some Borgesian monograph on the whole of human knowledge. Objectivity seemed endless. Gradually, very gradually, we discerned shape and contours amid We came to understand account of kinds of sight Ust aspired to be, for how knowledge was most socurely ac Paotocus Objectivity Shock the latent image pressed into hs retina to create a Ireeze-frame “historical” sequence the beauty of ts perfect symmetry. Perfect symmetry made sense. Even if it could be trapped by the snd microscopists before bit ‘capture the world in is types and regularities — cary or milk droplets, some into liquid, others onto hard sufaces. In hhand-drawm sketches, made immediately after the bright flash of an Khe had captured an evanescent morphology of nature. Simplification through pictorial taxonomy, explanation ofthe major butcomes ~fialy science emerged from akind of iad low that hadFe F2, Symmetical Yao, actu Wrthingtn, “A Secure Pape had relied on the images Iefton his retina Spring 1894, he fi lets splash with a photograph, ‘thington said, “The first commer the photographs, For years, Worth re drawings in many detail he drawings would have sched (see Figur wperfect nature, a sudden y-of the phenomenon he oubt, Wor ny years, he had been di ing but idealized mirages, howerer beawtilly sy No apparatus was perfect, Worthington knew. His wast, and ren everything was st io show a particular stage of there were varistions from one drop to the next. Some of this visual scatter was de tothe i authered a bit to ed perfectly cadet Worthingon ne always had ta choose mages taken atany stage is 1m. Acc ‘Worthington wrote, experiment - Worthin jot case of ad eyes or wings with etched those asytometrical Aeliberately. The published, symmetri sacceses — the tru “Some judgment mber of draw: ive series. Now, atela consecutive s out being guided by some theory ‘You will therefore be good enough to remember that this chronicle ‘of the events of 2 tenth of a second is not a mechanical record but is presented by a fallible hurnar * Butnow he 1 masked by variations. And only now did that judgment strike him as treacherous, For two decades, Worthington had seen the symmetr {ected forms of natare as an essential feature of his morphology of drops. All those asymmetrical images had stayed in the labora not one appeated in his many scientific p = over the long course of making system- eal structures to zoophysiological crystals, idesization had long been the governing order. Why would anyone choose asthe bottor mage of the human thorax one including a broken an optical artifact ofthe lens, ofa clover with an inscct-tora [leaf Bot after is 1894 shock, Worthington instead began to as" bimself— and again he was not alone — how he and others for 9 long | ould have only had eyes fora perfection that wasn't there In dhe months after he first etched drawings of it may have eased © the older epistemok (the merely peychological. Perhaps, he speculated in 1895, it had | | been the minds tendency to ntegrate variations back nto regula. Perhaps it was an overactive attentiveness toa regular subsection of the splash wrongly generalied tothe whole. “In several cus, have been able to observe with the naked eye a splas also photographed,” he said, noting in his record book %\ the photograph ‘What had been a ve ~ tracking and documenting the essen became a psychological fault a defect in til deal “Anto-Splsh percept (7_Now in 1895, Worthington told his audience shat the earlier images of perfect drops hod to be discarded. In thee ple, he ‘wanted images that depicted the physical world in is full-blown + complexity its asymmetrical indvidvality—in what he called, for | shore, “an objective view” Only this would provide knowledge of | what he considered “real, as opposed to imaginary ids” ‘+ Worthington's conversion tothe “abjective view” is emblematic ofa Sea change in the observational sciences, Over the course of the sineteeath century other scientists, fom astronomers probing the very large to Bacteriologsts peering atthe very small also began questioning ther own traditions of idealzing representation in the preparation oftheir atlases and handbooks. What had been a si premely admirable aspiration for so long, the stripping away of the ‘ccental fo find the essentil, became a sien This book is about the creation of a new epistemic virtue scien- title objectivity that drove scientists to sewrite and re-image th ‘guides that divide nature into its fundamental objects Its about the search for that new form of unprejudiced, unthinking, blind s ght we call scientific objectivity. Cuarrer OnE Epistemologies of the Eye Blind Sight Scientifie objectivity has a history. Objectivity has not always de- fined science, Nor is objectivity the same as truth or certainty. and it is younger than both. Objectivity preserves the artifact or vatiation that would have been erased inthe name of truth it scruples to filter ‘out the noise that undermines certainty. To be objective is to aspire to knowledge that bears no trace of the knower ~ knowledge un- marked by prejudice or ski, fantasy or judgment, wishing or etiv- Begin to year forts lind sgh, the “objective lew” tha em- traces aceldents and asymm, Arthur Wortingtons catered spld-coone. The bok sbout how and why objecy emerged da new way of saying nature, and of being cen ‘nce the nineteenth centary, abject bas hats prophets, philosophers, and prescers. Bu it spciicy and is strangeness sen in the everyday work of ts practioner Her racieof scenic iagernaking Mak lading inference egistering instru y at bay! But none sas ‘old and ubiquitous as image making. We have chosen to tell the hse tory of scientific objectivity through pictures drawn from the long. tradition ofscientifie atlases, those select collections of images that lentify a disciplne's most significant objects of inquiry. Tonk got wills thse owe ge fom lee thc he oteenth-century lor; the second, from century catalogue of snowflakes the third, from a mi ccentury compendium of solar magnetograms (sce figures Ll and 1.3)-A single glance reveals that the images were differently erophotograph, an instrument femporary with any one of these contour. The practiced eye Images made systematic sense oft. These three figures consti synopsis of our story. They capture more than 2 flower, a snowflake, seach encodes a technology of scientific sight impli lustrator, prodvetion, and reader, i product ofa distinct code of epistemic ll, in terms to be developed presently, care, mechanical objectivity, and ally novel The was ascence of fos che orebety aed fp Eipjcuny Br ts new epistemic virtue in the ‘ruth-to-nature, any more ‘wiumphing onthe runs ofits predeces _ing into existence, not replacing oo phy of the heavens. "There is deep historical rhythm to this sequence: in some strong sens, cach successive stage presupposes and builds gpon, aswell at reacts to, the earlier ones, Truth-to-nature was a precondition for mechanical objectivity, just as mechanical objectivity was a precon- Ation for trained judginent. As the repertoire of epistemic virtues expands, each redefines the others. This snot some neat Hegelian arithmetic ofthesi plus antithesis equals synthesis but a at messier coukd not, siempre th-century predeces ves, which in some case ig ‘been recast by the existence ol for example, was understood differ- ‘ured as competitors. Judge: cently before and after objectivity ‘once an act of practical reason became an intervention of subjectivity, whether defensively defiantly exercised. sequence is productive. ‘teenth-century clavichord at around 1900 —but you cannot hear ‘uries of the planoforte in the way i weaves history into the warp and woof of the present: not just as a past process reaching its present state of rest—how things care to ‘be as they are~but alo asthe source of tensions that keep the pres- cent in motion, ‘This book describes how these three epistemic virtw nature, object rained judgment, practice at have been central practice across disciplines and periods; and third, be standards for how phenomena are to be seen and depicted, Scientific atlas images are images at work, and they have bbeen at work for centuries in all the sciences ofthe eye, from anat- omy to physics, from mereorclegy to embryology. lective Empiricism iences must deal with the problem of selecting and constituting “working objects," as opposed to the t00 plentiful and too variousParis explained how such imag plants tharblssome...by chance the agave tha lowered last the same goes for the animals In our climes and of which one ses some- often pass but 1es only one individual in centuries” Even scientists working in itude must regularize their objects. Collective empiricism, involving investigators dispersed over continents and generations, imposes ‘more urgently the need for common objects of inquiry. ‘Atlases are systematic compilations of working objects. They are ionaries ofthe sciences of the eye. For initiates and neo- ins the eye to pick out certain kinds of for example, this “typical” healthy liver rather sthegin anew. Whatever the amount and avowed function of the-text in an atlas, which varies from long and essential to non: existent or despised, the ithistrations command center stage. Usually displayed in giant format, meticulously drawn and reproduced, and ively printed, they are the raison d'étre of the alse, "To call, belie their primacy, for it sug- inction is merely ancillary, to illustrate a text ot cory. Sone early astronomical atlases do use the figures a¢ genuine als co explicate rival cosmologies.* But in most atlases fom, the eighteenth century on, pictures ate the alpha and the omega of the genre Not only do images make the atlas atlas images make the science, are the rept 1" derives from Gerardus Mereator's worl “quate to their task, why new images af record are necessary. These mes de fabrica ma ot fabri- or Cosmegraphical Meditations on the Fabric ofthe ‘mythology, who bore the world on bis shoulders). By the late eigh- teenth century, the term had spread from geography to astronomy they were explicitly included in the lineage that later atlas makers were obliged to trace: every new atlas must ‘begin with an explanation of why the old ones are no longer ade- _genealogies define what counts 2s an atlas in our account. Whether’ allases display crystals or cloud charaber traces, brain slices or galax- ies, they sil im to “map” the terttory of the sciences they serve. printed as a double ele- iches); James Bate eighed over thirty-eight pounds. See figures 14 and 1.5.) The ambitions ofthe authors rival the grand scale of thelr books. Atias makers woo, badger, and monopolize the finest artists available. They lavish the best qual- ity ink and paper on images displayed in grand format, sometimes life-size or larger. Atlases are expensive, even opulent works that devour time, nerves, and money, as their authors never tte of repeat~ ing. Atlas prefaces read like the trials of Job: the errors of earlier atles that must be remedied; the long 1¢ courting and correcting of the a withthe cheapskate publisher; the penury to which the whole endless [project has reduced the indefatigable author. These ps faking because an atlas is meant tobe a lasting work of %| {generations of observers. Every atlas is presented with fanfare, ‘were the atlas to end all atlases, Atlases am to be definitive in every and sort, Building on the work of others would be dificult or impos: sible, for one cold never be sure that one’s predecessors and corre- spondents were referring tothe same thing, sen inthe same tutored ly coordinated. Science would be confined, as it was for many cen tries, before the adv such atlases practicab Tike these empiricism in the sciences po school Making and using an atlas is one of the least individual activites in science. Atlases are intrinsically collective. They are designed for tor. But the contributions of atlases farther: atlases make other collaborations poss ine loose collaborations that permit dispersed observer and accumulate results. Early atlases were often written in Latin to assure maximum diffusion; after the demise of Latia asthe lingua Jranca of the learned world, bilingual and trilingual editions were produced for the same reason. The atlas isa profoundly social under- wid findaenaly a exemplary frm of olecve emphiom ‘he collabornon of retiatorstbutet ove ine and pace Caceres ease ene ry tet 26 sand conference logos, in earlier decades and centuries ‘etched in memory like icons. Dog-eared and spine-cracked with ses enroll practitioners as well as phenomena. They 10 se the same things in the sarae ways, Without ties of observers: an atlas to unite them, atlas makers have long claimed, all observers are isolated observers In this book, we trace the emergence of epistemic virtues through mages —by no means the only expression of truth-to-nature 1g. By examining volumes of images of re Ibooks, surveys, and ex are pistemic virtues? How do judgment connect wath on-the-ground to tack an entity as abstract as epistemel ofa drawing or a photograph? And, above nthe remainder ofthis introductory chapter, we wi ive brand of history plausible, tackling the last, most burning question first. Objectivity 1s New ‘The history of seientific objectivity is surprisingly short. It first emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and in a matter of decades also as a set of 23, How- smn have Become In he scenes sce not have, the epistemologicaladvent of objectivity came trained judgment. The new did not al- ‘ways edge out the old. Some disciplines were won over quickly to the newest epistemic virtue, while others persevered in their alle- ‘This situation is Faraliar enough inthe case of moral virtues. Dif. ferent virtues ~ for example, Jno worked in eatlier epochs? How cam theze be seience worthy of the name without hhow can truth and objectivity be pried apart, much less opposed to ‘each other? these objections stem from an ides swith science tout court. Given the commanding place that object thas come to occupy inthe modern manual of epistemic virtues, conflation fs pechaps not surpr imprecise, both histor cally and conceptually Historically it ignores the evidence of usage cation of obj 28 did scientists start to talk about objectivity, operates by synce- of objectivity stand for the whole, and on an ad hoc basis. The in one case; automatic procedures for regi ecourse to quantification instill another; ‘The aim of anon: bee to show how all these elements or example, what h automatic data registration), slated into ‘became ubiquitous and resi ninctcenth-century novelty of scientific sts with the word itll. The word “objectivity” has 2 history. Its cognates in European languages derive frm the Latin adverbial or adjectival form oblectivs/ abies, intcodaced weenth-centiry scholastic philosophers such as Duns Scotus lam of Ockham. (The substantive form does not emerge around the tum ofthe nineteenth century) From beginning, it was always ih subiecti but the terms originally meant almost precisely the opp they mean today. “Object ge a8 they are pre: fented to red to thing in wemselves.& One can stil ind traces ofthis scholastic usage in those es ofthe Meditations de prima philasephia (Meditations on F phy, 1641) where René Desa Four ideas (that is, whether they correspond to any external world) wit ther “objective reality” (ha y they enjoy by virtue oftheir clarity and stincmess, regard Jess of whether thy enst in mataril fora.” Even eighteenth-cen-"} tury dictionaries sil preserved echoes ofthis medical usage, which rings so bizarrely in modern ears: “Hence a thing is said to exist, OBJECTIVELY, ojectiv, when it exists no otherwise than in being now or in being an Objet of the Mind 28‘The words ebjecive and subjective fell into disuse during the sev- ‘teenth and eighteenth ceaturies and were invoked only aceaton- as technical terms, by metaphysicians and logician immanuel Kant who dusted off the musty scholastic ten and “subj meanings into it. But the Kantian meanings were the grandparents, not the twins, of our familiar senses of thote words. Kants “ab tive validity” (bjetive Gilighit) referred not to external Gegerstinde) but tothe “forms of sensibility” (time, space, cat 1 preconditions of experience. And hie babic of using 1.4 rough synonym for “merely empirical sensations” hater usage only the sneer with which the word is in- toned. For Kant, the line betwoen the objective and the subjective Renerally runs between universal and particule, not between world and mind the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had scant German but aumbitions, presented the new philosophy to his countrymen a 2 of Francis Bacon; in France, the philosopher Victor Kant onto Descartes.” some readers thought at first it was just a mistake. ‘Citerilge scribbled in his copy of Hearich Steffens’s Grundztige der philosophischen Naturwisrenschafi (Fouadations of Philosophical Nat~ perplexed his reasoning jective ~ hie Siubjes idge had made the barbarous "a way that was to become IBJECTIVE, we may comprehend in the name of the SELF or INTELLIGENCE, Both conceptions ate in necessary antithesis? 30 . sl oten with shine econ of Katine 1820, for example, » German dictionary defined objet sa "rela- Quincey peblihel the seam eds oie Confesions of an Englith Optum Eater in 1856, he could wrt ile in 18: and consequently, when surrounded by fa and vernacular words, 30 apparently pedantic, yet, on the other hhand, so indispensable to accurate thinking, and to wide ad arrived in the | major Furopean languages, stil paired with its ancestral opposi | *subjectiviey” Both had turned 180 degrees fo meaning ig. Long before there was a vocabulary that cap- jon that by 1850 had come to be known as that ‘tury epistemology, to Baoan and Descartes." What, after: cistintion between primary and secondary qualities that Descartes and others made, ifnot 2 case of objectivity versus subjectivity avant a letre? And what about the i , marketplace, and theater that Bacon identified and criticized in Novem organum (New Organon, 1620): don't these constitute a veritable catalogue of subjectiv ‘These objections and many more like them rest an the assump: that ny of epistical examination of diagnosis af error is rors tem fom sbjecti ity. Thre were other ways to go astray in the natural philosophy of the seventeenth century, asta thers are other ways to fal in the duration, and other primary qualities over secondary qualities like odor, color, pain, and Favor because the former ideas are more clearly and distinc ceived by the mind than the latter; that is, his was a mn of the four eategen ‘the cave) applied to the individual psyche and could therefore be = ‘eandidate for subjectivity in the modern sen errors inherent in the human species, language, and theories, respec remedy for the idas of the cave had nothing to do of the subjective sel, but rather addres balance between opposing tendencies to excess: hummpers an cemological advice — 7 sided tendencies and predilections ~ echoed the moral counsel he gave in bis essay “Of Nature in Men” on how to reforea natural nations: “Neither isthe ancient rule amiss, to bend nature as a wand right; understonding it toa contrary extreme, whereby to set where the contrary extreme is no vice!"” [7 The larger point here is thatthe framework within which seven- ‘eenth-century epistemology was conducted was very different one from that in which nineteenth-century scientists pursued scientific ‘There is a history of what one might eall the nosology ogy of error, upon which diagnosis and therapy depend, infirmities ofthe senses or the imp y feared by ear- lier philosophers, and it demands a specialized therapy. However ‘many twists and turns the history ofthe cerms objective and sabjectire took over the course of five hundred years, ehey were always paired: 3 ” and “faculties” only begin to sugges English, with farther nuances and even categories a syernaculars and Latin as any of these con- |, unified self organized around ind posited by their cighteenth-century succestors. Those who ‘eplayed post-Kantian notions of objectivity and subjectivity had ‘iscGvered a new kind of epistemological malady and, consequently, remedy fori. To prescribe this post-Kantian remedy objec: ‘ity — fer a Baconianalment ~the idols ofthe cave is rather ke faking an antibiotic for a sprained ankle ~flthough ti not the subject ofthis book, we recognize that out chim that object th century has implica- tions forthe history of epistemelogy ax “The claim by no means denies the orig ms, rather than tanfamitiar pre- stemology can be re conceived as ethics has been in recent philosophical work: as the ‘repository of multiple 5 not simaltancoet minable),ech of distinct historical citcumtance, even if thelr moral cis baveootlved te contents that gave them bth (On this analogy, we can ident dstinct epistemic ritues~not ony ath and obec but locity, pein, cplebiy — ria trajectory and sent pratces. Histo- Fans of piowophy have pine ot tht maximizing erat can ome a the expense of tarmizng tuts historians of scence have Shown that precision and replat can tug in opposite dree-virtues, distinct in its ovigins and its implications, i¢ becomes easier to imagine that it might have a genuine history, one that forms only part of the history of epistemology as a whole. We w hed. Even ifobjectivity is not coextensive mology, they may rejoin, sn ry of the name? Why doest philosophy of Newton or the painstaking microsco} objectivity is a ranshis- toric honorife: thatthe history of objectivity is nothing less than the iy of science ise. ~ ‘They are right to assert a wide gap between epistemological precept and scientific practice, even if the two are correlated. Epistemology F whatever kind) advanced aging as figuring out how to te y experi Epistemic virtues are various not only in the abstract but also in tion. Sciance dedicated above all to certainty is done ‘not worse, but differently —from science that takes ive ways fey scientific praties like tlacaking that throws the contrats_ between, 0 elie, for i ped to “Taeie predecessors a generation or to belore had also been beset evs ‘the most typical or even archetypica skel or other object ‘under study, then perfect that exemplar so thatthe image can truly stand for the class, can truly represent it By circa 1860, however, “~7 las makers were branding these pr scandalous, a5 1ew, and its rise so sudden, how did profoundly assumed that it by now to swallow up the whole history of epistemology and of science to boot if indeed it emerged asa scientific ideal borme out in practices | Just the sort of qa we first began to explore the history of ebjactivity. Certainly, great changes were under way circa 1800, changes so momentous that they are commonly designated as “revolutions”: the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Kantian revolution, the secand Sci- entific Revolution. We further wondered about the influence of expanding bureaucracies, \evorle of mechani following, or of certain such as photography, wi aura of unselective impartiality, But after exploring these sorts of explinations, we in the end abandoned them as inadequate ~ not because we thought these factors were irrelevant to the advent of 35—4 vere onl remotely relevant W ought warn caption m wich else nd fet netbeans sot oe lich s poser bat emote ce (oneo ths ve ay umber ofthe mer dere wd ered eflects ta dupe, We dil not doubt eifiay ofthe emote foes, o een th Cxplandu, the vent of obec under an explanatory rateh between the heft the distance between them: in thei rich spacif ‘obscure rather than clarify the kind of wide-ranging effect thats our subject here. Local circumstances behind, for a change in surgical procedures in fare missing in an industrial scale, i at mieroc: deal—but viewing an image pixel by pixel “The very language of cause and effec dictates separate and het crogeneous terms: cause and effect must be clearly distinguished fiom each other, both as entities and in time. Perhaps this is why the metaphors of the telescope and microscope lie close to hand. Bo are instruments for bringing the remote and inace Iationships of cause and eect do not exheust ex nding can be broadened and deepened by exposing other kinds of previously unsuspected links among the phenomena ia question, such as patterns that connect scattered elements into a coherent whole. What at first glance appeared to be apples and oranges rura ‘out to grow from the same tree, differen facets of the same phe- tian abet oleae ‘most illuminating in the case of obj ‘Whatisthe natn ofejecty? Fst and foremost objects ‘the suppression of some aspect ofthe sel, the countering of subjec- tivity. Objectivity and subjectivity define each other like left and 6 > pineteinthscentury scientise attempted to deny was, in (3 L ‘regate subje with the eme ted and celebrated, ln notable contrast artistic and scientific work sonas of artist and scientist palarzod during this period. Artists were exhorted to express, even flaunt, their subjectivity at the ame time that scientists were admonished to tings were required to show the breach of faithfulness ings of Alexandre: Gabriel Decamps in 1873, he observed that “he painted, not the ‘thing regarded, but some degice or other cd Converse James he de 4 specal sacifice” of The Sent, for their pat, returned the favor. For example, in i866, the Paris ‘Académie des Sciences praised the geologist Aimeé Civiale's pane amie photographs of the Alps for "fithful representations of the accidents” of the earth’s surface, which would be “deplorable” i are, but which “on the contrary must be (the gol) towards which the reproduction of scientific objects tends! The scientific salf of che rmd-nineteenth centory was perceived by contemporaries at dianet- “Feally opposed tothe arcs self jut ar ecientifc images were rou. ‘ely contrasted to artistic ones. 7 Yet even though our quarry i the species, we cannot ignore the _genuss however distinctive the cfentifie self was nonetheless part of a laeger history ofthe elf Here we ate indebted to recent work on ‘he history of the self more generally conceived, prsicaarly the explorations by the historian Pierre Hadot and the philosophers Michel Foucault and Arnold Davidson of the exercises that build and vritual exercises of meditation, imagination of one’s own death, rehearsal ofthe day's events before going to sleep, and descriptions of life's circumstances stripped of al judgments of good and evil. Some of these techniques o wolved only the min such as fasting or a certain ly atten tening, also made demands upon the body. So supplemented by external instruments, such as ‘closely examined life. Like gymnast supposed to be performed regularly and repeatedly, to prepare the self of the Epicurean or the Stoie acolyte to receive the higher wis- dom of the master. of grid-guided dre : vision of the self into active experimenter and p U introspective sorting of one's own sensations into objective and sub jective by sensory physiologists, the training of voluntary attention, These techniques ofthe self were also practices of seientfic objec: “To constrain the drewing hand to millimeter grids or to strain br embodiments of a metaphy: ot that there was, before the elevant scientific work, an ives during the nineteenth century, given a specie axis a scenic self grounded ina will o willestnecs tone pole and an artistic sll 38 derstanding the history of cent objectvty ac prt and parcel he history of the slenifc self has an unexpected payoll what 31 oddly moralizing tone in he sicntiic bad nt the challenge of produc: or made sen. Knowledge were then i would indeed be puzzling to geconter admonition, reproches, and confessions pertaining haracter ofthe investigator strewn among descriptions ofthe tharacer ofthe vestigation. Why doe an epistemology nced an thie? But if objectivity and other epistemic vrtuce were intr hth tioned person of the inqui Independen © ivetive to know thyscl © wth programs of spiritual exercises. preiched and practiced in order to know the world, not the sell One of the most deeply entrenched narzatives about the Scientific : ge came tobe pred apart so th, for example th alchemi’ lre {o transmute base metals into gold could no longer impure soul Key epstemologlel cl © offcience, which was, in principle, everywhere and knowledge. Of course, certain personal qua ‘deemed important tothe succes ofthe investigation: patience and attentiveness for the observer, manual dex on and admonition that permeates the Literature of scientific instruction, biography, and autobiography from the seventeenth century to the present is hardly that of the eathe seeker, the wonder of ascetiisin of the ‘pom religious imy metaphysics seems gious overtones are absent or dis there remains a core of. do science and become a is inevitably : both have histories. In.the period covered by this book, ethics shift from th epistemol ppethaps conceivable that an but we have yet to. {in numerous periods and as the heroic literature on voyages ‘experimentation, and maniacal Epistemicvrtuesare virtues properly so- sre internalized and enforced by appeal to ethical values, s well as 0 40 © serangel = knowledge. Post-seve © pragmatic eficay in securing knowledge. Within science, the pe ‘ic values and related techniques ofthe sein question may contrast ion preparatory to the reception ‘why the rhetoric of the alchemists, Paracelsians, and other early modern reformers of knowledge and society rings so ‘moder (or even eighteenth-century) ears. These vsion- aries sought wisdom, not just truth, and rh vith practies, It ls precisely this close fi Between tedniques rd practices that supplies he rations fe the aetiatlancernandaou images for sc entific atlases. Epitemic virtues earn ther right to be called virtues bby molding these, andthe ways they dso parallel and overlap with fhe ways epistemology is translated into science. "Now epistemic virtues come into being; old ones do not neces- sarily pas away, Science Is fertile in new ways of knowing and also product vans of knowledge. Just as the methods of erence, once invented and estab : fe theores, so epistemic virtaes, ‘nce entrenched, seem to endure~albet to differing de fren es. But the older ones are inevitably mod! ery existence of the newer ones, even if they are not replaced out. Fight, Truth-to-nature after the advent of objecti entity, in both precept and practice, than before, The very mi ity of epistemse virtues can cause confusion and even accu adherents of one are judged by the standards of another. practices judged laudable bythe measure of truth-to-nature —such as runing experimental data to eliminate outliers and other dubious values~ may strike proponents of objectivity as dishonest. Even without head-on collisions, the presence af sistily articulated, places an onus of justificati ‘we shall seein the case of the atlas makers who wre merits of drawings versus photographs, idealization w timo symbols Se iniges bot tate of new ”nis The Argument ach chapter ofthis book, with a single deliberate exception, begins with one or more images fram a scientific atlas, These images lie at the heart of our argument. We want to shove, frst ofall, how epis temic virtues can be ine (engraving, mer ography) and with a yariety of methods (om ‘superimposed prids {othe camera obscura). But alin atlas makers were unived ‘nthe view that what the image represented, or ought to represen ‘was not the actual individual specimen before them but an idealized, perfected, or at least characteristic exemplar ofa species or other tral Kind, To this end, they carefully selected their models, Watched thee artists ike hawks, and smoothed out anomalies and varlations n order to produce what we shall call “reasoned images” ‘They defended the realism — the “truth-to-nature” —of underlying regularities agains the naturalism ofthe individual object, ts misleading idiosyncrasies. They were painstaking to the naticisn in the precautions they took to ensure the fidelity oftheir images, bt chs by no means precluded intervening in every stage of the imagecmmaking process to “correct” nature's imperfect th century, at different rates and to different degrees in various discipline, new, self-consciously “objective” ways of making images were adopted by scientific atlas makers. These new methods aimed at automatism; to produce e couched by human hands," neither the ar Sometimes but not always, eum for these “objective images.” Tracing and strict measuring ‘ontrols could also be enlisted to the cause of mechanical objectivity lng and idealizing were rejected asthe unbridled indulgence of the jective fancies ofthe atlas maker — the arc retraced by Worthing: {on's conversion from trath-to-nature symmetry to the “objective sew" described in the Prologue. These ler practices did not disap “peat, any more than drawing did, but those who stuck to them found ‘themselves increasingly on the defensive. Yet even the most co “vineed proponents of mechanical objectivity among the « atlas makers acknowledged the high price it commanded. Art i ‘the images the objects depicted 1y were supposed to represent; was needed to prot threatened to und ovide the working objects of [At this juncture, we step back from che atlas images themselves In'Chapter Four we embed the changes described in Chapters Two and Three within the history af the scientific self. We firs follow ‘the scientific reception ofthe post-Kantian vocabulary of objectivity and subjectivity in three diferent national contexts, using the Ger ‘man physicist and physiologist Hermann von Helmholta, the French physiologist Claude Bernard, and the British comparative anatomist ‘Thomas Henry Huxley as our guides. Despite wide divergences on the tsage of the new terminology, these influential scientists agreed on the epistemological import of the objective-subjective distinction for their own experience of ever-accelerating scientific change, We thea. turn to the new kind of scientific self captured by the new terminol- ‘ogy. The self imagined as subjectivity is not the same as the self aImagined as polity of mental faculties, s in Enlightenment associa- tionist peychology, or as an archaeological sie of conscious scious, and unconscious levels, a5 in early twentieth the standpoint of deta or training subdue the self into a who depends ‘The calibration of the eye—being taught see it was ¢ central mission of the scien Atlases refined ‘experience by weeding out atypical variations and extraneous in the mid-nineteenth century, however, the stvic- ‘tures of mechanical objectivity cast doubt upon judgments of the typical and the essential as intrusions of dangerous subjectivity. Bet 4 "working objects of the dscipln © vty in favor of tained judgra qeaders were obliged somehow Ipore to advise them. The very late nineteenth- and ‘wontieth-centary scien ‘opposed responses whi though not diagrar “spructural” objecti (Chapter Five alo ity waged war on ‘ky tathematicians phy denial of mechanical object to censor the impulse to select and ‘aban on images, even on mathersat subjective. They understood th fog). Confronted with results showing consider: “WG inv all manner of sensory phenomena, some scent in structures. These were, they claimed, the permanent core of sl ee, invariant cross history and cl differential equations, ~was a matter of some debate. ty among ‘nkers as diverse asthe logician Gatilob Frege, the mithematican Hlenri Poincaré, and the philosopher Rudolf Carnap that objectivity iust Be about what was communicable everywhere and always “5th images? These sci ‘of the eye sought less draconian solutions to the crisis of mechs ‘objectivity. Chapter Six surveys these responses. Around the tur. of those devotees of the ‘extraordinary talents ale of the tion and memory plus a ordinary endowments and afew yens of taining. st Nor did the expert seek to perfect oid clistinguish between work an pl {for that matter, between art and science. They painted ‘equcy of algorithms io distinguish pion fram muon tracks in bubble- chamber photographs or the electroencephalograms of seizure caused by grand mal and petit mal epilepsy, instead surrendering themeclves to the quasi-ludic promptings of well-honed intuitions, ‘There are noveltics yt re, We close, in Chapter Seven, with 1a longer represent a pat they are products of caleulations hovering of them, making and seeing are indstinguishable: the same manipu- B gu ip 46 {or example, rolls a nanotube mature here gives way to le products, even of warks lation of an atomic force microscoy ‘fart. Out of the new ethos, one that is disturbing prof 3 that there is digging to be done — digging into the dynamics of image production and use, and the Both the scope and the narrative shape ofthis book contrast with much of the best work in the history of science published in the past ‘wo decades, although the book i gratefully indebted to that scholar- ship. The lessons of these rich histories of science in context inform ‘every page of this book. Yet we have chosen fo tell thie story not as & smorohistory, thickly described and densely embedded in focal ‘camnstances, or even as series of such finely textured episodes, Still Jessi this book intended as a collection of casestudies, an induction ‘over instances inthe service of a universal claim. Our study is uns ally broad in geographic, chronclog disciplinary sweep: it of developments spread over the eigh- fenuries and situated in Europe lon we have adopted cuts across tum and contours of our peridization diverge from gradual development or sharp rupture. The import ofthese departures in scope and petiodi made clear by the body of the book: the p the reading, Bt jst because they are depare explicit atthe outst about what they are, Some significant historical phenomena are invisible a the local level, even if their manifestations must by definition be located somewhere, sometime, There are developments that unfold on a ind geographic scale that can only be recognized atthe local evel once they have been spotted fram a more global perspec tive Just as no localized observer alone can detect the slape of 2 storm fiontor the distribution ofan organe specs, so some hstor- feal phenomena can be discerned oaly by integrating information 9from a spread of contexts. These phenomena will inevitably be inflected by local context, but without losing thit identity. The caistence, emergence and interaction of epistnicvntves in sienee are phenomena on this larger scale. They are not confined to chem istry or physiology, Germany or France, a decade or even a genera- By combining broad scope with narraw facas, we ait to do to scale as well as texture “The scope of this book is broad, but iis not comprehensive. does not encompass all science, all ctontist, or evn all scientific itnages fr the places and periods it teas, Iris about a partiulat clas of images in the service of pelicula aipect of science: iific atlases as an expression of historically-specific hierarchies of apistemi virtues Aas images underpin other forms of seientie visualization: they a os and at the same time ye analogons to What jes bservational disciplines rest. If atlases Virtues cut across thee, Neither trath- Conzature nor mechanical objectivity nor trained judgment ever ps rmeated science in its entirety, but they nonetheless overflowed the boundaries of any one discipline or even any single division of disc pines. Epistemic virtues have left their mark in the life as well as the physical sciences, in the field as well as in the laboratory not ubiquitous, but in their cul Inthe frst instance we base our claims about the significance of the significance of the atlas images. The atlases he only evidence of the existence and force of epistemic virtues such as objectivity, but as repositonies ofthe images of record, they carry considerable weight. When similar practices justified lar terms turn up roughly at the same time in atlases of erys- tallography and clinical pathology, of galaxies and grasses, these analogies give strong reasons for believing in transformations that simultaneously span many disciplines and penetrate to the roots of each, Where else might one expect such evidence? Wherever epistemological fears about this or that obstacle to knowledge are 6 soute. As subsequent chapters will show, these fears are as various a8 ‘heir remedies. But in all cases, it is fear that drives epistemology, Including the definition of what counts as an epistemic vice or Firtue, Conversely, science pursued without acute anxiety over the ‘exdstence of its chosen objects and effects will be correspond ingly free of epistemological preoccupations. An emerging scien- enginecring ethos in the twenty-first century, for example, jrries more about robustness than mirages, a we shal ce in Chap: {ge Seven, Anxiety about virtue, epistemic or otherwise, is neither ‘omnipresent nor perpetual SORA hen epistemic ameoty does break o catlases by their very nature register it early and emphat therefore use atlases 28 a touchstone to reveal the changing norms that govern the FGA way to sce and depict the working objects of science. These Finage compendiums lead us outward along various paths, some: times to well-known scientists such as Helmboltz or Poincaré, at ‘other times to less celebrated figure, laboratories, and represen‘a- tional techniques. We always retum to our central question: how does the right depiction ofthe working objects of science join scien ieagire he seal ~The histony of science has been and catastrophist terms, that is, a8 either the steady, continuo growth of knowledge or the in on of revolutionary novelty. However apt these schemata may be for ane or anther episode inthe history of specific cientific theories av practices, they are a bad fit for the phenomena we are tacking in ths book, Objec- tivity i nether the frit of an inezemental evolution nor a sade explosion on the scentilicseene ~ nor switch Seattered instances of sientifc object sorted to appear in the 1830s and 1840s, but they did aot thicken into 2 swarm until the [860s and 1870s Instead of either «smooth slope or an abrupt precipice, the emergence of scientific objectivity (and other epistemic virtues) might be imagined on the analogy of an avalanche: a first, afew tumbling rocks, falling branches, and minor snow slides amount 10 nothing mach, but then, when conditions are ripe, individual events, even small ones, can trigger a massive, downward rush Of course, great deal hinges on just how to specify “when 49‘The historical sequence of 1g close to preconditions of are known to be ext sprinkling of interventions, intensily into a movement, as fears are articulated new patterns that result the most striking of which was obj 50 ity ofthe ve Universe Others, ll too convinced of the extnce soldered together out of mismatched parts of bicycle, alarm clacks, and steam pipes. Current usage allows a too easy slide among senses of that are by tums ontological, ‘moral. Yet these vario precept nor in practice. “Objective knowledge,” understood as “a systematized theoretical account of how the world re as close to teuth as today’s timorous metaphysics ‘even the most fervent advocate of “objective methods" in the sci ‘ences~be those methods statistical, mechanical, numerical, or oth erwise — would hesitate to chim that they guarantee the truth of a ding. Objectivity is sometimes construed asa method of under- standing, 26 when epistemologists ponder how reliance “on the sthis view of the Sometimes objectivity means an att tude oF eth Which is grounds for p Seblame as ley impersonaityas prook against “blind emotional endl may lead to social dsarten"or ava poled ee pcittl retense, “the God wicks ree debates in political, philosophi. lysis alone seems to be an ing what objectivity i, etituted for concepts and practices for "notion of abjctvty sharpens stuns, techniques, habits, and daily repetition. fe books, logical notations fom the butcom up, rather than fw the Ing rain actions over and over again exercises = that tote on ethics, one ning objective acts, fas applied to the workaday world, |S) oun the kee ad eon rc up and bodied! out PY thowands of concrete actions strimons shape from thou. sees ty foemens of cloed gas. Tossa objectivity in shire. sleeves ito watch objectivity nike med ‘we are right about ‘otely shed light on anxisties now associated with lento Possible to trace how specific practices soe Sitrupolsted by the philosophicel and cen Steams ofa view fom nowhere or nghasa , the cen he be Pose to mel the covenant tangle of ‘he curent meanings of objectivity tine ‘concept grew historically, 52 oF completing 2 lent uae abviously an ac of virtue nek meee ea uch less to humanity at large, Nor ei every. no longer a quesion sie tne about alleges ere ‘es that consttite may of ies ae ry ee tthe he ge th which ep, Ech se tl seen ene Baty oe smiles oft, not ene hephoona refined, partially converted into (but sue contaminated by) knowl. ledge. These images represe Knowledge about nature, ‘ature itself indeed, th jee rand bow i is attained: trath tometer objectivity, trained Jedgment Fally they represent the Koon Behind the flower, the nowflake, the solar magnetopram stand nex only the scientist who Ino tet ho depicts, But ale sera, re way of [ rowing. This knowing self ia preconh for knowledge, not an j_ grace to it. Nature, knowledge, snl ‘Bower intersect in these 'g6t the visible trices ofthe wenld wade intelligible 3