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A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England
How do we come to trust our knowledge of the world? What are the means by which we distinguish true from false accounts? Why do we credit one observational statement over another?
In A Social History of Truth , Shapin engages these universal questions through an elegant recreation of a crucial period in the history of early modern the social world of gentlemen-philosophers in seventeenth-century England. Steven Shapin paints a vivid picture of the relations between gentlemanly culture and scientific practice. He argues that problems of credibility in science were practically solved through the codes and conventions of genteel trust, civility, honor, and integrity. These codes formed, and arguably still form, an important basis for securing reliable knowledge about the natural world.
Shapin uses detailed historical narrative to argue about the establishment of factual knowledge both in science and in everyday practice. Accounts of the mores and manners of gentlemen-philosophers are used to illustrate Shapin's broad claim that trust is imperative for constituting every kind of knowledge. Knowledge-making is always a collective people have to know whom to trust in order to know something about the natural world.
In A Social History of Truth , Shapin engages these universal questions through an elegant recreation of a crucial period in the history of early modern the social world of gentlemen-philosophers in seventeenth-century England. Steven Shapin paints a vivid picture of the relations between gentlemanly culture and scientific practice. He argues that problems of credibility in science were practically solved through the codes and conventions of genteel trust, civility, honor, and integrity. These codes formed, and arguably still form, an important basis for securing reliable knowledge about the natural world.
Shapin uses detailed historical narrative to argue about the establishment of factual knowledge both in science and in everyday practice. Accounts of the mores and manners of gentlemen-philosophers are used to illustrate Shapin's broad claim that trust is imperative for constituting every kind of knowledge. Knowledge-making is always a collective people have to know whom to trust in order to know something about the natural world.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Steven Shapin
14 books40 followersShapin was trained as a biologist at Reed College and did graduate work in genetics at the University of Wisconsin before taking a Ph.D. in the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
From 1972 to 1989, he was Lecturer, then Reader, at the Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University, and, from 1989 to 2003, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, before taking up an appointment at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard. He has taught for brief periods at Columbia University, Tel-Aviv University, and at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. In 2012, he was the S. T. Lee Visiting Professorial Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
He has written broadly on the history and sociology of science. Among his concerns are scientists, their ethical choices, and the basis of scientific credibility. He revisioned the role of experiment by examining where experiments took place and who performed them. He is credited with restructuring the field's approach to “big issues” in science such as truth, trust, scientific identity, and moral authority.
"The practice of science, both conceptually and instrumentally, is seen to be full of social assumptions. Crucial to their work is the idea that science is based on the public's faith in it. This is why it is important to keep explaining how sound knowledge is generated, how the process works, who takes part in the process and how."
His books on 17th-century science include the "classic book" Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985, with Simon Schaffer); his "path-breaking book" A Social History of Truth (1994), The Scientific Revolution (1996, now translated into 18 languages), and, on modern entrepreneurial science, The Scientific Life (2008). A collection of his essays is Never Pure (2010). His current research interests include the history of dietetics and the history and sociology of taste and subjective judgment, especially in relation to food and wine.
He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and he has written for Harper's Magazine and The New Yorker.
From 1972 to 1989, he was Lecturer, then Reader, at the Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University, and, from 1989 to 2003, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, before taking up an appointment at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard. He has taught for brief periods at Columbia University, Tel-Aviv University, and at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. In 2012, he was the S. T. Lee Visiting Professorial Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
He has written broadly on the history and sociology of science. Among his concerns are scientists, their ethical choices, and the basis of scientific credibility. He revisioned the role of experiment by examining where experiments took place and who performed them. He is credited with restructuring the field's approach to “big issues” in science such as truth, trust, scientific identity, and moral authority.
"The practice of science, both conceptually and instrumentally, is seen to be full of social assumptions. Crucial to their work is the idea that science is based on the public's faith in it. This is why it is important to keep explaining how sound knowledge is generated, how the process works, who takes part in the process and how."
His books on 17th-century science include the "classic book" Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985, with Simon Schaffer); his "path-breaking book" A Social History of Truth (1994), The Scientific Revolution (1996, now translated into 18 languages), and, on modern entrepreneurial science, The Scientific Life (2008). A collection of his essays is Never Pure (2010). His current research interests include the history of dietetics and the history and sociology of taste and subjective judgment, especially in relation to food and wine.
He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and he has written for Harper's Magazine and The New Yorker.
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September 24, 2015Shapin deftly argues that the practice of science in seventeenth-century England relied heavily on the reliable word of "experts" in a particular field, as experiments were expensive and laborious to reproduce. Trust emerges as a critical element in the production of scientific knowledge, and Shapin demonstrates that what we assume to be objective in science often rests on this foundation of trust in the scientist (as it does in every academic field).
August 24, 2018
In A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England, Steven Shapin tries to answer the question, why do we believe something is true? He argues there is a disconnect between how we think knowledge is obtained and how it is actually obtained. Like scientists today, men of learning in the seventeenth century believed direct experience was the only way to obtain factual knowledge, and they rejected the “testimony of others.” However, Shapin argues testimony and authority are the very foundations of knowledge.
Trust, a necessary ingredient for working with others, is indispensable in science. Scientists use trust to sustain the structures that allow them to maintain and build on the body of knowledge they have acquired over the centuries. This social interaction, Shapin argued, contains assumed knowledge about the external world and who is trustworthy in that world. “The identification of trustworthy agents is necessary to the constitution of any body of knowledge.”
What kind of person do we trust to tell the truth? According to Shapin, it is the early modern English gentleman. A gentleman was a person who, because he was self-sufficient and free from economic burden, had no motivation to lie. Therefore, he had both the qualities of free action and virtue. The gentleman was culturally encouraged not to deceive. Virtue was enforced by the ever-present threat of loss of his status as a gentleman, which had far reaching social and political consequences.
The culture of honor guaranteed the gentleman’s place as a truth teller, as well as provided consequences that stemmed from lying. “A man whose word might be constantly credited was a man… upon whom others might rely,” Shapin explained. The trustworthiness of the rich and powerful was always taken over that of the poor, who were considered dishonorable because they were bound by other men for their survival.
Robert Boyle and John Locke were two examples of this ideal experimental practitioner. Robert Boyle used his status as a gentleman to deflect accusations that special interests drove his research. As a free agent, his supporters argued he was above those influences, and as a good Christian gentleman, he was in the perfect position to be trusted to show ‘the way things are.’
John Locke laid the groundwork for what testimony could be relied upon and what testimony could be discarded, which, combined with other texts of the period, constituted the Maxims of Prudence. This text contained seven guidelines for considering testimony. The seventh, as summarized by Shapin, stressed that we should “assent to testimony from sources possessing integrity and disinterestedness.” In other words, a gentleman.
Shapin further argued that in order to preserve civil order in the scientific community, the standards of certainty, accuracy, and exactness had to be lowered to accommodate a wide variety of testimony and keep debates as polite as possible. Robert Boyle’s view of the correct place and expectation of mathematics in experimental natural philosophy showed that civility mattered more than mathematical precision. Boyle was nervous about the place of mathematics in experimentation and skeptical about its supposed certainty. Boyle’s alternative was a conversational style of scientific inquiry, which had mechanisms for determining when a consensus on a matter had been reached.
Shapin concluded A Social History of Truth by arguing that there has been a “fundamental shift in the nature of trust and in the practical means by which the credibility of knowledge is secured.” Persons in the seventeenth century were familiar with scientific authorities and demanded they adhere to a code of conduct to prove their trustworthiness. Today, we place our trust in institutions and other faceless entities, because sustained skepticism of those institutions wouldn’t be practical. We value expertise over virtue.
A Social History of Truth was well argued and supported by a wide variety of sources, however, its overall argument often got lost in the details. Shapin’s focus on a handful of key players also opened him up to accusations of cherry picking examples to support his argument. What about all the natural philosophers who didn’t fit into the gentlemanly ideal?
Furthermore, an analytic philosopher would not agree with Shapin’s claim that truth is a social construct. If a statement is true, its truth should be self-evident by all. (A) does not equal (A) because we trust the person telling us it is. (A) equals (A) because it cannot be otherwise. This truth is independent of any human.
Despite this criticism, Steven Shapin’s philosophical inquiry into truth is compelling and thorough, and his thesis is convincing despite its inadequacies.
Trust, a necessary ingredient for working with others, is indispensable in science. Scientists use trust to sustain the structures that allow them to maintain and build on the body of knowledge they have acquired over the centuries. This social interaction, Shapin argued, contains assumed knowledge about the external world and who is trustworthy in that world. “The identification of trustworthy agents is necessary to the constitution of any body of knowledge.”
What kind of person do we trust to tell the truth? According to Shapin, it is the early modern English gentleman. A gentleman was a person who, because he was self-sufficient and free from economic burden, had no motivation to lie. Therefore, he had both the qualities of free action and virtue. The gentleman was culturally encouraged not to deceive. Virtue was enforced by the ever-present threat of loss of his status as a gentleman, which had far reaching social and political consequences.
The culture of honor guaranteed the gentleman’s place as a truth teller, as well as provided consequences that stemmed from lying. “A man whose word might be constantly credited was a man… upon whom others might rely,” Shapin explained. The trustworthiness of the rich and powerful was always taken over that of the poor, who were considered dishonorable because they were bound by other men for their survival.
Robert Boyle and John Locke were two examples of this ideal experimental practitioner. Robert Boyle used his status as a gentleman to deflect accusations that special interests drove his research. As a free agent, his supporters argued he was above those influences, and as a good Christian gentleman, he was in the perfect position to be trusted to show ‘the way things are.’
John Locke laid the groundwork for what testimony could be relied upon and what testimony could be discarded, which, combined with other texts of the period, constituted the Maxims of Prudence. This text contained seven guidelines for considering testimony. The seventh, as summarized by Shapin, stressed that we should “assent to testimony from sources possessing integrity and disinterestedness.” In other words, a gentleman.
Shapin further argued that in order to preserve civil order in the scientific community, the standards of certainty, accuracy, and exactness had to be lowered to accommodate a wide variety of testimony and keep debates as polite as possible. Robert Boyle’s view of the correct place and expectation of mathematics in experimental natural philosophy showed that civility mattered more than mathematical precision. Boyle was nervous about the place of mathematics in experimentation and skeptical about its supposed certainty. Boyle’s alternative was a conversational style of scientific inquiry, which had mechanisms for determining when a consensus on a matter had been reached.
Shapin concluded A Social History of Truth by arguing that there has been a “fundamental shift in the nature of trust and in the practical means by which the credibility of knowledge is secured.” Persons in the seventeenth century were familiar with scientific authorities and demanded they adhere to a code of conduct to prove their trustworthiness. Today, we place our trust in institutions and other faceless entities, because sustained skepticism of those institutions wouldn’t be practical. We value expertise over virtue.
A Social History of Truth was well argued and supported by a wide variety of sources, however, its overall argument often got lost in the details. Shapin’s focus on a handful of key players also opened him up to accusations of cherry picking examples to support his argument. What about all the natural philosophers who didn’t fit into the gentlemanly ideal?
Furthermore, an analytic philosopher would not agree with Shapin’s claim that truth is a social construct. If a statement is true, its truth should be self-evident by all. (A) does not equal (A) because we trust the person telling us it is. (A) equals (A) because it cannot be otherwise. This truth is independent of any human.
Despite this criticism, Steven Shapin’s philosophical inquiry into truth is compelling and thorough, and his thesis is convincing despite its inadequacies.
January 13, 2008
This is a fascinating book, but for every page of actual argument, it engages in three pages of preemptive defense against critiques arising from obscure humanist turf wars. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST SHUT UP ALREADY AND GET TO THE POINT.
June 11, 2023
In A Social History of Truth, Shapin examines how early modern scientists decided what was true. Although they claimed that one's own experiences and empirical evidence were the only basis for knowledge, in practice most of their knowledge came from trusting others, which is true in every society since none of us can test every fact for ourselves. However, while knowledge always involves trust, who is considered trustworthy and the process for determining truth varies across time and cultures. Using several case studies from early modern science mostly focused on Robert Boyle, Shapin argues that "gentle" (upper-class) cultural assumptions largely determined how scientists decided what was true. Gentlemen were perceived as trustworthy because of their financial independence, while their employees who actually conducted the experiments were seen as potentially corrupted due to their wages. When scientists disagreed about evidence or its interpretation, they often prioritized civility over determining what was true. Shapin closes the book by looking at modern scientific trust and argues that although institutional affiliations and expertise play a large role in who we trust, within the scientific community, face-to-face interactions and personal relationships are still influential factors in who is trusted.
Since I come from a history background, I found the more philosophical parts of the book to be a bit of a slog, but the case studies were completely fascinating. If you're interested in the history of science, I would definitely recommend it!
Since I come from a history background, I found the more philosophical parts of the book to be a bit of a slog, but the case studies were completely fascinating. If you're interested in the history of science, I would definitely recommend it!
April 18, 2023
Ever since I did a history of science course in my undergraduate, I have meant to read the classics of Schaffer, Shapin, and Latour. I finally got down to this very adorable scholar of Robert Boyle. The beauty of this department is that it pulls the throne off from the under the feet of 'science' that holy substance and guardian of the truth exposing how much of scientific practice is governed by social rules and in this case, with notions of gentlemanliess of truth-saying; only the gentlemen (a category within elite classes) are to be trusted and not the labouring classes. Boyle too is a case of this at play. The book examines contemporary testimonies of how veracities of claims are to be tested and how indeed these were executed in real life - from trusting ineffective scientific tools of gentlemen to mistrusting truth-telling sailors and divers. Finally there is a wonderful chapter also on the odd position of silencing assistants - all work must be done by assistants but they also not be trusted to be scientific. Science is cast in society and the biases that is clothed in/by.
October 23, 2020
A "social history" of truth???? Nooooooooooo
Incorporating historical research from early modern England as an empirical basis, Shapin shows that trust plays an ineradicable role in the truth-making process. The question is who to trust? Each culture must answer this question. In English gentlemen society, they responded by translating civil rules of discourse to the scientific community. But how do we answer that question, and who does our decision make invisible?
Massive bibliography and extensive footnotes, every historian's dream. But employed to contribute to the philosophical and sociological conversations of epistemologies.
Incorporating historical research from early modern England as an empirical basis, Shapin shows that trust plays an ineradicable role in the truth-making process. The question is who to trust? Each culture must answer this question. In English gentlemen society, they responded by translating civil rules of discourse to the scientific community. But how do we answer that question, and who does our decision make invisible?
Massive bibliography and extensive footnotes, every historian's dream. But employed to contribute to the philosophical and sociological conversations of epistemologies.
December 3, 2017
this book surprised just for the sake that i had anticipated the arguments would be a bit tricky to keep track of... but this was not the case at all. the title might seem a bit daunting but the content was very approachable and interesting
November 20, 2024
intricate but fascinating
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March 10, 2013Is an excelent book
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews