to the role the history of science can play in museums with science collections. (shrink)

Until the first quarter of the seventeenth century there was a great deal of agreement about the nature of mathematical practice. Mathematicians, as well as their patrons and clients, viewed all possible aspects of their work, both theoretical and practical, as being included within their discipline. Although the mathematical sciences were a fairly recent foreign import to England, which can barely be traced back beyond the mid-sixteenth century, by the beginning of the seventeenth century there was a large and growing (...) body of practitioners with a unified view of their subject's identity. Divisions began to appear, however, and they were often framed in terms of the proper mixture of theory and practice in mathematical education.One early sign of the emergence of this tension is the kind of accusation made in the priority dispute between William Oughtred and Richard Delamain taking place around 1632. Their bitter conflict began over who first invented the Horizontal Quadrant, a form of sundial, and the Circles of Proportion, a logarithmic calculating device that can be considered a precursor of the slide rule, and ended in a dispute over what constituted proper mathematical practice. Oughtred accused Delamain of making his students ‘only doers of tricks, and as it were Juglers’ by teaching them the use of instruments without any theoretical foundation. Instruments, Oughtred claimed, could only be used with understanding by students who had a proper theoretical foundation. He advocated postponing their use until after the theoretical foundations of a subject had been thoroughly mastered. Delamain, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to teach practical instrumental operations without insisting upon a theoretical grounding. This paper will use the dispute between Oughtred and Delamain to investigate the breakdown of consensus over internal mathematical boundaries, the rhetoric and strategies involved in attempts to gain authority by mathematical practitioners, and the extent to which their roles were negotiated, both with other practitioners, and with their patrons and students. (shrink)

This survey outlines a history of museums written through biographies of objects in their collections. First, the mechanics of the movement of things and the accompanying shifts in status are considered, from manufacture or growth through collecting and exchange to the museum. Objects gathered meanings through associations with people they encountered on their way to the collection, thus linking the history of museums to broader scientific and civic cultures. Next, the essay addresses the use of items once they joined a (...) collection, whether classificatory, analytical, or in display. By thus embedding the study of scientific practice in material culture, this approach contributes to constructivist histories of science. The final section addresses the role of objects in the experience of the visitors, emphasizing how fruitful the history of museum objects can be in the study of the public engagement with science. (shrink)

Imagine a world without things. There would be nothing to describe, nothing to explain, remark, interpret, or complain about. Without things, we would stop speaking; we would become as mute as things are alleged to be. In nine original essays, internationally renowned historians of art and of science seek to understand how objects become charged with significance without losing their gritty materiality. True to the particularity of things, each of the essays singles out one object for close attention: a Bosch (...) drawing, the freestanding column, a Prussian island, soap bubbles, early photographs, glass flowers, Rorschach blots, newspaper clippings, paintings by Jackson Pollock. Each is revealed to be a node around which meanings accrete thickly. But not just any meanings: what these things are made of and how they are made shape what they can mean. Neither the pure texts of semiotics nor the brute objects of positivism, these things are saturated with cultural significance. Things become talkative when they fuse matter and meaning; they lapse into speechlessness when their matter and meanings no longer mesh. Each of the nine objects examined in this book had its historical moment, when the match of this thing to that thought seemed irresistible. At these junctures, certain things become objects of fascination, association, and endless consideration; they begin to talk. Things that talk fleetingly realize the dream of a perfect language, in which words and world merge.Essays Lorraine Daston, Peter Galison, Anke te Heesen, Caroline A. Jones, Joseph Leo Koerner, Antoine Picon, Simon Schaffer, Joel Snyder, and M. Norton and Elaine M. Wise. Lorraine Daston is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. She is the coauthor of Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. (shrink)