The Edge of Subjectivity: An introduction to synthetic research perspectives in the History of Science.Tobias Bowman

Traditional perspectives on Synthetic research.

A synthetic study of history, be that the History of Science, or of Religion, or of Philately or of almost anything is generally what would be thought of as the stereotypical, perhaps traditional way of doing history, even by many historians, who sometimes long for the syntheses of the past. [footnoteRef:1] Traditional synthetic studies usually exist as very large, or far reaching bodies of work, in the case of the History of Science, they examine scientific developments across significant measures of time and space. Usually this variety and scope is made possible by unifying scientific discoveries (Often regarded in a highly present-centred manner[footnoteRef:2]) under a central, or at least recursive, philosophy (be that positivism, anti-postivism, rationalism, Marxism or any other philosophical framework which could be used to depict science as progress towards a specific focus[footnoteRef:3]). [footnoteRef:4] In this way, synthetic histories of science could do what no other kind of research could accomplish, they produced, as far as their author was concerned,[footnoteRef:5] a History of Science. Whilst it is true that some studies today can claim to be in some ways synthetic (such as the Cambridge History of Science[footnoteRef:6]), by combining multiple perspectives and avenues of enquiry into a single work, few could claim to provide an homogenous overview of the History of what we consider today Science, let alone the multitude of past sciences. [1: J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405] [2: A. Wilson and T. G. Ashplant, Present-Centred History and the Problem of Historical Knowledge, The Historical Journal, 31, 2 (1988) pp. 253-74] [3: A. Cunningham and P. Williams, De-Centring the 'Big Picture': "The Origins of Modern Science" and the Modern Origins of Science, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 407-32; see also J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405] [4: A. Cunningham and P. Williams, De-Centring the 'Big Picture': "The Origins of Modern Science" and the Modern Origins of Science, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 407-32] [5: J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405] [6: D. C. Lindberg, R. L. Numbers, R. Porter, M. J. Nye, T. M. Porter, D. Ross, K. Park and L. Daston (eds), The Cambridge History of Science, (Cambridge, 2003).]

The fate of traditional synthetic researchToday, overviews of the history of science bearing the breadth of traditional synthetic works such as Butterfields The Origins of Modern Science or Gillespies The Edge of Objectivity are rare in the extreme.[footnoteRef:7] This is due in part to the broadening of the availablility of science to academic enquiry from a wide variety of fields; physicists such as Kuhn, philosophers like Foucault, historians, sociologists, theologians, the list goes on. Science became increasingly scrutinised from a wide variety of perspectives, which in turn broadened contemporary definitions of science (The work of Thomas Khun and Michel Foucault in particular was in the 1960s), this broadening of science made it harder and harder to viably unify science within one theoretical or philosophical framework. [footnoteRef:8] As a result, the production of synthetic studies in the History of Science dwindled, as the discipline diversified and dispersed into examining the histories of specific periods, individuals, philosophies or disciplines of, what is known today, as Science, but could equally have been about natural philosophy or shamanism, or any other form of natural inquiry.[footnoteRef:9] In addition this change in the perceptions of the History of Science from the grand central narrative to the investigation of isolated incidents in the History of Science helped the discipline move away from the Heroic Science of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and reduce instances of what is known as whiggish or present centred history.[footnoteRef:10] [7: A. Cunningham and P. Williams, De-Centring the 'Big Picture': "The Origins of Modern Science" and the Modern Origins of Science, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 407-32] [8: Ibid, pp. 413-5] [9: J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405; and also A. Wilson and T. G. Ashplant, Whig History and Present-Centred History, The Historical Journal, 31, 1 (1988), pp. 1-16] [10: A. R. Hall, On Whiggism, History of Science, 21, 1 (1983), pp. 45-60]

In addition, the work of people like Barry and Pickstone, drawing on the groundwork lain by the likes of Kuhn and Foucault, has highlighted the problems with the perception of science in synthetic studies.[footnoteRef:11] Science became understood by many in the 1960s and onwards as but one way of knowing the world in which we live, one method of understanding the universe[footnoteRef:12]. Traditional synthetic research tended to view science as that process to which all natural philosophers, technicians, experimentalists and others aspired. Science was a grand procession of thinkers and events unified in a single notion of scientific progress. The new sociology of science, and the understanding of the context not only of scientific discoveries but of the scientists carrying them out, led to a greater understanding that science is not, in fact, timeless[footnoteRef:13]. [11: A. Barry, The History of Measurement and the Engineers of Space, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 459-68; and also J. Pickstone, Ways of Knowing: Towards a Historical Sociology of Science, Technology and Medicine, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 433-458.] [12: J. Pickstone, Ways of Knowing: Towards a Historical Sociology of Science, Technology and Medicine, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 433-458.] [13: A. Cunningham and P. Williams, De-Centring the 'Big Picture': "The Origins of Modern Science" and the Modern Origins of Science, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 413]

An additional factor in the paucity of such grand, synthetic analyses of the history of science, is that of their scale. As Christie points out, modern works on the history only of specific disciplines in science, tend to produce very large books covering very small areas. A synthetic study incorporating modern historiological approaches to Science would, by necessity, be enormous, and again Christie and others remind us; in academia today you must publish often in order to gain recognition, precluding devotion of decades of ones life to a singular piece of work. [footnoteRef:14] [14: J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405; And also G. Parchomovsky, Publish or Perish, Michigan Law Review, 98, 4 (2000), pp. 926-952.]

The corollary of this is the assumption that a synthetic study would therefore require the collaboration of a great many different specialists, as no one Science-historian (Christies Clio[footnoteRef:15]) could know all that needs be known for an examination of science today. Putting aside the well highlighted problems in any academic endeavour with epistemic specialisation (especially well defined by Hardwig[footnoteRef:16]) when working as part of a much larger whole[footnoteRef:17], many acknowledge that getting historians and scientists to work together on a volume with a common methodology and goal could be difficult. [footnoteRef:18] In short therefore, a new understanding of the meaning of science, and the difficulties for traditional synthetic research which were perceived on account of that, led to the synthetic study being considered a research method of the past. [15: Ibid, pp 401-402.] [16: H. Longino,"The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge",The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(2013 Edition), ed. Zalta, E. N., Accessed 20 October 2013, at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/ ] [17: J. Hardwig, Epistemic Dependence, Journal of Philosophy, 82, 7 (1985) pp. 335-49] [18: C. Hakfoort, The Missing Syntheses in the Historiography of Science, History of Science, 29, 2 (1991), pp. 207-16.]

The state of playThe diminishing of synthetic studies, and the rise of what could be called the microsociology of science,[footnoteRef:19] led to a common belief among both scientists and science-historians that a new synthetic study was not possible, that it would be too difficult to combine all the diverse fields of science into a single narrative .[footnoteRef:20] However the presence of modern pseudo-synthetic or even, arguably, fully synthetic (The Cambridge History of Science does a fairly good job at examining a broad spectrum of scientific enquiry, though remains fairly present-centred[footnoteRef:21]) helps illustrate the fact that synthetic studies of the History of Science, despite the near-universality of much more focussed studies, or collections thereof (what Christie called small pictures in the History of Science[footnoteRef:22]), are still very much sought after. [footnoteRef:23] Indeed several Academics in the field of History of science, Scientists such as Andrew Cunningham, and science-historians such as Hakfoort[footnoteRef:24] argue cases for a new kind of synthetic, coalesced study of the history of science[footnoteRef:25]. Synthetic studies therefore, having fallen from grace, were once again being sought in the 1980s onwards. [19: A. Barry, The History of Measurement and the Engineers of Space, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 459-68] [20: J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405; and also C. Hakfoort, The Missing Syntheses in the Historiography of Science, History of Science, 29, 2 (1991), pp. 207-16.] [21: D. C. Lindberg, R. L. Numbers, R. Porter, M. J. Nye, T. M. Porter, D. Ross, K. Park and L. Daston (eds), The Cambridge History of Science, (Cambridge, 2003).] [22: J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 394] [23: Ibid 1-2] [24: G. Cantor, Casper Hakfoort (1955-99), The British Journal for the History of Science, 33, (2000), pp. 227-229] [25: A. Cunningham and P. Williams, De-Centring the 'Big Picture': "The Origins of Modern Science" and the Modern Origins of Science, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 407-32; and also C. Hakfoort, The Missing Syntheses in the Historiography of Science, History of Science, 29, 2 (1991), pp. 207-16.]

As mentioned above, in the present there are some studies of the History of Science which seek to improve upon, or perhaps emulate, traditional synthetic studies without credence to a clear unifying philosophy. However, there are none at present which attempt to match the (perceived) scope of traditional synthetic research, no modern work attempts to chronicle all the events of natural inquiry in the way The Edge of Objectivity may have done (at least, none that are apparent). Nor do modern works in the field examine science exclusively as a progression of heroic discoveries from a few great people, or the history of science as being one of constant progress from the first men to the modern age[footnoteRef:26]. There are several reasons however why one could be seen to be important; Cunningham and Williams argue that, due to the dominant nature of science as a discipline in the modern world, a survey of science as a whole, only really possible via synthetic research, would in essence constitute a survey of humanity itself.[footnoteRef:27] This is primarily proposed as accomplishable only if the scope of the synthetic study is limited; a general survey of all scientific developments in the modern age (though this is not defined by Cunningham et al. an example would be a synthetic History of Science from 1939 onwards). [footnoteRef:28] Similarly Hakfoort too argues for a new synthesis, believing that to create one now would be a crowning achievement for the field of the History of Science, and that it might be done by surveying historiological techniques and phases within the discipline, rather than the fact of science-history[footnoteRef:29]. Here then we can see that some science historians not only believe that the once-defunct field of synthetic research into the History of Science is still viable, but that it is, in fact, essential. [26: J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405] [27: A. Cunningham and P. Williams, De-Centring the 'Big Picture': "The Origins of Modern Science" and the Modern Origins of Science, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 407-32] [28: Ibid, pp. 418.] [29: C. Hakfoort, The Missing Syntheses in the Historiography of Science, History of Science, 29, 2 (1991), pp. 207-16.]

However, many in the field of History of Science believe that a new synthesis is impossible, or too challenging to attempt at this time. It has been argued by many, for instance, that science as a discipline is simply too large, what with the explosion of scientific knowledge created by the advent of Big Science in the 1940s, corporate science in the 1950s and Internet enabled research in the 1980s onwards, to allow for a synthetic study to even hope to constitute a representation of science in the past or present. [footnoteRef:30] Others believe that the change in the ways we define science have changed so much over the past century that a study attempting to marry that of the 20th century and that of any (or all) or the preceding centuries must surely be doomed to failure. [footnoteRef:31] [30: For this see especially J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405; A. Barry, The History of Measurement and the Engineers of Space, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 459-68; and J Pickstone, Ways of Knowing: Towards a Historical Sociology of Science, Technology and Medicine, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 433-458.] [31: See above, but also A. Cunningham and P. Williams, De-Centring the 'Big Picture': "The Origins of Modern Science" and the Modern Origins of Science, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 407-32; and also J. W. Leavitt, Medicine in Context: A Review Essay of the History of Medicine, The American Historical Review, 95, 5 (1990), pp. 1471-84; and also A. Wilson and T. G. Ashplant, Whig History and Present-Centred History, The Historical Journal, 31, 1 (1988), pp. 1-16.]

In sumThe history Science as we understand it today has been examined for some time, even when studying periods when what we would consider science never occurred, and what was considered science at the time of study would be considered a foolhardy endeavour[footnoteRef:32]. This Present-Centredness, increasingly maligned in many more recent historiographical works, was a factor in the apparent old-fashionedness and apparent irrelevance of the traditional synthetic study which developed after the Second World War[footnoteRef:33]. The reliance of old synthetic research upon central, overarching philosophies also contributed to its downfall, as with the diversification of science it became more and more difficult to justify labelling all science, in both modern and historic meanings of the word, as being a part of, or contributing to, a single causality, be that progress, production or Protestantism[footnoteRef:34]. [32: A. Cunningham and P. Williams, De-Centring the 'Big Picture': "The Origins of Modern Science" and the Modern Origins of Science, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 407-32] [33: A. Wilson and T. G. Ashplant, Present-Centred History and the Problem of Historical Knowledge, The Historical Journal, 31, 2 (1988) pp. 253-74] [34: A. Barry, The History of Measurement and the Engineers of Space, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 459-68]

As a result, the synthetic study, certainly in the History of Science, fell out of vogue. And from the mid-1960s to this day, the majority of major History of Science publications focus on a perception of science within specific, focussed, spatio-temporal parameters[footnoteRef:35]. This allows the findings of such a study to be presented without need for recourse to a central philosophy or terminal paradigm. It also allows for researchers to work alone with a good chance of being well versed in the totality of the area they study, as well as permitting Historians, Scientists, Philosophers and so on to publish a lot and to publish quickly, which is much more important in the modern academia, where the use of the internet enables publications to be disseminated, read, and reviewed almost instantaneously[footnoteRef:36]. [35: J. R. R. Christie, Aurora, Nemesis and Clio, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 4 (1993), pp. 391-405] [36: Ibid, pp. 401.]

However, there is a growing case for a new kind of synthetic study, and indeed it seems the case that a modern one would be multiply useful; as a vindication of the discipline, as providing an understanding of science today, as catalysing the teaching of historians and scientists alike in the general history of science, as well as numerous other benefits. However, there is a great deal of disagreement over whether a new synthesis is viable, as opposed to desirable. In view of some of the arguments prevalent in recent historiographical research, it seems the case that most Science-Historians (regardless of background) are all waiting for another to act first. Most Science-Historians agree that a cohesive, far reaching synthetic study of past and present science would be greatly advantageous, but no one is willing to take the first step; to outline the parameters for a new synthesis, be that a collective history of science, built up from the work of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Science Historians, or a survey of extant understandings of what is meant by science, both now and in the past, or perhaps an exhaustive chronicle of natural inquiry, leaving behind the concept of science as a discrete discipline, and more a way of expressing the human desire to satisfy their curiosity, and the overwhelming multitude of extra-mural factors affecting that desire, political, personal, pecuniary and so on. It seems that there are many different ways that a new synthesis might be approached, but no one is willing to figuratively step out from the trenches and charge the topic. Regardless of the methodology chosen, an academic corpus less timid than our own is needed, and will perhaps be provided as the body of research and study into the nature of syntheses, and of science, grows exponentially into the 21st century.

Bibliographyn.d.

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