Wahrheit und Geschichte Ein Kolloquium zu Ehren des 60. Geburtstages von Lorenz Kriiger Herausgegeben von ‘Wolfgang Carl und Lorraine Daston VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT IN GOTTINGEN 1999Historical Meta-Epistemology By lan Hackine and Wolfgang Carl first wrote to me about the conference oa had in mind a celebration, and so it was. The paper that I prepared for that event has, since that time, become a lament forthe passing of o generous and so gifted a philosopher. Yet it is still a celebration of the man, who was so proud and so gentle, and it remembers him in terms of two topics dear to his heart. ‘One of his passions was an attempt to understand, use, and develop the inter- hy of the sciences. A second was ‘both of those interests. 1 Where my title comes from The following exploratory study is an attempt to characterize a certain ray of doing the history and philosophy of, “meta” epistemology, in that it talks abou very general or pooner wwe use today, and which have to do with knowledge, belief detachment, proof, probability, argument, reason, rationality, rectly epistemology, in the sense of a theory. of knowledge (etc.), but: ideas about or uses of knowledge (etc. shy a certain way of doing the history and philosophy of (among other rnamed méta-epistemology.Itis called historical because cepts of knowledge (ete.) be analysed by reflection on the human understanding, or on the timeless structure of logic and language. f, rationality, and the lil lo of them as gan permanent, Pao fends, Bus we sea once few local and fickle they are when we speak oft their opposites fanasy, magi shon ee rande, werent ‘verso: Why take up this way of doing te history and the philosophy ofthe sciences as ‘a memorial to Lorenz Kriiger? I should say that at first I picked a slightly more at- tractive name for this ype of enquiry: ‘historical epistemology’. The first place that -of Lorenz, Kriger, to be titled Wabrheit wad Geschichte, they coneeptstharcan |54 Jan Hacking I can recall noticing, or paying attention to the ph _Epistemologie, in correspondence: for the history and philosophy of science ~ a project that engaged s0 much of Lo- renz Kriigr’satention in the last years of his life ~ a project that came 1o fruition very much through his own meticulous caring. that was one of the types of study that Lorraine new Institute. Some months later, when it was my time to make a presentation to the committee of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaf, the members seemed perfectly at ‘ome with the words. No one asked, “What's that?” ‘That is remarkable, for on the face of it, the ugly phrase doesn’t mean much ‘one has said what one means by it. Daston and I have each blamed the other for inventing ‘historical epistemology’, skhough weknew tb asc faiir ‘ting. Then the Montréal scholar and sociologist of science, Yves Gingras, reminded ‘me that in 1969 Dominique Lecourt published his Lpizémologse historique de | Gaston Bachelard” ss Daston and I both had floating reminiscences of “Ghat. Buc even if we may all be, to some unacknowledged extent, Bachelards in tellectual children, we did not have exactly his kind of work in mind. For epistch mentee alee i ‘the History ofthe Sciences is necesariy epistemological’. { “Lecourt sees Bachelard as having discovered the fact chat science has no object ou side its own activity; that itis in self in its practic, productive of ‘and of the criterion of its existence.”? ven this prior use of the name ‘historical epistemology’, itis better to call our by the even uglier name of historical meta-epistemology. For Bachelar’s ob- jects are the sciences in ther historical development, with ll ‘pures. Bachelard’s work had the particular merit, at least pr and the intell tual aspe eee ‘temporaries today would complain that it omit mis emu af the socal His wis first philosophy to see how instruments and apparatus are ‘materialized theories’, 1 Dominige Leow, LEpattmolgie historique de Gaston Bacher, Pris: Via, 1969. ora ire Belong i we. Ta nlaci -Aocyof Knowle, Oxford: Blackwell, 193, tas Ber Tae Sad Tes honabel Sees ‘Hi ahs ow ino etn of ay ee ee ese ‘atonal weeshop for graduate oder, aural Epistemology in Toronto, 29 October - 3 November, 1993. te ; 2. Lecourt op troduction’the first to offer an account of phénoménotechnique. dav some metaphysical conclusions about truth itself there, and histor logys is, today, over here, I don’t fancy the name. historical "om isc ands hardly the end. Why.not also. we to have a historical aesthetic as well? Lam not at all clear istorical concepts at all. But I consequence of Our id ones n between pure concepts of intuition, concepts of the ur y historical. The topic and time in this ight. ‘That is already a curious cultural phenomenon, because the physicists’ space and time were sent for such a loop atthe beginning ofthis century, as aso was that other Kantian concept, causality. ‘Space-time’: how un-Kantian can you get? Even when present writers turn to the past, they analyse Leibniz.on motion in terms of a modern notion of invariance. I have nothing against anachronistic philosophy of this sort, but present opinion must weigh against the speculation that space and time are ahistorical concepts. Many have now written in the vein of the title by Stephen Toulmin and Jane Goodfield, The Discovery of Time. But once again, let us go down-scale, My colleague André Gombay discusses the appearance of the con- cept of punctuality. Punctuality is not an organizing concept, but it assuredly bears ‘on our conception of time, just as psychic trauma bears on our organization of the soul. Its a notion that was made possible in the context of those larger technical innovations that made time measurable. It also crosses out of the problem arca of the transcendental aesthetic of space-time, because itis, like ‘objectivity’, an emi- nently value-laden notion. ‘The first time that I sketched some of these ideas in public, someone asked, “What about death?” What he had in mind, it transpired, was the way in which we are right now rethinking our ideas about death thanks to advances in medicine. For example, is brain-death death? We are there too led to profound questions, but I think that the historical meta-epistemologist would have different concerns. One is beautifully illustrated by Anne Fagot-Largeault’s study not of the causes of death,Jets 7% abo being ose why ibs such 2s hii mesepiae mology or anthropology or aesthetic or on the old divisions of knowledge ask for the meaning, we say, ask for the uses and present. And just as Twas gi ing up the very word ‘analysis’ Theard a the present use of the notion of objectivity ia tangle of several elements, which che ‘would sort out by considering some distinct nineteenth-century e What have we heard today but.a discourse om the analysis of the very idea, objectivity? 10 What historical meta-episemology is not c order to continue to say wha histri- ¢ eT aaeRL i not Let me emphasize that this project is only ore and cen any, LTspeCt most, but not all ofthe projects that I shell now deere and even engage in some of them, Here Lam concerned wink difference, notevala- ation. ing what we understand by historical meta-epstemology, and Lecourt’s épinémologie . Here are some more 18 Anne Fagot-Largeauit, Les Causes dit mor, Paris: Vein, 1989,Historical Met-Epistemology m 10.1 Not studies of theory change. When you atk the more rounized philosopher of sence abou he use of his it ‘the prof ye models of theory change might be interesting objects for historical meta-epistemology,to study, but historical meta- epistemology would teach us that such theories are a small part of the ongoing foundational-normative struggles that Rory would like to bury. 10.2 Not social studies of science, 4a Enel hisses aap with Bary ems. social stud Sfepmtenloncl tae such as was astempted elie peal Suronisoe eos alk conse concepts are words and onzniing concep ae words in rganizing set, Those ses ae =pts to instances of their use. iplified both by studies of theory change and by so- Gi sues Tanah ome lose se sanes ‘They do help students get degrees; young people can publish papers that get them jobs. Bur the value of case suis quickly diminishes. They shouldbe used to awaken the 1en they hecame routine the 10.3 Not cognition, not biological. Evidently it follows that we are sceptical about cognitive science or evolutionary roaches to ideas such as objectivity, rat approaches to epistemological ideas such as objectivity, rationality or evidence; equally about other organizing concepts such as being a person - ora child. [men-2 Jan Hacking toned Robert Nozick’s book The Natwe of Rationality This has a strong eve utionary component. Weall agree that homo sapiens isa product of evolution, tha various biological and genetic events made it peesi Problems, not presuppositions guaranteed by biology. epistemology will be bemused by those What and culturally specitic than occurrences of the _ Far more striking isa body of ideas found in ‘k by Scott Atran. able book he manages to combine Chomskyian uni 7 q d what Linight call mythological metaphysics and epistemok sul Shan ne ng a mein pi something to do with ep some work of my own on styles 14 Scott Atran, itive Foundations for Natural e Towards an of Sco Cea Neel Atpy 5s For example, my *‘ for Historians and. ers”, Studies in His ‘and Phile of Senet 2 (350) Co - eeHistorical Meta-Epistemology B j- Bove emeaoges shan Niwsche, For Nistzache, Eke Hegel before, wove an amazing tapestry bas h knowledge ofthe past. Edy to ake only the eates work of Nicaea auly maructve my, bat historical ‘cannot be presented as historical fact. The ologist si noly snakes a mistake, ifan assertion can be refuted by an historian. But my m¢ |. Niewsche leads us on to larger game. 10.5 Not deconstruction. Ihave read some of my own work described as a ‘deconstructive’” scene iar the label 19 underlying constituents, followed by cynical mockery. Se eer It 1kads to scepticism about or abandonment of the very idea of text with which one began. That is already suggested by the Greek root of the word ‘analysis’, namely zw dissolve, or dissolution. I'm not saying that is what Derrida intended when he | brought his word into prominence; I'm saying what people seem to understand by | his word. On the understanding that I have just described, some feminist episte- f mology ‘would like to engage in the deconstruction of objectivity." ; ari is not analysis, decomposition into constituent parts ch ;on I don't think of historical meta-epistemology as deconstruction, is | point is that historical meta-epistemology is concerned wi hyas wereflec. Fee reat tadist kane ioe toe ike Meine eat Ce schichte meting that Fermat's last theorem had been proved in public for the frst time, using a by no means unintelligible proof idea (in a sense, a seventeenth cen- “tury proof idea). To be delighted by such events displays a cast of mind unsuited to deconstruction. 10.6 Nor archaeology, not genealogy. A contrast with Michel Foucault is important for me because sny own thinking has been so powerfully influenced by his. Its also important because one might turn w Daston, and say, is she.not doing the genealogy of ‘objectivity’? Afterall, she is. 16 Among contributions that have already become classic are S. Harding, The Science Question, in Feminism, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986, and D. Harraway, Simians, Cy- borgs and Women, New York: Routledge, 1991.+428 a.quite specific mode of analysis. I thinks 1 tha. ‘Genealogy’ is an in-word, and ‘ar. ies. Nobody is writing archaeo!- Pur pets we could even sty this: historical mets-epistema logy is a lot logy without the structure. rhat of ? In “Two. cin 197%, Michel Foucalkoferedx prone cnee ego Let us give the name genealogy to the on of eructe knowledge and local memories which SES eh No wince ts lel men tial today” ‘Gezetosi’ he continued, re an-science’ ‘Not that hey vindicate a Irie ' -gnorang: or nam else lovely remark that disqualifies a great |. proportion ofthe know roth bah ha nw ves Renee 1 Hewes cop to the ‘content 1ods or concepts ofa science’, but rather the effects of the. that are linked to the inste and functioning of an or pated sce iceaae raya sn nd son tiscon- Seed to be sien thatthe geeaogy tut wage tse the ade imade.a remark about what sms to me a somewhat generalized us of ‘Reet of archaeology a use to some extent sipped ofthe suscnral eta implied in Les Mos et les chose, and sated in The Archaeology of Kualaiee Af we were to char tin’ 18, then ‘a ‘would be the ‘method- logy ofthis snl oes and og ad es ao rasa ran deseo ofthese cal dors, te ubpredisomiciga ek eer é released would be brought into play. Genealogy is embattled. A feminist epstemologit, in sympathy wih th of Fly Rose or Donna Harraway, might wel ty 0 use © of Disio 17 Miche! Foucak, Two Lecures’ Power/Knowledge, New York Pantheon, 1981, p. 83,Historical Mets Epistemology 7% serial for a genealogy in just Foucault's intended sense of the smeta-epistemology, as I have been describing i, is an horrendously more ative enterprise. Its point is not to change the conceptual world, derstand it. It may even be accompanied by the thought that in ace ‘conceptual world, though always in flux, cannot be significantly changed of the functions that it unwittingly serves. This is not to say that historical epistemology leaves everything as it was, in the way that Wittgenstein misleadingly, said his descriptive project would do. Understandings are curiously more effica- ous than one Tam making the contrast with Foucault’ projects, ata certain stage of his devel- ‘opment, in terms of ative and passive, struggle and compliance, courage and cow- ardice. Lam timid: there’s no hiding thar. But the contrast can be seen in a different ‘and to my mind more informative way. His work has been abruptly, and fittingly ‘haracterized by the slash, power/knowledge, power-siash-knowledge. | suppose that the slash in historical meta-epistemology is truth (euth-stroke- ‘morality, mutters the cynic!) say this not because historical meta-epistemology is describing the true and the ethical, but because it is concerned with what organizes, ‘our practices of truth and our judgements of value in ways that we are stuck ‘This may lead, nevertheless, to sedition without the fireworks; for itis true that the, sapper who mines, also undermines. 10.7 Not the dissolution of the natural and the social. Finally I move to a very different type of analysis that its eities often take to.op- pose (as Foucault put it) ‘the contents, methods or concepts of a science’. The ities are wrong, for what I have in mind is the entirely different view, that 1 ‘concepts, be they of evidence or reason or rationality. or object _where the action is, when it comes to the sciences. That is one way to read part of work. In addition, he has come resolutely to deny that there is a n between those ultimate metaconcepts, the social and the natural. Science, he has long told us, we read, is struggle, war by other means." The net- work of power uses a large number of material devices, among which Latour privi- leges inscriptions of every sort, the immediate printouts, laboratory notebooks, graphs produced by a stylus or whatever, maps, fleeting e-mail messages upon a sereen, as well as those polished final reports, a few of which are endlessly cited at the end of yet other inscriptions. Words like ‘objective’ and even ‘evidence’ do not ‘occur here; the evidence is given, the proofs are written out, the beliefs are stated, the knowledge is disseminated. The words themselves are used only when talking about what is done, not in doing what is do may be useful, but itis rhetorical. We understand nothing about technoscience ‘under stand, let us say, ‘objectivity’. = ee 18 “This isa theme that many take away from his Science in Action, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986.undersanding. ‘hey are concepts that necessarily come into play at one remove from practice. Epistemology moves in the wrong ditection, taking us two steps away from practice, instead of taking us down, dropping the very concepts, and at tending to practices themselves. I see here the porerval ior, very broad crikique of philosophical activity, including ours, _ There are deeper waters ahead, indicated in Latour’s review of Shapin and Schaffer, ‘Not post-modern, a-modern’.” One is the challenge to the distinction between society and science, between government and technology, or, most gen- ‘And yet we can forge alliances, How could this come about? In order to legitimate historical meta-epistemol- 280; occasionally observe that from ancient Greek times there had hey deep in- terest in the very nature of knowledge ud cognate ideas, Buin fact he hin on] meta-epistemologists seem always to look at Daston goes back semology will seldom look eal, back past che period could argue that the entire retinue of epistemologal ile i ation that enacts and enforces the dichotomy of nature and culture that Latour calls tourian uses, perhaps, Nevertheless some of what Ihave said counts against that, ‘amely my claim that the epistemological ideas and practices are curiously inescapable. T suggest functionalist explanation. Ido noe think we will escape ‘wreak changes in our conception of nature and culture of os sages. think, as he does, thatthe nature/culture divide is inextricably connecte with the way we live, decide, produce and offer services Tak dee epistemologi- losophy of science, locked into the western traditon of Feason and causality jn which philosophy, science, and history arose, and it has ne pretension t0 go beyond tha. A stholar dedicated to ‘the relationship between philosophical and 2 Hore fuly developed in Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, ‘Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993,© hangeups. "Tata las any wpe | “lect, no with guilt, ut with amazement that people ar so able wo use their Historical Meta Epistemology ” scietfc truths on the one hand, and historical understandings onthe other’ could ‘oly have taken place within that larger tradition: After some biter struggles the’ ‘western model of capitalism will erode or simply ful, buried not by communism bt by forms yet not flly imagined, bu clearly sufficiently on the horizon to make all universalist political economy already obsolete without knowing it. But science and its strangely pervasive past is what the rest of the world will, in the final ledgers, show itself wo have taken from the so-called west (a good deal of the older ‘west better described as West Asia, rather than the Near East). The family of con- cepts that organize science will always revcal itself as organizing the minds of ‘human beings, transforming them and their ideas, from the time of Anaxagoras to that of Lorenz Kriger and beyond. Sinbad eceepsonb ‘out in several ways. One is that we cannot think without (for example) the ‘organizing ideal of objectivity to serve as our. incessantly evo our ‘own tradition and use, imposed on but also gobbled up by all humanity, and re- “nade as yet further topics for an historical meta-epistemology ofthe future to re- © to both understand and change the world,