Placing the View from Nowhere: Historical and Sociological Problems in the Location of

Science
Author(s): Steven Shapin
Source: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers , 1998, Vol. 23, No. 1
(1998), pp. 5-12
Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British
Geographers)

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/623153

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 5

Placing the view from nowhere: historical

and sociological problems in the location
of science

Steven Shapin
Over the past two decades broadly geographical sensibilities have become
prominent in the academic study of science. An account is given of tensions in
science studies between transcendentalist conceptions of truth and emerging localist
perspectives on the making, meaning and evaluation of scientific knowledge. The
efficient spread of scientific knowledge is not a phenomenon that argues against the
applicability of geographical sensibilities towards science but actually calls for an
even more vigorous project in the geography of knowledge.

key words science localism universalism standardization meaning

Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0533, USA

revised manuscript received 6 September 1996

That the academic study of science owes anything and logic. That is the obstacle faced by the geo-
at all to the sensibilities and resources of geogra- graphical sensibility towards science and, arguably,
phers is a remarkable circumstance.' Of all forms towards any body of knowledge which counts as
of cultural practice the geographical - and, more truth for the relevant culture - whether mathemat-
generally, the spatial or local - perspective on the
ics and science today or Christian religion in the
natural sciences seems most difficult to sustain.
European past. Truth is - and, arguably, always has
After all, both common and philosophical been
usage- the 'view from nowhere' and the claim that
knowledge is geographically located is widely
testify to the very nature of authentically scientific
ideas as disembodied and their scope as universal. taken as a way of saying that the knowledge in
That, indeed, is one way in which we recognize question is not authentically true at all.3
ideas as scientific, compared to folk knowledge, It is against this background that the rise of a
political thought, religion, ideology and science's geographical perspective on science in recent years
poor relations in the less favoured suburbs of the
is so remarkable.4 Starting in the early 1970s, we
academic grove: sociology, history, even geography have had studies of local scientific cultures,
itself.
national or regional, notably including a body of
Emile Durkheim, for example, contrasted the detailed work on science in the Scottish Enlighten-
local imprint borne by religious and lay belief with ment.5 This was followed later by a revival of
the universality of science: 'the truths of [modern] nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century interest in
science', he wrote, 'are independent of any local the question of nationally varying styles of science
context'.2 And, while post-Popper philosophers (for instance, Scottish versus English styles of
were willing to acknowledge that the production of mathematics and physics; the German versus the
scientific ideas was thoroughly bound up with the American styles of genetics).6
psychologically idiosyncratic and the culturally And then, from the mid-1980s, the geographical
variable, they nevertheless insisted that the context sensibility towards science became philosophically
of justification - the transformation of idea into deeper. It began to press beyond matters of social
knowledge - was a matter of context-free reason organization and stylistic presentation, seeking to
Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 23 5-12 1998
ISSN 0020-2754 @ Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) 1998

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 6 Steven Shapin
show that locality
Much of this work in science studies has been
to be attended to in order to understand how beautifully summarized by David Livingstone in
scientific knowledge was made, how it secureda recent issue of Society and Space.13 Students of
credibility, how it travelled. A pluralist sensi-
science owe much to geographers and it is flatter-
bility towards the nature of science floweding from
to learn that Livingstone thinks that historians
the work of Thomas Kuhn, as developed of by
geography might possibly learn something from
sociologists of science whose work Kuhn subse-us. If so, it is mainly through showing some of the
quently disowned.7 Science was not one thing -
possibilities inherent in geographical work.
conceptually and methodologically unified, as the
seventeenth-century moderns and their followers
proclaimed; it was a variety of practices whose
Geography and the travels of knowledge
conceptual identities were the outcomes of local
patterns of training and socialization.8 One Icould
want briefly to describe a few of the themes
no more hope to become a competent member of
represented in recent science studies work, to note
the relevant scientific community by reading howitssuch work deploys geographical perspectives
texts and methodological pronouncements and thanhow it confronts problems of its own making,
one could learn to be an English gentleman by
problems which may seem to show the limits of
reading a book of manners. And that was one and localist sensibilities but which, I think,
spatial
reason why sociologists of science turned fromidentify a plausible way forward. Out of a possibly
the questionnaire and the armchair to participant
much greater range of topics, I want to select just
observation in the laboratory. If understanding
two, which I will call travel and meaning. The first,
was the aim, then there was no alternative to I will have to deal with schematically; the second, I
being there, being where knowledge was will illustrate with a story.
made.9 Suppose one simply took for granted - as many
Kuhnian pluralism about scientific knowledge, philosophers and even some sociologists of science
and about how science was made, maintained and do not - a whole body of recent empirical and
transmitted, was therefore an important way of theoretical work showing the local, situated and
opening up the possibility of geographical sensi-embedded nature of science. That is to say, suppose
bilities. The extent to which these sensibilities have one regarded it as established beyond doubt that
flourished in science studies is amply represented science is indelibly marked by the local and the
in historical and sociological writing from the spatial circumstances of its making; that scientific
1980s. An issue of the journal Science in Context knowledge
in is embodied, residing in people and in
1991 was devoted to 'The place of knowledge'; the such material objects as books and instruments,
proceedings of a 1993 conference on 'Territorial and nowhere else; and, finally, that scientific
themes in the history of science' will soon knowledge be is made by and through mundane -
published; there is already one collection of essays and locally varying - modes of social and cultural
on the laboratory setting and another is in the interaction. If one granted all this, one would be
works.10 Some of the contributors to these volumes treating the 'localist' or 'geographical' turn in
find inspiration in the work of Scandinavian and science studies as a great accomplishment - telling
British geographers, sociological theorists - no- us a series of important things about science
tably Anthony Giddens - who have taken on board which previous understandings have systemati-
aspects of this geographical work, and architec- cally ignored or denied.
tural theorists of the built environment and its I agree with this judgement and I do think that
consequences for social interaction.11 Others suchhavework - indebted as it is to formal and infor-
been taken with Foucault's encouragement toappropriations of geographical resources - is a
mal
understand knowledge/power conjunctions as
considerable achievement.14 And yet I also want to
inscribed in space: say that it is still incomplete and that it is in danger
Once knowledge can be analysed in terms of region,
of missing something very important about
domain, implantation, displacement, transposition,science.
one The problem here is not that the geo-
graphical sensibility has been taken too far but that
is able to capture the processes by which knowledge
functions as a form of power and disseminates itthe
has not been taken far enough. We need to
effects of power.12 understand not only how knowledge is made in

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 Placing the view from nowhere 7
specific places but also
attention to the wayshow transacti
in which patterns of military
between places. domination, colonialism and worldwide trade
The point to which have established
I want channels to
which draw
integrate the at
concerns the issue of travel. If science is indeed a world and which standardize its knowledge and
local product, how does it - or rather some itsver-
practices. The suggestion is that the wide
sions of it - travel with what seems to be unique distribution of scientific knowledge flows from the
efficiency? How does a proposition or a procedure success of certain cultures in creating and spread-
produced in one place come to spread across
ing standardized contexts for making and applying
the world? One appeal of the grand modernist
that knowledge. Trace how the thermometer and
narratives of reason, reality and method was its uses
the travelled across the world. Track how the
European-style schoolroom travelled across the
table-thumping response they offered to potential
world. Domination, drilling and disciplining are
questions about the travel of science. Such knowl-
edge spreads so robustly across the world because
said to be the keys to understanding how techno-
it is true and/or because it travels along thescientific
chan- knowledge spreads from the local to the
nels carved out by unambiguous and automati- global.
However, the 'dog' that - so to speak - 'doesn't
cally transferable methodical practices. Knowledge
bark' in Latour's picture of scientific travel is a
which is not true, or which is not so methodically
conception
grounded, does not spread. What more do you of normative order. The Latourian
need to know? account appears all natural fact and no moral fact.
You can, I think, plausibly reject these modernist
And for that reason, I suspect that it is at best an
answers to questions about travel but you cannot incomplete response to questions about the travel
plausibly reject the phenomena to which of they
scientific knowledge. Domination, drilling and
offered an explanatory response. Science is locally
disciplining are, I think, powerful means for effect-
produced but it does travel with very greating ef-the spread of knowledge but they are quite
costly
ficiency. How does it do that? If you are sceptical ofmeans. Nor does attention to such processes
the modernist responses, what interesting accountspick up some much more routine and pervasive
can you give of scientific travel? And how meansdofor transferring knowledge from person to
spatial sensibilities figure in such accounts? person and from place to place.
The work of Bruno Latour and his followers has Recent science studies work on trust - including
opened up one particularly significant line some of of my own - also proceeds from a point of
thinking about scientific travel.15 Knowledge and view on science systematically rejected by the
modernist tradition going back to the seven-
technique travel insofar as they are institutional-
ized and standardized. The graph, the map and the teenth century.17 Where such moderns as Bacon,
book represent one set of vehicles for the efficient
Descartes and Locke proclaimed that reliance upon
translation of relatively unmodified knowledge human testimony was an obstacle to achieving
from place to place; the thermometer represents proper knowledge of the natural world, more
another. When knowledge of the wide world can recent tendencies have followed Michael Polanyi in
be reduced to the scale of a table-top and when appreciating both the fact and the necessity of such
mechanically produced and virtually identical cop-reliance in securing and making sense of empirical
ies can be placed on table-tops everywhere, then knowledge.8"
all That seventeenth-century English
can (potentially and in principle) know the same natural philosophers knew that there were such
world in the same ways.16 And when the ther- things as icebergs and polar bears was on no other
mometer becomes simply necessary for work of a than what they were told by those who had
basis
range of practical communities, then the physical seen these things, for few, if any, of them had
knowledge embodied in it becomes durable and, seen them for themselves. The same goes for the
ultimately, incontestable. If you want to under- phenomena produced by Boyle's air-pump in the
stand the robustness and the speed of scientific 1660s, for only a small fraction of those who knew
knowledge, you want to understand how it - and such facts knew them at first-hand. And the same
the things in which it is embodied - are distributed
too for the knowledge a typical modern zoologist
and held stable. That is one justification for thehas of the vast number of animals which constitute
militaristic and imperialistic language that is that
so discipline's factual knowledge. It is proper
characteristic of Latour's work: he wants to draw usage to say that Robert Boyle knew there were

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 8 Steven Shapin
icebergs and
travel that have been raised by it is
the geographical
typical modern
sensibility.19 zoo
ductive behaviour of the marine worm Urechis
caupo, even though both fail to satisfy modernist
Geography and the meanings of
criteria of direct witness. They know these things
knowledge
as securely as they know anything else in their
domains and they know them - as it wereFinally,
- byI would like to tell a little story. It is a story
courtesy. about a short walk I took several years ago in
Accordingly, a trust relationship is central to the London, a story about small-scale geography and a
very idea of empirical scientific knowledge. That story about meaning and some of the sensibilities
relationship is inscribed in space: those who have that historians of ideas might employ - but almost
not seen these things know them by trusting those never do - in their inquiries about the meanings of
who have, or by trusting those who have trusted texts.

those who have. The capacity of scientists to know When Robert Boyle lived in London from the
what they do about the world is conditional upon late 1660s, he produced a number of moral as well
finding means to bring distant things near. They as natural philosophical tracts. Some of these tracts
can know the contents of the wide world - in space identified immoral tendencies in his society and
and in time - if, and only if, they have practical offered philosophical remedies for those tenden-
solvents to scepticism. Whom to trust? Answers to cies. He did not, in fact, clearly specify just which
such a question will vary from place to place and circles he had in mind but recent historical studies
from culture to culture but, if there is indeed to have filled in the gaps. Boyle, it is said, was
be such a thing as a body of knowledge about the specially concerned by the radical sectarian groups
wide world, there must be some answer. that flourished during the interregnum and civil
The work I have been doing recently on wars: Diggers, Ranters, Levellers and the like.20
seventeenth-century English science has pointed to Although these groups were quite effectively
the gentleman and gentlemanly identity as one verycrushed by the Restoration in 1660, they remained
powerful answer to the question 'whom to trust?'. paramount in Boyle's consciousness - and, indeed,
Many (and, in some contexts, most) scientists in the in that of other Restoration moralists. They
early modern period were gentlemen and their remained, so it is claimed, a potent symbol of
codes of scientific conduct were adapted from threats to proper Christian religion and proper
those circulating in gentlemanly society. Appreci-moral order.
ations of gentle integrity, honour and free action That is a plausible story about the meaning of
were available to warrant belief in what these Boyle's texts and nothing I found out during my
people said about the world, including the naturallittle walk counts against its plausibility. However,
world to which they had access and to that
which
walk presented me with another, quite differ-
others did not. Gentlemanly identity in such
ent, plausible story about the meaning of those
cultures provided adequate grounds of trust. texts. While the first story depends upon Boyle's
reaction to tendencies and behaviour with which
Late twentieth-century scientists are not gentle-
men: most are not gentle and many are not he men.
did not have direct familiarity (so far as we
Our late modern solutions to questions about know thehe never met a Ranter in his life), the second
grounds of trust appear to be different: theystory
seem proceeds from his own day-to-day lived
experience.
to point towards expertise and the institutions that It is about the neighbours.
produce and vouch for expertise. But modern I knew that Boyle's house no longer existed but
I knew
science is no less trust-dependent than science inthat it was in Pall Mall, on the south side,
almost opposite St James's Square. (Strictly speak-
the past or than other forms of modern culture.
And arguably it is more so. The condition of was the house of his sister Katherine, Lady
ing, this
Ranelagh, but Boyle lived there from 1668 to his
scientists knowing their discipline's knowledge,
death is
and of the laity knowing what scientists know, in 1691.) I set out to find it, expecting to
a massively important solution - or series see a blue and white plaque commemorating his
of sol-
utions - to problems of trust. That solution residence
- and it there for almost a quarter of a century.
has yet adequately to be characterized - isThe at site
the is now occupied by the western wing of
the RAC - this is now, of course gentlemen's
same time a solution to questions about scientific

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 Placing the view from nowhere 9
true story
club-land - but there was about meaning
noarises from a theory Walki
plaque.
about west,
little further to the human affections there best articulated
was by a pla
commemorated not Edmund
Boyle Burke in 1790:
but Nell Gwyn, o
Charles II's many mistresses. A tolittle
To be attached to the subdivision, love the little furth
lived two other royal mistresses, the
platoon we belong to in society, is the first Duch
principle
Cleveland and the Countess of Portland, and, at (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is a first link
the western end of Pall Mall, St James's Palace in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our
itself, where the King lived.21 These were Boyle's country and to mankind.24
neighbours, whose comings and goings helped And the same applies where the issue is not
form the texture of his daily experience during the affection but disaffection.
years he was composing, revising and publishing Burke's sensibility would suggest that we are
some of his moral tracts.
importantly attracted to, or repelled by, ideas as
What went on in Nell Gwyn's house - and to they
a are embodied in familiar others - kin,
lesser extent in St James's Park and the King'steachers, colleagues, neighbours. That sensibility
private garden round the back of Boyle's house22
is,- in my opinion, basically correct. It offers a con-
is well-known. This was one of the most louche
structive framework for empirical inquiries into
and licentious sites of Restoration debauchery -
the local production of meaning. Such inquiries, I
and at the very highest social levels. Nell's parties
think, can never be too local, and in just that sense
- orgies actually - included not only the King theand
localist turn in science studies has a long way
selected courtiers but also such Restoration wits
still to go.
and libertines as the notorious Earl of Rochester.
There is also solid evidence that occasional guests
included Samuel Pepys, Christopher Wren Notes
and
other distinguished Fellows of the Royal Society,
an organization which Boyle helped to found1 This paper was developed from a talk to the Joint
Annual Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society
and of which he was a leading intellectual
and the Institute of British Geographers, Strathclyde
inspiration.23
University, 4 January 1996. I thank Roger Lee for
That is, the dens of iniquity of which Boyle had inviting me to publish these remarks and for valu-
the most direct and vivid experience were not able comments on the original text. The paper was
those at the bottom of the social scale but those
completed while I was a Fellow at the Center for
which festered at the very top, practically next
Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences and I am
door. The neighbours' goings-on may always andgrateful for the financial support provided by the
Andrew Mellon Foundation.
everywhere be a problem but these were very
2 Durkheim
special neighbours. And about these neighbours E ed. 1972 Selected writings (trans.
you did not complain. Or, if you did, only Giddens
so A) Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge 88 (quoting review originally published
circumspectly or obliquely that - as the CIA used
in 1899).
to put it - 'maximum achievable deniability' could
3 The phrase comes from Nagel T 1986 The view from
be sustained. Boyle did not complain about the
nowhere Oxford University Press, Oxford. For the
neighbours' behaviour but there are good reasons analogy between contemporary appreciations of
why he might not have done so while offeringscience and nineteenth-century views of religion,
general indictments of immoral tendencies in his see Bloor D 1988 Rationalism, supernaturalism, and
society. That kind of obliqueness was, after all, the
a sociology of knowledge in Hronsky I Feher M
and Dajka B eds Scientific knowledge socialized
pervasive feature of Restoration social and political
commentary. Akad4miai Kiad6, Budapest 59-74; Bloor D 1991
I do not necessarily offer this as a true story Knowledge and social imagery 2nd edn University of
Chicago Press, Chicago especially 50-3. In talking of
about the meaning of some of Boyle's moral texts
'truth' as pervasively 'the view from nowhere', I
but only as a plausible one. More to the point, I
mean here to pick out traditional philosophical and
submit the story as a token of a possibly general theological conceptions of Truth as necessarily tran-
approach to meaning in the history of ideas. The scendent. It is by no means clear that robustly
condition of even offering the story is an inquiry pragmatic everyday conceptions of 'what is the
into - in this case, a walk in - the local setting of case' trade in notions of transcendence, nor that
knowledge-making. And the possibility that it is a such mundane conceptions of truth are not central

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 10 Steven Shapin
to some ofWetenschap,
our Vetenskap andsociety'
nauki, academic projects
tutions andcustomarily
their practic
regarded in English-speaking cultures
workings as ambiguously
of the scientificlaw,
or not belonging tothe
4 Among students of
science at all. Nevertheless, the Kuhnian point sc
equation between wh
about pluralism stands even when 'science' is taken
resources and restrictively asa'naturalstress
science'. on
ties of place in imperative
9 The interpretative knowledg has always been
which clearly prominent inarises
the ethnographic studies of from
Harry
dentalist conceptions
Collins (see, for example, Collins H 1992 Changing of
potentially useful
order: replication and induction inresourc
scientific practice
course, confined 2nd edn University of Chicago Press, to
Chicago (first th
though in
what
published 1985); and follows
Collins H 1981 Understand- I
sensibilities.
ing science Fundamenta Scientiae 2 367-80) while
5 See, among many examples, Christie J R R 1974 the relationship of other scientific ethnographies
The origins and development of the Scottish scien- to interpretative projects is, at times, unclear: for
tific community, 1680-1760 History of Science 12 instance, Latour B and Woolgar S 1986 Laboratory
122-41; Christie J R R 1975 The rise and fall of life: the construction of scientific facts 2nd edn
Scottish science in Crosland M ed. The emergence of Princeton University Press, Princeton (first
science in western Europe Macmillan, London 111-26; published 1979).
Shapin S 1974 The audience for science in eight-
10 Ophir A and Shapin S eds 1991 The place of
eenth century Edinburgh History of Science 12 knowledge: the spatial setting and its relation to the
95-121; Shapin S 1975 Phrenological knowledge production of knowledge Special issue of Science in
and the social structure of nineteenth-century Context 4 1, see especially the editors' introduction
Edinburgh Annals of Science 32 219-43. 'The place of knowledge: a methodological survey'
6 See, for example, Davie G E 1961 The democratic 3-21. The forthcoming work is by Agar J and Smith
intellect: Scotland and her universities in the nineteenth C eds forthcoming Making space for science: territorial
century Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh themes in the shaping of knowledge Macmillan,
Chs 5-8; Harwood J 1993 Styles of scientific thought: London, and St Martin's Press, New York. Selected
the German genetics community 1900-1933 University studies of the laboratory as a scientific space
of Chicago Press, Chicago. For earlier systematic include: James F A J L ed. 1989 The development of the
attention to national styles of science, see Buckle laboratory: essays on the place of experiment in indus-
H T 1903 History of civilization in England 3 vols trial civilization Macmillan, London; Hannaway O
Grant Richards, London (first published 1857-61) 1986 Laboratory design and the aim of science:
especially Vol. III, Chs 4-5; Merz J T 1965 A Andreas Libavius versus Tycho Brahe Isis 77 585-
history of European thought in the nineteenth century 4 610; Shapin S 1988 The house of experiment in
vols Dover, New York (first published 1904-12), seventeenth-century England Isis 79 373-404;
especially Vol. I, Chs 1-3. Owens L 1985 Pure and sound government: lab-
7 Kuhn T 1962 The structure of scientific revolutions oratories, playing fields, and gymnasia in the
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, is the classic nineteenth-century search for order Isis 76 182-94;
text. For sociological extension and development and Gooding D 1985 'In nature's school': Faraday
of Kuhn's work, see, for example, Barnes B 1991 as an experimentalist in Gooding D and James
Scientific knowledge and sociological theory Routledge F A J L eds Faraday rediscovered: essays on the life
& Kegan Paul, London; Barnes B 1982 T S Kuhn and and work of Michael Faraday, 1797-1867 Macmillan,
social science Macmillan, London; and Bloor 1976 London 106-35.

Knowledge and social imagery op. cit. For Kuhn's 11 For Swedish geographical traditions loosely drawn
qualified but definite rejection of this work, see upon by students of science, see Higerstrand T
Kuhn T 1992 The trouble with the historical philosophy 1967 Innovation diffusion as a spatial process (trans.
of science Robert and Maurine Rothschild Distin- Pred A) University of Chicago Press, Chicago; and
guished Lecture, 19 November 1991, Department of Pred A ed. 1981 Space and time in geography: essays
History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, dedicated to Torsten Hdgerstrand C W K Gleerup,
MA. Lund/Stockholm; for British and French resources
8 Anglocentric writers sometimes tend to forget that
well-known to readers of this journal, see, for exam-
other European languages refer routinely to 'theple, Massey D 1984 Spatial divisions of labour: social
sciences' (as in the les sciences of the Paris Acadimie structures and the geography of production Macmillan,
des sciences), while broadly equivalent terms usually Basingstoke; Thrift N J 1985 Flies and germs: a
include a wide variety of systematically conducted geography of knowledge in Gregory D and Urry J
inquiries, so sweeping into words like Wissenschaft, eds Social relations and spatial structures Macmillan,

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 Placing the view from nowhere 11
London 366-403; Cambridge University,
Bourdieu P 1989 1992). Roger Lee has inter- spa
Social
symbolic power estingly drawn my
Sociological attention to issues
theory concerned
7 14-25; L
H 1991 The production with electronic
of communication
space which I am unable
(trans Nic
Smith D) Basil Blackwell, Oxford; and Halbwachs to deal with here but see fascinating early engage-
M 1980 The collective memory (trans. Ditter F J Jr and ment with the trustworthiness of such communica-

Ditter V Y) Harper, New York (first published tion in Denning P J 1989 The science of computing:
1950), especially Ch. 4; for architectural theory, see worldnet American Scientist 77 432-4.

Hillier B and Hanson J 1984 The social logic of place 17 The following paragraphs sketch some major
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; Hillier B arguments of mine: Shapin S 1994 A social history
and Penn A 1991 Visible colleges: structure and of truth: civility and science in seventeenth-century
randomness in the place of discovery Science in England University of Chicago Press, Chicago. A
Context 4 23-49; for Giddens and geographical sen- geographer's guarded assessment of this work is
sibilities, see Giddens A 1989 The consequences of Livingstone D N 1996 High tea at the cyclotron:
modernity Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. science as a social practice Books & Culture January/
12 Foucault M 1980 Power/knowledge: selected interviews February 22-3.
and other writings 1972-1977 (trans. Gordon C et al.) 18 For Polanyi, see Polanyi M 1958 Personal knowledge:
Harvester, Brighton 69; see also Foucault M 1986 Of towards a post-critical philosophy University of
other spaces Diacritics 16 22-7; and, for commen- Chicago Press, Chicago. For development of
tary, see Driver F 1992 Geography and power: the Polanyi's sensibilities with respect to tacit knowl-
work of Michel Foucault in Burke P ed. Critical edge and scientific communication, see Collins
essays on Michel Foucault Scolar Press, Aldershot
1992 Changing order op. cit.; and, with respect to
147-56; Driver F 1994 Bodies in space: Foucault's
trust, see Shapin 1994 A social history of truth op. cit.;
account of disciplinary power in Jones C and Porter
and Shapin S 1995 Trust, honesty, and the authority
of science in Bulger R E Bobby E M and Fineberg
R eds Reassessing Foucault: power, medicine and the
body Routledge, London 113-31. H V eds Society's choices: social and ethical decision
13 Livingstone D N 1995 The spaces of knowledge:making in biomedicine National Academy Press,
contributions towards a historical geographyWashington,
of DC 388-408. See also Hardwig J 1991
science Environment and Planning D: Society and
The role of trust in knowledge Journal of Philosophy
Space 13 5-34. 88 693-708; and Coady C A J 1992 Testimony: a
14 The following paragraphs draw upon my recent philosophical study Clarendon Press, Oxford.
survey: Shapin S 1995 Here and everywhere: 19 For differing, yet potentially compatible, perspec-
sociology of scientific knowledge Annual Review tives
of on these problems, compare Shapin S 1995
Sociology 21 289-321, especially 304-9. Cordelia's love: credibility and the social studies of
15 See, especially, Latour B 1987 Science in action: how science
to Perspectives on Science 3 255-72; and Porter T
1995 Trust in numbers: the pursuit of objectivity in
follow scientists and engineers through society Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA; Latour B 1988 science and public life Princeton University Press,
The pasteurization of France (trans. Sheridan A andPrinceton.

Law J) Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA;

20 See Jacob J R 1977 Robert Boyle and the English
Law J 1986 On power and its tactics: a view from revolution: a study in social and intellectual change Burt
the sociology of science Sociological Review 34 1-37;
Franklin, New York; Jacob J R 1978 Boyle's atomism
Law J 1987 On the social explanation of technical and the restoration assault on pagan naturalism
change: the case of Portuguese maritime expansion Social Studies of Science 8 211-33. Much of this moral
Technology and Culture 28 227-52; Law J 1987 Tech-writing was originally composed earlier, when
nology and heterogeneous engineering: the caseBoyle of was living in Dorset, but Jacob has (rightly, I
Portuguese expansion in Bijker W E Hughes T P
think) attempted to refer aspects of its meaning to
and Pinch T J eds The social construction of techno-
tendencies current when the texts were published
logical systems: new directions in the sociology and
later in Boyle's life. Other historians have objected
history of technology MIT Press, Cambridge, MA to Jacob's identification of radical sectarian targets,
111-34.
pointing to tendencies in philosophical circles, in-
16 But see forthcoming work by Adrian Johns which cluding Aristotelian and neo-Platonic sensibilities.
powerfully challenges assumptions about the 21 See Survey of London, general editor Sheppard F H W
immutability of mechanically produced books: Vol. XXIX, 'The parish of St James Westminster, Part
Johns A 1997 The nature of the book: knowledge and one: south of Piccadilly' Athlone Press, London
print in the making University of Chicago Press, 365-8, 377-8. Boyle and his sister occupied numbers
Chicago (based on his 'Wisdom in the concourse: 83-4 (the house was demolished in 1850). A near
natural philosophy and the history of the book neighbour (at numbers 80-2) was the eminent
in early modern England', Unpubl. PhD thesis, physician Thomas Sydenham, and Nell Gwyn

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 12 Steven Shapin
(having which now hangs in the
lived inVictoria and anot
Albert
occupied Museum;
by see MacGregor-Hastie
Sydenh R 1987 Nell Gwyn
1671. A biographer
Robert Hale, London plate X (facing p. 105).
neighbourhood relationships and asks 'What 23 The Royal Society's first President, Sir Robert
[Boyle] thought of having Nell Gwyn next door to Moray, had earlier been a friend of Nell and a
the Countess of Portland, we do not know: he never supplier of her wine and whisky, while Dr Richard
mentions her' (Maddison R E W 1967 The life of Lower, FRS, a scientific associate of Boyle, was one
the Honourable Robert Boyle FRS Taylor & Francis, of Nell's physicians at the end of her life. See
London 133). MacGregor-Hastie 1987 Nell Gwyn op. cit. 43,
22 Boyle's laboratory was at the back of his sister's 99-101, 118-20, 145-6, 165-6, 171, 176, 184, 187;
house and may even have had a view of St James's Bevan B 1969 Nell Gwyn Robert Hale, London
Park and even of the King's private garden. For 88-93. Previous to her residence in Pall Mall, Nell
scenes of licentiousness possibly visible from the had acted in plays written by Boyle's brother, Lord
laboratory, see de Beer E S ed. 1959 The diary of Orrery, and by another brother's brother-in-law,
John Evelyn Oxford University Press, London, 552 Thomas Killigrew, so one might also plausibly point
(1 March 1671), where Evelyn records that he to members of his own family as objects of some of
walked with the King 'thro St James's Parke to the Boyle's moral writing. Indeed, the nephew to whom
Garden, where I saw and heard a very familiar Boyle inscribed some of his early chemical and
discourse betweene ... & Mrs. Nellie as they cal'd an experimental tracts - Richard Jones, 1st Earl of
impudent Comedian, she looking out of her Garden Ranelagh (Katherine's only son) - grew up to be a
on a Terrace at the top of the Wall & ... standing on dissolute and an embezzler of Crown revenues, and
the greene Walke under it: I was heartily sorry at Boyle's niece, Elizabeth Jones (one of Katherine's
this scene: Thence the King walked to the Dutches of three daughters), ran off with a footman in 1677.
Cleavelands, another Lady of Pleasure & curse of our 24 Burke E 1986 Reflections on the revolution in France
nation .. .'. That scene over the garden wall was (O'Brien C C ed.) Penguin, Harmondsworth (first
immortalized in a Victorian painting by C M Ward published 1790) 135.

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