Histories of Scientific Observation

by Daston, Lorraine

• ISBN13: 9780226136783
• ISBN10: 0226136787
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Observation is the most pervasive and fundamental practice of all the modern sciences, both natural and human. Its instruments include not only the naked senses but also tools such as the telescope and microscope, the questionnaire, the photographic plate, the notebook, the glassed-in beehive, and myriad other ingenious inventions designed to make the invisible visible, the evanescent permanent, the abstract concrete. Yet observation has almost never been considered as an object of historical inquiry in itself. This wide-ranging collection offers the first examination of the history of scientific observation in its own right, as both epistemic category and scientific practice. Histories of Scientific Observationfeatures engaging episodes drawn from across the spectrum of the natural and human sciences, ranging from meteorology, medicine, and natural history to economics, astronomy, and psychology. The contributions spotlight how observers have scrutinized everythingfrom seaweed to X-ray radiation, household budgets to the emotionswith ingenuity, curiosity, and perseverance verging on obsession. This book makes a compelling case for the significance of the long, surprising, and epistemologically significant history of scientific observation, a history full of innovations that have enlarged the possibilities of perception, judgment, and reason.

Author Biography

Lorraine Daston is director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and is visiting professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Elizabeth Lunbeck is the Nelson Tyrone, Jr. Professor of History and professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Observation Observed	p. 1
Framing the History of Scientific Observation, 500-1800
Introduction	p. 11
Observation in the Margins, 500-1500	p. 15
Observation Rising: Birth of an Epistemic Genre, 1500-1650	p. 45
The Empire of Observation, 1600 -1800	p. 81
Observing and Believing: Evidence
Introduction	p. 115
The Color of Blood: Between Sensory Experience and Epistemic Significance	p. 117
Seeing Is Believing: Professor Vagner's Wonderful World	p. 135
A Visual History of Jean Perrin's Brownian Motion Curves	p. 156
Observing in New Ways: Techniques
Introduction	p. 181
Frogs on the Mantelpiece: The Practice of Observation in Daily Life	p. 185
Sorting Things Out: The Economist as an Armchair Observer	p. 206
"A Number of Scenes in a Badly Cut Film": Observation in the Age of Strobe	p. 230
Empathy as a Psychoanalytic Mode of Observation: Between Sentiment and Science	p. 255
Observing New Things: Objects
Introduction	p. 277
Reforming Vision: The Engineer Le Play Learns to Observe Society Sagely	p. 281
Seeking Parts, Looking for Wholes	p. 303
Seeing the Blush: Feeling Emotions	p. 326
Visualizing Radiation: The Photographs of Henri Becquerel	p. 349
Observing Together: Communities
Introduction	p. 369
The Geography of Observation: Distance and Visibility in Eighteenth-Century Botanical Travel	p. 373
The World on a Page: Making a General Observation in the Eighteenth Century	p. 396
Coming to Attention: A Commonwealth of Observers during the Napoleonic Wars	p. 421
List of Contributors	p. 445
Index	p. 449
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