Localism and universalism in the

historiography of science

Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen

The University of Oulu

Jouni-matti.Kuukkanen@oulu.fi

Structure of talk

1. What is localism?I. Weak localism

II. Strong localism

2. Globality of science

3. Universality of science

4. Limits of localismI. How localist can one be?

II. Unwarranted anti-inductivism?

Extra: counterfactual history as testing ground

5. Conclusions

1. What is localism?

Background: Science as disembodied in philosophy of science

• Science as universal in some sense• E.g. shared method, ‘internal logic,’ object of

research

… towards science as embodied in historiography of science

James A. Secord remarked a few years ago that the lesson ‘‘that knowledge is ineluctably local and variable is hammered home again and again.’’

Peter Galison suggested that ‘‘the turn toward local explanation...may well be the single most important change in the last thirty years.’’

I. Weak localism

• Science practiced in a location• Locations of science neglected

• Geographical notion, grid view

• Increase information of locations of science, for example, but philosophically not surprising

• Universalist may accept; locality as instantiation of universality

II. Strong localism

A) Contra universalising a priori

• Tendency towards empirically highly justified views in historiography • away from a priori philosophical plotting of

history and of science – through ‘reason,’ ‘truth,’ ‘rationality’ etc.

• Highly focused studies offer the highest warrant

• Diversity of locations of science • no (pre-empirical) universality

• no a priori assumptions

• Steven Shapin’s book: Never Pure: Historical Studies of science as if it was produced by people with bodies, situated in time, space, culture, and society, and struggling for credibility and authority.

B. Local constitution of science

• Location vs. locale

• Locale - science constituted or produced through place• science is “conditioned by place, is produced

through place as practice rather than simply in place” (Withers)

• “space is not … simply stage on which the real action takes place. … it is itself constitutive of human interaction”(Livingstone)

• “science is always an ancient, Chinese, a medieval Islamic, an early modern, English, a Renaissance French, a Jeffersonian American, an enlightenment Scottish thing – or some modifying variant.” (Livingstone)

• We can talk about “Bristol science, Manchester science and Newcastle science” (not science in …) (Livingstone)

• Implication: no two same locales, no two same sciences or processes of knowledge production, science irreducibly indexical

• Location becomes a cognitive factor in science studies

2. Globality of science

• But science is global, not local!

• Cultural explanation of how local becomes global • Science as empire; science as the local

knowledge of the West

• Circulation without static centres; multi-directional contributions

“ [A]lmost all the material with which the history of science discipline has been concerned comes from a tiny geographical area, about the same size as Zaire or the Sudan, and considerably smaller than Brazil. The only thing that is unusual about the countries in this area, apart from the fact that they are where we live, is that it was these countries which rose to world-domination during the nineteenth century, through the formation of overseas empires. It was only this historical accident that has meant that what began as their own native culture—by that time including that recent invention, science— has now become world-culture.” (Cunnigham and Williams)

• One problem, many names, many theories: • the problem of delocalization of knowledge (Galison)

• the problem of construction of knowledge (Golinski)

• the problem of the movement of local knowledge (Secord)

• multiplication of the contexts (Schaffer)

• theoretical decontextualisation (Rouse)

• or just the problem of how to “outline the conditions under which knowledge begins to move” (Sivasundaram)

3. Universality of science

• Intuitively globality ≠ universality • Globality - world-wide connectedness

• Universality – placelesness, non-locatedness

• Globality can be reached: Science can become global, not universal; it is or it is not universal

• Universalist explains the globality of science by the universality of its properties or of its research object• Laws of science the same because regularities

universal

• Stephen Weinberg: "Any intelligent alien anywhere would have come upon the same logical system as we have to explain the structure of protons and the nature of supernovae."

• Localist explanation - ‘universality’ illusion• part of the scientific culture to make

universality appear self-evident (O’Connell)

• The localist talks of ‘seeming universality’ or ‘appearance of universality’ etc. • “Ironically, to acquire knowledge that was true

everywhere, the seer had to go somewhere to find Wisdom that bore the marks of nowhere.’’ (Livingtone)

• ‘Universality of science’ attributed to the socially situated process of standardisation• Metrology uniquely important – impression

of naturalness and universality

4. Limits of localism

I How localist can one be?

• Localism as particularism: locales and their outcomes unique, particular• Globality, “sameness,” are social achievements

• End of ‘history of science’? ‘Philosophy of science’?• ‘Science’ always qualified by regional parameters

• Why not to practice ‘history of science’ in the departments of regional histories?

• BUT: Science still regarded as a kind of social activity• ‘social activity’ universal

• Relative localism, relative universalism

II Unwarranted anti-inductivism?

• Network relativity means no extra-local validity or applicability• No derivation from the known (locality) to the unknown (locality)

• Latour: ‘‘Give me a laboratory and I will raise the world.”

Questions:

1. Is this view empirically warranted; in accordance with scientists’ practice?

• Can scientist afford localist anti-inductivism? • Drug tests, space missions, etc.

2. What could one conclude from successful extra-local inferences?

• Empirical/historical/pragmatical justification for this inductive kind of practice?

3. Uniformity of the world?

4. When inferences from known to unknown are allowed?

Extra: Counterfactual history as testing ground?

• Chicken and egg question: Was scientific knowledge universal before it became global or is universality merely a result of globalisation?

• More empirical support? • Problem: connected world, shared data base

• Counterfactuality: alternative histories in non-connected world?

Wallace’s and Darwin’s naturally converging theories

vs.

“It is … possible to imagine alternative successful biologies which do not include the theory [of natural selection]at all.” (Radick)

5. Conclusions

• Localism can be complementary or challenging

• Strong localism is particularism on science

• Localism explains globality, denies universality

• Relative localism and universalism most sensible options in science studies

• Localism limits (unacceptably) validity inside the boundaries of science

Sources • Cunningham, A., & Williams, P. (1993). De-centring the ‘big picture’: The origins of modern

science and the modern origins. British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 407–432.

• Galison, Peter, Image and Logic (Chicago, 1997)

• Galison, Peter,. “Ten Problems in history and philosophy of science”. Isis 99, 111-124.

• Golinski, Jan, Making Natural Knowledge. Constructivism and the History of Science (Cambridge, 1988)

• Guala, Francesco, “Experimental Localism and External Validity,” Philosophy of Science, 70 (2003), 1195-1205.

• Livingstone, David, Putting Science in its Place. Geographies of Scientific Knowledge (Chicago and London, 2003)

• Withers, Charles W. J “Place and the Spatial Turn in Geography and in History”, Journal of the History of the Ideas, 70 (2009), 637-658.

• O’Connell, Joseph, “The creation of universality by the circulation of particulars”, Social Studies of Science, 23 (1993), 129-173.

• Radick, Gregory, “Is the theory of natural selection independent of its history?”, in Jonathan Hodge and Gregory Radick (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Darwin: Second Edition (Cambridge, 2009), 147-73.

• Rouse, Joseph, Knowledge and Power: Towards a Political Philosophy of Science (Ithaca, 1987)

• Schaffer, Simon, “Late Victorian Metrology. A Manufactory of Ohms”

• Secord, James A., “Knowledge in Transit”, Isis, 95 (2004), 654-72.

• Sivasundaram, Sujit, “Introduction”, Focus “Global Histories of Science”, Isis, 101 (2010), 95-97

• Weinberg, Stephen, “Sokal’s Hoax”, The New York Review of Books, 37: 13 (1996), pp.11-15

Based on two articles:

• “I am knowledge. Get me out of here! On localism and the universality of knowledge.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (2011), 590-601. DOI:10.1016/j.shpsa.2011.09.005

• “Senses of Localism.” History of Science 1 (2012), 477-500. DOI: 10.1177/007327531205000405