Epistemology of the Concrete

Hans-JÖrg Rheinberger is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. He is the author of On Historicizing Epistemology: An Essay and Toward a History of Epistemic Things: Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube.

• Illustrations viiForeword / Tim Lenoir xiPrologue 1Part I. Historical Epistemology 1. Ludwik Fleck, Edmond Husserl: On the Historicity of Scientific Knowledge 132. Gaston Bachelard: The Concept of "Phenomenotechnique" 253. Georges Canguilhem: Epistemological History 37Part II. Model Organisms: Studies in the History of Heredity and Reproduction 4. Pisum: Carl Carren's Experiments on Xenia, 1896–99 515. Eudorina: Max Hartmann's Experiments on Biological Regulation in Protozoa, 1914–21 826. Ephistia: Alfred Kühn's Experimental Design for a Developmental Physiological Genetics, 1924–45 947. Tobacco Mosaic Virus: Virus Research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes for Biochemistry and Biology, 1937–45 128Part III. Concepts and Instruments: Studies in the History of Molecular Biology 8. The Concept of the Gene: Molecular Biological Perspectives 1539. The Liquid Scintillation Counter: Traces of Radioactivity 17010. The Concept of Information 203Part IV. Epistemic Configurations 11. Intersections 21712. Preparations 23313. The Economy of the Scribble 244Acknowledgments 253Abbreviations 255Notes 257Bibliography 289Index 321

“Readers will find that the overarching theme of the text is that scientific knowledge is not simply the result of a series of advances in which one pays forward into the next like a row of falling dominos. It is an emergent property of a nonlinear process involving a complex interplay of history, culture, and the scientific process. Rheinberger’s case studies present science as a productive enterprise with measurable outcomes such as conceptual models, experimental organisms, and instrumentation. . . . Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” - J. A. Hewlett, Choice “An Epistemology of the Concrete offers a methodological framework and a set of research exemplars that will shape science studies for years to come.”-Tim Lenoir, from the foreword “In this empirical and conceptual tour de force, Hans-JÖrg Rheinberger provides an examination of the work of key twentieth-century epistemologists, rigorous historical vignettes of model-organism research, a materialist epistemology of experimental biology, and, consequently, a carefully precise yet broadly illuminating theorization of modes of knowledge production. An Epistemology of the Concrete is a major contribution not only to the history of science but also to fields such as anthropology, which are turning to epistemological analyses of the life sciences as a key site of inquiry.”-Kaushik Sunder Rajan, author of Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life “Hans-JÖrg Rheinberger has played a prominent role in bringing those strands of thinking together, thus pioneering an integrated approach to the history and the philosophy of science and, most importantly, illuminating several long-standing philosophical debates with profound, creative and scientifically informed insights on the nature of experimental work. Within this wonderful volume, Rheinberger uses his understanding of the history of biology and his experience as a practising experimenter to build a sophisticated epistemology of scientific practice.” - Sabina Leonelli (International Studies in the Philosophy of Science) “The reader will learn a great deal from Rheinberger’s essays on the scholars whom he sees as crucial in order to conceive of scientific knowledge as inherently historical, social, and ‘concrete’. The reader will also find an answer to what is historical epistemology today, or at least one version of it, both in theoretical terms and through case studies that show how a historical epistemological perspective enables the epistemologist, historian, and sociologist to read scientific activity.” - Christina Chimisso (Radical Philosophy) “Readers will find that the overarching theme of the text is that scientific knowledge is not simply the result of a series of advances in which one pays forward into the next like a row of falling dominos. It is an emergent property of a nonlinear process involving a complex interplay of history, culture, and the scientific process. Rheinberger’s case studies present science as a productive enterprise with measurable outcomes such as conceptual models, experimental organisms, and instrumentation. . . . Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” - J. A. Hewlett (Choice)