This is a second edition, with a new preface, of
a book originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1998.  Golinski
characterised his original text as "a kind of extended historiographical
essay, … written from a clearly defined point of view" (p. xvii).

The historical writing it surveys
is a body of work on episodes in the history of science produced by mostly
English-speaking historians and sociologists, whom Golinski sees as drawing
upon "constructivist" ideas.  "Constructivism" is the
clearly defined point of view that guides his selection of approaches.

Historiography is not history.  It is of most
interest to those who are acquainted with the historical writings, and thus the
history, it addresses.  The general reader may well deplore the comparative
lack of historical detail — perhaps Golinski’s most frequent reference is to
Shapin and Schaffer’s Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the
Experimental Life, but the 12 separate discussions of it do not disclose
the reasons invoked on both sides, nor why Hobbes was excluded from the Royal
Society’s experimental activities, though Golinski does characterize in general
terms what Shapin and Schaffer made of these issues.  Golinski does not give us
the first-order scientific debates but a second-order description and at times
evaluation of what historians and sociologists have made of them.

What of the constructivism that inspires the
analysts he has chosen to examine?  Golinski’s first account of this outlook is
that it "regards scientific knowledge primarily as a human product, made
with locally situated cultural and material resources, rather than as simply
the revelation of a pre-given order of nature" (p. xvii).  Putting it
crudely and using a somewhat different area of human thought, you might
contrast people who think that Moses got the pre-given commandments, written by
Jehovah himself, with those who consider what we have to be the outcome of long
processes of reflection and negotiation (attempts to arrive at a "reflective
equilibrium," if you will) on the part of Jewish tribes in prehistoric
times (a view that does not exclude, though it makes otiose, the idea of divine
inspiration).   My point is simply that if Golinski has clearly defined his
preferred view then we are all constructivists now.  The few examples of
non-constructivist work that he cites are described as espousing an extremely
naïve "whig" view of the history of science that it is difficult to
believe anyone really took seriously — though I admit one can find statements
of this sort in the propaganda of secondary school textbooks.  Golinski does,
however, spend some time criticising the Mertonian assumptions made by
Ben-David (pp. 50-55) so perhaps I am being unfair to him here.

Golinski does in fact devote a whole chapter to
a more extensive account of what he takes constructivism to be committed to. 
An epigraph from Bourdieu provides a contrast between an inquiry into the truth
of beliefs and "a historical examination of the genesis of those
beliefs" (p. 13).  But the chapter starts obliquely by examining those
aspects of Kuhn’s thought that later constructivists have emphasised, in
particular the conception of paradigms as concrete exemplars used practically
and analogically to guide puzzle-solving, as against more traditional
approaches that stressed the formulation of explicit generalisations and the
deductive relations between them and reports of observations.  (For much more
on this aspect of Kuhn’s work, see for instance the volume edited by Nickles, reviewed in Metapsychology
7:17.)  As Golinski notes, this understanding of paradigms in science
aligns them with master-works in the arts and crafts, and invites historians to
explore the details of education or initiation into the sciences, the community
structure among scientists, and the ways scientific authority is maintained in
the wider society.  And as some philosophical critics of Kuhn feared,
historians also showed how change of paradigm involved much more than deductive
argument: "fundamental values are exposed …. social assumptions about the
expertise or reliability of other scientists, or about the propriety of their
ways of collaborating or communicating" (p. 21) are deployed in rhetorical
and agonistic exchanges.

Besides these Kuhnian elements, Golinski
indicates various other ideas that feed into his vision of constructivism. 
Bloor and Barnes’ "Strong Programme" for understanding science
stressed the need "to explain how scientific knowledge was caused
by social conditions" (p. 22) — not perhaps in its entirety, but in a way
that practically downplayed any appeal to the independent truth of the beliefs
in question.  Golinski mentions two ways of implementing this injunction: by
appeal to the interests of scientists and by appeal to the relative power and
influence of scientists — an anomaly is only an anomaly if someone important
says so!  Golinski reports on work that explored various ways of understanding
the social realm that was invoked to explain scientific practice, including
Collins’ work on the replication of scientific phenomena and other
investigations of the cloistered world of the laboratory.  Distinctive
philosophical positions appear with the thought that analysis, rather than
prejudge the status of something as real or an effect of human error or
instrumentation,  "should keep an open mind about where things belong in
these ontological categories" (p. 40), an extension of the Strong
Programme’s symmetrical neutrality about the truth or falsity of competing
hypotheses.  We have here perhaps the extreme opposite of whiggish history, one
where no reliance is put on what "we" have later come to think
appropriate but which recounts simply how the dialogue of persons and things
unfolded in time. 

The remaining chapters survey work on particular
areas of the history of science.  Chapter 2 considers studies of the scientific
community and the place of individuals within it.  As already noted, Golinski
here contrasts constructivist approaches with those of Mertonian inspiration. 
The chapter goes on to consider the notion of scientific disciplines, with
acknowledgements in particular to Foucault, and the development of research
laboratories in the nineteenth century.  Chapter 3 focuses more directly on
laboratories and other places, such as public demonstrations and museums, where
"natural knowledge is made" (p. 80).  It concludes with some
discussion of the field-work sciences and the importance of mapping to them.

Chapter 4 looks at the written productions of
scientists from the standpoint of rhetoric.  Here again there is an example of
non-constructivist inadequacy in the work of Bazerman on the history of
experimental reports (pp. 112-117).  Chapter 5 deals with experimentation and
the instruments it uses, and also with non-discursive means of representation,
especially visual images, employed to support or expound scientific doctrine.

Chapter 6 begins by considering approaches to
science that stress the notion of a culture.  It moves on to what Golinski sees
as the analogue of the problem of induction: how this bit of local knowledge
can be found valid elsewhere.  The history he looks at here is mainly concerned
with "metrology, the enterprise that works to secure the
compatibility of standards of measurement in different locations" (p.
173).  There is a section at the end on feminist accounts of how the human body
has been used and misused in scientific practice.

The last chapter returns to more general issues
of the nature and place of narrative in historical writing.  It includes
several pages (pp. 196-204) on Rudwick’s very detailed recounting of the
Devonian controversy in nineteenth century geology, an account which
deliberately seeks not to call upon later resolutions of the debate.  Golinski’s
discussion reveals some of the difficulties in measuring up to the demands of
the symmetry thesis.

Finally, to comment on the first pages of the
new edition, Golinski’s 2005 preface.  This recounts the origin of the book
itself and responds to some criticisms.  It notes the irrelevance of the Sokal
affair to the kind of methodologically-oriented constructivism the book deals
with.  Acknowledging that constructivism’s star may appear now on the wane,
Golinski asserts that "it remains indispensable amidst the diversity of
current historiographical approaches" (p. xi) and concludes by noting its
role in two very different areas of study, one of mapmaking in British India,
the other of the notion of an author, appealing to works published since the
first edition.

Golinski has provided a guide to history of
science in a large number of areas.  He does not gloss over differences between
many of those he reviews and has "corralled" under a constructivist
orientation they might not wish to endorse.   He shows how conflicting views
can each yield insight, though the non-constructivists are usually castigated
for their parochial and success-oriented assumptions.  Constructivism in
Golinski’s hands seems more a way of opening up questions that we might fail to
see need answers than a commitment to ultimately untenable philosophical theses
— more to the good, I would say.

 

  

© 2006 Ed Brandon

 

Ed Brandon is, by training, a
philosopher, and now is working in a policy position in the University of the
West Indies at its Cave Hill Campus in Barbados.

Categories: Philosophical