Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison: Objectivity.

Kidd, Ian James

Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison

Objectivity.

New York: Zone Books 2007.

Pp. 501.

US$38.95 (cloth ISBN-13: 978-1-890951-87-8).

'Objectivity has a history, and it is full of surprises.' So claim Daston and Galison in this original and important contribution to the history and philosophy of science. They chart the emergence Emd development of scientific objectivity from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries by focusing upon scientific atlases--the standard compendia of images used to train the scientific practitioners of each generation. These atlases define the 'working objects' of science and, through attentive historical analysis, one can see in them the developing 'epistemic virtues' guiding scientific thought. Daston and Galison argue that the ways in which scientists visually conceived and presented the objects of their researches reflects their implicit epistemological commitments. By examining scientific atlases, one can identify the implicit epistemic virtues embedded within them and the concepts of 'objectivity' they sustain. The interaction of virtues and objectivities is then used to provide an innovative account of the successive forms of the 'scientific self, the idealized moral and epistemic character of the scientist.

Daston and Galison provide not only a history of the concept of scientific objectivity but also new conceptual devices for understanding it. Their focus on visual representations in the physical and life sciences is original. Daston and Galison are concerned to identify the 'regulative visions of science' within which different modes of scientific thought and practice operate (378). These 'regulative visions' are not identified with top-down supra-theoretical structures, like Kuhnian 'paradigms' or Foucauldian 'epistemes', but are instead invested in distinctive forms of 'scientific self. A scientific self is the particular normative vision of the 'ideal' scientific inquirer as defined by certain epistemic virtues. For instance, the Enlightenment scientific self ob served, described, and classified, exercising virtues of disciplined observation, as it sought to 'exclude the accidental (and) eliminate the impure' (59). This self's aim was to identify the fixed forms underlying phenomenal variation and diversity, a process in which ontological and aesthetic judgments were essential. By contrast, later 'mechanical objectivity' rejected such judgments as unacceptable intrusions of subjectivity, hence its ideal was 'purity of observation', in which scientific observation and representation had to be 'policed' against the constant threat of the intrusion of subjective prejudices (161).

Across these two cases, epistemic virtues shifted, creating a new scientific self as an older one dissolved, whilst new conceptions of objectivity appeared as a result. Daston and Galison treat three such forms of objectivity: 'truth-to nature', 'mechanical objectivity', and 'trained judgment'. This pluralization of objectivity is itself radical enough, since by locating objectivity in certain epistemic virtues, Daston and Galison demand that we reassess its status as an automatic epistemic honorific, beginning with the acknowledgement that there was 'nothing inevitable about the emergence of objectivity' (197). Far from being a universal epistemic value prized by scientists across the board, objectivity is recast as a mutable concept, one which changes in response to evolving epistemic virtues. These changes can be diagnosed, they suggest, by examining both the scientific atlases themselves and the remarks made by those who produced them, including scientists, illustrators, and printers. The epistemic significance of modes of visual representation also expands the scope of history of science, as 'objectivity' is now a product as much of representational practices, technical constraints, and divisions of artistic labour, as of epistemology, experimentation, and empiricism.

An obvious criticism of this book is that it over-emphasizes the significance of visual representations in the constitution of scientific objectivity, one susceptible to criticisms of 'ocularcentrism' made by recent historians of the senses. However, this is unfair. Daston and Galison do not argue that the history of scientific objectivity is determined solely by visual representation, but that modes of visual representation are an obvious manifestation of the epistemic virtues underlying scientific thought and practice. Their claim, both methodological and epistemological, is that one can identify the epistemic virtues underlying scientific practice by examining the visual representations in which they manifest. 'Through each of these atlas images', they argue, 'shimmers an image of an ideal atlas maker' and, therein, 'a scientific self (363).

The constitution of a 'scientific self by a set of epistemic virtues lies at the heart of Daston and Galison's history of scientific objectivity. Unlike in previous philosophy of science literature, objectivity is no longer solely an epistemological phenomenon--one demanding value-neutrality, say--but also a normative one, because consisting in a certain 'ethos'. Different epistemic virtues promote different sorts of 'scientific self and, with them, different conceptions of objectivity. This 'ethical' aspect explains the 'oddly moralizing tone' of scientific atlas-makers' accounts of representations; their 'admonitions, reproaches, and confessions' did not refer simply to epistemic errors, such as the intrusion of aesthetic judgments, but also reflected tangible moral failures: the patience, diligence, and discipline necessary for scientific activity were both epistemic and ethical virtues, and so 'objectivity' had implications for an individual's scientific and moral integrity (39).

This book provides a bold and original thesis, one which challenges the ambitions of history and philosophy of science as much as our understanding of scientific objectivity. The connections between epistemic virtues, objectivity, and the scientific self are complex but well established, supported by beautiful writing and illustrations, and they introduce new areas of investigation for future scholars. It brings together scientific biography, virtue epistemology, axiology, and the history of scientific illustration, creating new connections between ostensibly disparate areas, and the examples and discussions are numerous and extended enough to sustain debate no matter the particularities of one's historical and philosophical interests. Whether Daston and Galison's history of objectivity is supported by more specialized studies into particular disciplines is a matter for future scholarship, as is the applicability of their thesis to contemporary scientific practice. However, these points reflect the richness of their claims, rather than any weakness, and their work is sure to enrich history and philosophy of science for many years to come.

Ian James Kidd

Durham University