The History of Science as Oxymoron

From Scientific Exceptionalism to Episcience

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3192189
AutoresKen Alder (Northwestern University, autor correspondente)
Ano2013
Volume104
Fascículo1
Páginas88-101
Data de publicação2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoIsis (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
EditoraUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/669889
PMID23789510
OpenAlexW1498238220
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas15

This essay argues that historians of science who seek to embody our oxymoronic self-description must confront both contradictory terms that define our common enterprise--that is, both "history" and "science." On the history/methods side, it suggests that we embrace the heterogeneity of our institutional arrangements and repudiate the homogeneous disciplinary model sometimes advocated by Thomas Kuhn and followed by art history. This implies that rather than treating the history of science as an end in itself, we consider it a means to a variety of historical ends. think of ourselves as a tool-making community, and jettison moralistic assertions of scientific exceptionalism. To do so, this essay argues--on the science/subject side--that xe rebrand the subject of our historical inquiry as "episcience," a neologism that stands in relation to "science" as the new field of epigenetics does to the old genetics. Episcience encompasses both the material activities of the relevant sciences and their "surround" (environment, milieu, Umgebung) to reframe knowledge making to include the material processes that put science "in play" and make its findings matter beyond science. The essay concludes that "the history of science" is an oxymoron that makes sense to the extent that its practitioners acknowledge that the history of science is important not just because science is important, but because its history is

Cognitive reframing · Discipline · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Exceptionalism · History of ideas · History of science · History of science and technology · Intellectual history · Normal science · Oxymoron · Philosophy of science · Political science · Politics · Science studies · Social science · Sociology · Subject (documents · Variety (cybernetics · Computer Science · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology · Race, Genetics, and Society