This is an archived material originally posted on sciy.org which is no longer active. The title, content, author, date of posting shown below, all are as per the sciy.org records
Objectivity by Lorraine Datson & Peter Galison (Book Review by Norberto Serpente)
Originally posted on sciy.org by Rich Carlson on Sat 29 Aug 2009 07:59 PM PDT
Objectivity
The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison.
Objectivity, New York, Zone Books, 2007, pp. 501, 32 colour plates, 108 black and white illus., £25.95, $38.95 (hardback 978-1-890951-78-8).
Objectivity, New York, Zone Books, 2007, pp. 501, 32 colour plates, 108 black and white illus., £25.95, $38.95 (hardback 978-1-890951-78-8).
In Objectivity, Daston and Galison challenge the received view that it is possible to observe nature without contaminating it with preconceived notions, prejudices and above all over-interpretation. This ahistorical view embraces the possibility of knowing the world as it “really is†without the involvement of a knower subject. Daston and Galison's key weapon to contest this position is no more and no less than history. They argue that the ahistorical outlook only emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and was associated, although not exclusively, with the development of new technologies and methodologies such as photography and statistics (mechanical objectivity). From the seventeenth century, open interpretations of nature by the observer/expert were the norm and were thus cherished. Human anatomy and botany, for example, required a defined preconception of phenomena, one that entailed seeing beyond the imperfect individual specimens that nature offered to the viewer.
Without denying the visual input of other sources, the authors focus on scientific and medical atlases. These offer a selection of images representing the objects of inquiry of several disciplines at a particular time. They, therefore, set the standards for how natural or medical phenomena are to be seen and depicted. Atlases are also performers of “collective empiricismâ€, a must for the practice of natural philosophy and more especially modern science from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Finally, for the historian of science and medicine, atlases are privileged windows from which to observe past and present scientific and medical practices as well as the “scientific self†that performed and performs them.
This takes us to one of the boldest proposals of Daston and Galison's work: the idea that for scientific objectivity to exist it should embody an array of ethical and moral codes that have to be carefully internalized and acted upon by a cultivated and conscious “scientific selfâ€. For a pre-Enlightenment natural philosopher or a mid-nineteenth-century scientist, for instance, the aspects of the scientific self that were cultivated and/or suppressed were different to those held by a current techno-scientist. A la Foucault, Daston and Galison claim that to attain objectivity the scientific self is exercised and reinforced by techniques of self-discipline, which could be as varied as, for instance, laboratory note-keeping in the case of a mid-twentieth-century scientist, and by a belief in the scientific self as, simultaneously, an active experimenter and a passive observer.
All in all, Objectivity is a thought-provoking, profound and well-crafted book that shows us that what counts as right depiction hinges on the historical period under analysis. Scientists and medical doctors interested in how knowledge is produced in their disciplines will find it a compelling and pleasurable read. Moreover, it is, as Daston and Galison argue, relevant to current discussions about the existence, attainability and even desirability of objectivity.
Daston and Galison's history of objectivity begins with the change of the “scientific self†as experienced by the British physicist Arthur Worthington, who in 1875 altered his views about the shape of falling liquid droplets. Before he began to use a camera, Worthington had drawn images of these by recalling their form after the flash of an electric spark. When, however, he saw photographs of the falling droplets, he was stunned to realize that his “pictorial taxonomy†of them was wrong, for it not only idealized the phenomenon as symmetrical, hence “misrepresenting†it, but, most importantly, even in the first observations he had selected only symmetrical droplets, discarding asymmetrical ones. The authors argue that this shift in Worthington's perception of his representation of phenomena corresponds to the shift from one kind of “epistemic virtue†to another. Epistemic virtue, a key concept in the book, refers to a particular vision of what knowledge about nature is in a particular period and how it should be attained.
The authors identify three types: “truth-to-natureâ€, “mechanical objectivity†and “trained judgementâ€; each of which is associated with well-defined and characteristic “moral virtues†and particular “scientific selvesâ€. Daston and Galison are quick to point out that when an epistemic virtue comes into being it does not fully erase the former, but rather amalgamates and deflects the meaning of its predecessor in a discipline-dependant manner. A certain periodization is however recognizable; “truth-to-nature†runs from the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century and is characterized by the selection of images representing ideal types, an object found in nature but idealized as a universal form. Here, interpretation and author input are highly valued. “Truth-to-nature†is followed by “mechanical objectivityâ€, a period running from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day which entails forms of automatisms that minimize scientists’ intervention and prevent knowledge from being tainted by subjective projections (Worthington shift). Finally, there is “trained judgementâ€, which runs from about the mid-twentieth century to the present, and refers to an attitude that allows for interpretation—one which puts an artistic element back into science—that draws on the unconscious in order to select intuitive criteria for objectivity. With “trained judgement†a new kind of pedagogy arose, one that would become very successful in forming self-assured experts in the recognition of particular patterns in the representation or rather presentation of phenomena (for example, Magnetic Resonance Imaging).
The authors identify three types: “truth-to-natureâ€, “mechanical objectivity†and “trained judgementâ€; each of which is associated with well-defined and characteristic “moral virtues†and particular “scientific selvesâ€. Daston and Galison are quick to point out that when an epistemic virtue comes into being it does not fully erase the former, but rather amalgamates and deflects the meaning of its predecessor in a discipline-dependant manner. A certain periodization is however recognizable; “truth-to-nature†runs from the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century and is characterized by the selection of images representing ideal types, an object found in nature but idealized as a universal form. Here, interpretation and author input are highly valued. “Truth-to-nature†is followed by “mechanical objectivityâ€, a period running from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day which entails forms of automatisms that minimize scientists’ intervention and prevent knowledge from being tainted by subjective projections (Worthington shift). Finally, there is “trained judgementâ€, which runs from about the mid-twentieth century to the present, and refers to an attitude that allows for interpretation—one which puts an artistic element back into science—that draws on the unconscious in order to select intuitive criteria for objectivity. With “trained judgement†a new kind of pedagogy arose, one that would become very successful in forming self-assured experts in the recognition of particular patterns in the representation or rather presentation of phenomena (for example, Magnetic Resonance Imaging).
All in all, Objectivity is a thought-provoking, profound and well-crafted book that shows us that what counts as right depiction hinges on the historical period under analysis. Scientists and medical doctors interested in how knowledge is produced in their disciplines will find it a compelling and pleasurable read. Moreover, it is, as Daston and Galison argue, relevant to current discussions about the existence, attainability and even desirability of objectivity.
Attachment:
