Geert Vanpaemel, University of Leuven

The appeal, launched by Lissa Roberts and Bert Theunissen, to reflect on the present and future state of the history of science in the Netherlands, has met with a wide response from all parties concerned. I am happy to say that also Belgian historians of science have reacted with enthusiasm. 

The appeal resulted in two concrete projects, one concerning a master programme in the history of science, another aiming at the creation of a nationwide research programme. 

We are a very fragmented discipline. The history of science covers all sciences and all historical periods. Our methodology varies from conceptual analysis to institutional history, from biographical narrative to sociological analysis. Historians of science emerge from very different corners: we are scientists, physicians, engineers, historians, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers. We may even define our discipline quite differently: ranging from history of SCIENCE to HISTORY of science.

Three conditions

I don’t think this is really a problem. The history of science thus offers a wide range of professional expertise and makes for an interdisciplinary forum with quite contrasting approaches. It probably has never been otherwise and I am not making a plea for more conformity. Yet, I do think that a large scale research programme, such as we are discussing today, comes at an appropriate time. In the changing academic landscape of our times, the history of science stands in need of a strong and balanced profile to safeguard our multi-disciplinary identity. We need to reflect on our position within the academic world and to start an open discussion on the historiographical premises on which our discipline is built. 

For a large scale research programme to work properly, three conditions have to be met. First of all, the programme has to appeal to all our colleagues. A programme should certainly not divide the profession. It should be innovative, exciting, stimulating and refreshing. Secondly, the programme should strengthen the position of our discipline within the whole of academic studies. In particular, the programme should highlight the specific competences of the history of science, and its contribution to contemporary debates on science and history. Finally, the programme should result in economies of scale, which individual projects cannot. 

Theory and/or pragmatism

The theme ‘Circulating Knowledge’ has much potential to meet these conditions. It is a theme with a new and indeed exciting focus. It defines knowledge as a variety of ‘phenomena’, both material and mental. Knowledge is approached as a cultural artefact, embodied in books and instruments, people and practices, technological applications and intellectual controversies. The focus is on the local context, but the theme refers also to the international level. In fact, one central question is how science emerges from its primary roots in local landscapes and rises towards an international, perhaps even universal status.

Lissa Roberts has given us a very useful exposition on the various approaches to this central theme. She has sketched out several of the key concepts and theoretical developments we might consider, and she has rightfully shown the interesting conclusions to which our research might lead. I can see the many advantages of the approach set out by her and also its opportunities to incorporate many individual projects, but still, I have some reservations to make. As interesting as the theme may be, I doubt –for mostly pragmatic reasons– whether it will effectively fulfil the needs of our joint programme. In the worst of scenarios, I can even imagine that it could turn out to be counterproductive. Some caveats are in place then.

The heavy theoretical framing of the theme may fall short of the first aim our research project wants to attain: bringing coherence to our profession (within our national setting). We haven’t paid too much attention to theory and methodology in the past. Starting out from a rigid theoretical framework might hinder us more than it might help us. It is, of course, good and perhaps necessary to have methodology and theory in the back of our minds, but it may not work well in our situation.

The focus on embodied knowledge, in the form of instruments, books, people, tools, practices and skills certainly adds enormously to the resources for our research. But at the same time it may isolate our profession even more from other historical disciplines, by freezing the volatile concept of knowledge or science into ‘objects’.  Many scholars might be interested in a history of quantum mechanics, but a history of the electron microscope (in itself very relevant to the history of modern physics) might appeal not too much to historians of other fields.

What worries me the most is the subtle return of internalism into our profession, discernible in the theoretical construction of the circulation theme. What exactly is meant by a transition of local science to universal science? The circulation of knowledge seems to suggest that there is something, that circulates and that therefore can be considered independent of local context. Knowledge may then be taken as that, which remains invariant during circulation. Such a view reinforces the view that science has indeed a universal status. Whatever we want to forget about social constructivism, we should not let go of the basic fact that knowledge is always to be considered in its local and temporal context, even in its claim for universal status. Once we forget about the local and historical foundations of knowledge, we abandon the history of science.

Indeed, what is the universal status of science? Is that not also but a social construct promoted by small groups of promoters (e.g. scientists, writers or politicians)? By referring to a level of science which transcends the so-called local context, we may be returning in fact to a positivist view of (pure) science, opposing it to the cultural bias of national contexts. Studying the history of Dutch science, is then a case study of cultural influences on science (which may be interesting, but never fundamental), but it is not a cultural history of science. I want to make a plea to extend the basic premises of our programme towards a novel cultural interpretation of science, which opens truly new vistas for the history of science.

Science as (public) knowledge

The first thing to notice in looking at the theme is an interesting shift of vocabulary in the title of the programme. There is in fact no mention of Science. This may be caused by practical reasons: the term ‘science’ only covers our field since the nineteenth century. Still, when we extend the historical usage of science, I think the broadening of our field towards knowledge is just. What is knowledge? Science may be knowledge, but knowledge is not always science. People may agree that they “know” about certain things, without feeling the need to call it science. And what is knowledge? It is, in my view, not an abstract entity, not a collection of embodied ‘things’ or ‘phenomena’; it cannot circulate or be made to circulate. It is not material, but it isn’t mental either. Knowledge is in fact a claim, a value statement about opinions and explanations. It is something which is accredited to some statements and refused to others. Science was not knowledge in the Middle Ages, and phrenology, a widely respected form of knowledge, was not a widely accepted science during most of the nineteenth century. 

Stating that science is knowledge, immediately raises the question: knowledge about what? Can Darwin’s theory of natural selection be accepted as knowledge about the origin of life, let alone the meaning of life? What can statistics teach us regarding the best form of government? Can physics show us the way how to use ‘true’ colours in paintings? Can chemists be trusted when they proclaim some food products safe and others dangerous for consumption? 

It is clear that this concept of knowledge reveals a new side of science. It is not enough to study science, we have to study the claims made by science and scientists to understand what science really means to us, and to society in general. This process of making claims, and adapting to the claims made by others, is inherently public. The public may be quite small, as in conversation with a limited number of professional colleagues, but it may also be very large and indeterminate, as with publications in popular magazines or with the enduring production and rehearsal of claims in textbooks and manuals.

Bernadette Benseaude-Vincent has written a very interesting book on the divorce between science and opinion, in which she argues for the essential public nature of science. She points out how modern science started out with an appeal to the general reader, the lay man (or woman) who was not spoiled by scholastic education or social prejudices. Galileo and Descartes made their science as public as possible, and this certainly appealed to many audiences (probably in quite different ways). In the eighteenth century, public opinion was invented to mirror the general acceptance of rational thought, of which science was the prime example. Only in the nineteenth century, opinion was gradually divorced from science, but not  in a way that the two forms of knowledge became independent. On the contrary, science needed opinion to show in which ways it was different. In a certain way, public opinion (with all its so-called misconceptions and prejudices) was invented by scientists to make their claims on true knowledge. It is quite astonishing that public audiences accepted this downgrading of their knowledge. People in fact welcomed the authority of science, even when they did not understand what science was about. Einstein joked that he became famous because no one understood him. This is the paradox of our times. Science has become an intellectual icon of our (Western) society, although very few people, including scientists, are able to form a general idea, let alone a sound judgement, about science.

The public nature of science transcends the usual boundaries of the history of science. But it also adds fundamentally to the message we want to deliver. History of science is not just about some isolated aspect of our culture, it is about one of its central myths. Science has been accepted as one of the most efficient and trustworthy tools to solve almost any problem in our society. This is the story we can analyse and the story we have to tell to all interested. How did our society become so knowledge-intensive? Why was our society so keen on accepting the intellectual and cultural authority of science? It is not a simple question, and certainly not a simple answer. But it touches upon the concepts of public opinion, social power and authority, scientific strategies, the demonstrative power of knowledge.

Circulation of knowledge in culture

How can we approach this circulation of knowledge in culture? The first capital assumption to make is that science did not enter an empty arena. Knowledge existed before science, and it continued to exist even when science encroached on its territory. When agricultural scientists attempted to explain to farmers the benefits of artificial fertilizer or genetic selection, farmers were not impressed. The fertilizer did not work properly on the fields (at first) and genetic selection was already practiced a long time before Mendel’s laws became known (in particular with horses and dogs). Using science was not without its worries: on the farm it created dependencies of farmers on cooperative unions or industrial suppliers, bringing in new actors and new problems. Also, the creation of agricultural science was not simply a matter of enlightening farmers, it was just as much about creating a field of competence for agricultural scientists. To aid their cause, they sometimes added mathematical formulas or theories about scientific management, they created evidence about rising yields or purer breeds, they used all the rhetoric about progress and modernisation, to convince… not the farmers, but the governments and industrialists whose support was much needed. The governments were pleased with their scientists, who supported their policies and might even take the blame for some less agreeable results. The agricultural industry held yet another stake in the whole story, counting progress by the sales they made, not necessarily by the beneficial development of agriculture. But the farmers had a quite different view. Very often, they didn’t trust these new specialists in smart suits, even when they were born sons and daughters of farmers. Scientists often had to approach them through the intermediary of farmers’ unions, simple agricultural teachers or popular broadsheets. A new generation of farmers was raised and indoctrinated in schools where their parents had never been. 

This example shows the many sides of knowledge, when it starts to circulate in society. Questions we can ask: What are the problems at hand? Which audiences are selected? What means are at the disposal of the different stakeholders to make their arguments?

The production of knowledge is in essence the production of a competence claim. But it is not merely about social power. To make a claim, science has to be finely adapted. Scientific concepts are mirrored mostly on existing examples and adjusted to the audiences for which they are meant. This can be illustrated on a micro-level, but usually science aims at a more general level. Already Descartes wanted to transform the whole of human knowledge, and the French philosophes of the eighteenth century saw science as the key to a rational society. It is difficult to understand nineteenth century science without taking into account the novel aspirations of the bourgeoisie, and its self-styled idealised form of civilised behaviour. Many of these claims only work in contrast with their counterpart. The concept of progress has only meaning in contrast to a negative concept of conservatism; the concept of objectivity against the background of the supposedly emotional nature of public opinion; the concept of universality against the forces at work in local contexts. Science thus creates its own methodology by rejecting the ‘unscientific’. In defining the unscientific, science often aims its arrows at local targets. The ideology of progressive, objective, neutral and universal science has to be based each and every time on the destruction of very concrete adversaries.

Conclusion

This problematic concept of science as knowledge and its study in local contexts, answers quite well the conditions that I have stated at the beginning. It captures the evolution of historiography of science during the past decades, without opting for a radical social constructivism or sociology of science. It indeed reflects the way many historians of science nowadays look upon their subject. At the same time, it addresses the paradox of our society and the central concept of knowledge which should be are primary target.

 Furthermore,  by replacing ‘science’ by ‘knowledge’, and by reconsidering the process of the production of knowledge, we, as historians of science, have something to say to the society of our day. We can show how knowledge is built, how it plays on audiences, and how it informs our society. The history of the Netherlands and Belgium cannot be grasped without a sound understanding of how knowledge and expertise is constructed on all levels of social intercourse. If science counts in the Netherlands and Belgium, we should be able to understand how this has come to be. It has not been a straightforward process of accepting universal values. It is about the creation of these values in society, and to attribute these values to science.

In conclusion, a programme like this can only be executed through the cooperation and the assembled expertise of many scholars (not only historians of science). Yet, the accumulation of isolated stories will not do. For that reason, I believe and strongly advocate that our programme should be doubled by a theoretical reflection on these topics, not in order to direct individual research, but to create a conceptual framework to use and to diffuse. I believe very strongly that the history of science has a story to tell. We should not simply bury it under a multitude of stories. It is time (again, I should say) for the history of science to reflect on its basic message, a message to be heard.