Biografias de los objetos cientificos

by Lorraine Daston

Lorraine Daston es la especialista más reconocida alrededor del mundo en historiografía de la ciencia. En esta obra, traducida por primera vez a nuestro idioma, Daston compila lúcidos ensayos que analizan el origen y la evolución de los objetos de estudio de diversas disciplinas de las ciencias sociales y naturales. Bruno Latour y Marshall Sahlins se encuentran entre los colaboradores de este volumen.

Genres: History Of Science, Nonfiction, History, Science

416 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2000

About the author

Lorraine Daston (born June 9, 1951, East Lansing, Michigan)[1] is an American historian of science. Executive director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, and visiting professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, she is considered an authority on Early Modern European scientific and intellectual history. In 1993, she was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reviews

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best part of the introduction is where Daston demonstrates how several of the key terms of modern science have changed valences (her best example is that of ‘object’). The central question of the book regards how objects can emerge as demanding, or fit for scientific inquiry. The larger project is to move past a dichotomy between realist and ‘constructivist’ histories of science by examining objects in their specificity - how they take on new resonances or valences in differing contexts (the example in this volume is the self), or emerge without a single, clear precedent (e.g. society, culture). Daston’s own essay on preternatural philosophy is great because it clearly demonstrates the historical specificity of what we consider to be proper objects of scientific knowledge, and because it hints at the relationship between affect and power in the context of scientific study.