An Epistemology of the Concrete: Twentieth-Century Histories of LifeAn Epistemology of the Concrete brings together case studies and theoretical reflections on the history and epistemology of the life sciences by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, one of the world’s foremost philosophers of science. In these essays, he examines the history of experiments, concepts, model organisms, instruments, and the gamut of epistemological, institutional, political, and social factors that determine the actual course of the development of knowledge. Building on ideas from his influential book Toward a History of Epistemic Things, Rheinberger first considers ways of historicizing scientific knowledge, and then explores different configurations of genetic experimentation in the first half of the twentieth century and the interaction between apparatuses, experiments, and concept formation in molecular biology in the second half of the twentieth century. He delves into fundamental epistemological issues bearing on the relationship between instruments and objects of knowledge, laboratory preparations as a special class of epistemic objects, and the note-taking and write-up techniques used in research labs. He takes up topics ranging from the French “historical epistemologists” Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem to the liquid scintillation counter, a radioactivity measuring device that became a crucial tool for molecular biology and biomedicine in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout An Epistemology of the Concrete, Rheinberger shows how assemblages—historical conjunctures—set the conditions for the emergence of epistemic novelty, and he conveys the fascination of scientific things: those organisms, spaces, apparatuses, and techniques that are transformed by research and that transform research in turn. |
Contents
Prologue | 1 |
Part I Historical Epistemology | 11 |
Studies in the History of Heredity and Reproduction | 49 |
Studies in the History of Molecular Biology | 151 |
Part IV Epistemic Configurations | 215 |
Acknowledgments | 253 |
Abbreviations | 255 |
Notes | 257 |
Bibliography | 289 |
| 321 | |
Common terms and phrases
acid Bachelard Beadle Bergold Berlin biochemical Biochemistry Butenandt caesia Canguilhem Carl Correns Caspari cell century chapter chemical classical genetics concept Correns Correns's counter cultural Dahlem Danneel developmental Drosophila electron ence enzyme Ephestia kühniella Ephrussi epistemic epistemic objects epistemology experimental systems experiments Fleck Folder 17 François François Jacob function Gaston Bachelard Gayon gene genome Georges Canguilhem German germs Göttingen Hartmann Henke history of science hormone Husserl hybrid Ibid Institute instrument Interview of November isotopes Jacob Kaiser Wilhelm Institute knowledge Kühn Kühn’s laboratory Letter liquid scintillation counting Ludwik Fleck Melchers Mendel ments model organism molecular biology Monod MPG Archive mutations natural Nuclear Packard paper physiology pigment Pisum Plagge plant pollen production protein protocols radioactive result Rheinberger Rockefeller Foundation sample Schramm scientific object Section seeds studies technical techniques tion trace trans translation modified Tübingen University virus research Wettstein Wilhelm xenia yellow