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Objectivity
Objectivity has a history, and it is full of surprises. In Objectivity , Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison chart the emergence of objectivity in the mid-nineteenth-century sciences ― and show how the concept differs from alternatives, truth-to-nature and trained judgment. This is a story of lofty epistemic ideals fused with workaday practices in the making of scientific images.
From the eighteenth through the early twenty-first centuries, the images that reveal the deepest commitments of the empirical sciences ― from anatomy to crystallography ― are those featured in scientific the compendia that teach practitioners of a discipline what is worth looking at and how to look at it. Atlas images define the working objects of the sciences of the snowflakes, galaxies, skeletons, even elementary particles.
Galison and Daston use atlas images to uncover a hidden history of scientific objectivity and its rivals. Whether an atlas maker idealizes an image to capture the essentials in the name of truth-to-nature or refuses to erase even the most incidental detail in the name of objectivity or highlights patterns in the name of trained judgment is a decision enforced by an ethos as well as by an epistemology.
As Daston and Galison argue, atlases shape the subjects as well as the objects of science. To pursue objectivity ― or truth-to-nature or trained judgment ― is simultaneously to cultivate a distinctive scientific self wherein knowing and knower converge. Moreover, the very point at which they visibly converge is in the very act of seeing not as a separate individual but as a member of a particular scientific community. Embedded in the atlas image, therefore, are the traces of consequential choices about knowledge, persona, and collective sight. Objectivity is a book addressed to any one interested in the elusive and crucial notion of objectivity ― and in what it means to peer into the world scientifically.
From the eighteenth through the early twenty-first centuries, the images that reveal the deepest commitments of the empirical sciences ― from anatomy to crystallography ― are those featured in scientific the compendia that teach practitioners of a discipline what is worth looking at and how to look at it. Atlas images define the working objects of the sciences of the snowflakes, galaxies, skeletons, even elementary particles.
Galison and Daston use atlas images to uncover a hidden history of scientific objectivity and its rivals. Whether an atlas maker idealizes an image to capture the essentials in the name of truth-to-nature or refuses to erase even the most incidental detail in the name of objectivity or highlights patterns in the name of trained judgment is a decision enforced by an ethos as well as by an epistemology.
As Daston and Galison argue, atlases shape the subjects as well as the objects of science. To pursue objectivity ― or truth-to-nature or trained judgment ― is simultaneously to cultivate a distinctive scientific self wherein knowing and knower converge. Moreover, the very point at which they visibly converge is in the very act of seeing not as a separate individual but as a member of a particular scientific community. Embedded in the atlas image, therefore, are the traces of consequential choices about knowledge, persona, and collective sight. Objectivity is a book addressed to any one interested in the elusive and crucial notion of objectivity ― and in what it means to peer into the world scientifically.
504 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
About the author
Lorraine Daston
42 books87 followersLorraine Daston (born June 9, 1951, East Lansing, Michigan)[1] is an American historian of science. Executive director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, and visiting professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, she is considered an authority on Early Modern European scientific and intellectual history. In 1993, she was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
May 16, 2010
This really should get more stars, but I keep thinking that people could save themselves about 350 pages and read the journal article that the authors originally wrote: "The Image of Objectivity." That is really a good article regarding scientific atlases and the differing concepts of what a scientific image should be (should it be normed to conform to the "ideal" specimen? Or should it be completely replicated even if the individual specimen has abnormalities that aren't representative of the species?).
For the sake of full disclosure, I came to this conclusion after about half way through this book, and decided to read something else. So perhaps there is something in the second half that would have changed my mind. (Yes- this is therefore a review of a book I didn't finish.)
For the sake of full disclosure, I came to this conclusion after about half way through this book, and decided to read something else. So perhaps there is something in the second half that would have changed my mind. (Yes- this is therefore a review of a book I didn't finish.)
September 17, 2017
Objectivity is not coextensive with science but it does associate with one or another of the epistemic virtues that scientists strive after in the course of their work. Nor is it an atomic concept, the authors claim. There are several aspects to objectivity, each of which have had stronger emphasis than the others at various times. The authors argue that objectivity is a fusion of several notions that occurred in the 19th century with a revival of the subject/object distinction in Kantian philosophy.
The book traces this history through that of atlases, those published manuscripts of deliberate observation intended to be comprehensive references of their subject. This is appropriate for several reasons. One reason is that there is a very clear publishing record of atlases in biology, botany, crystallography, and other natural sciences. Many of these books still exist. Second is the ancillary record, also still well preserved, of the authors' own account of their methodology and its justification. We have good data about what atlas authors believed to be the proper way to represent their subject. Third, it is obvious that the atlas is meant to be the crystallized product of observation. Whatever else objectivity might mean, it is rooted in observation, and to observe what is present for the purpose of representation (with the emphasis on re-presentation -- to present again) must, in some significant sense, capture what is essential to the object represented.
This history of the atlas goes through phases corresponding to the aforementioned aspects of scientific objectivity. Truth-to-nature came be a virtue of objective representation earliest. Though this did not mean to represent accurately. Rather, it was considered more virtuous to represent the species, even when this meant picking and choosing the most beautiful parts among many specimens and representing a composite that would stand in for the ideal of its kind. An ideal which was never--and perhaps would never be found in any single specimen. This task may have been made easier by the fact that photography would not exist for another century. The artists could blend their specimens according to criteria that had less to do with technical accuracy than with an individual sense of aesthetics.
The above is anathema to our modern sense of objectivity. Questions about whether atlas representations were unduly influenced by their authors' theoretical biases lead to heated debates, even at the time. So truth-to-nature gave way to mechanism, the substitution of fallible human judgment for dispassionate, instrumental copying. When photography entered the scene it became both the symbol for--and preferred instrument of the new epistemic virtue. The invention of new instrumental aids for observation went hand in hand with the new belief that the observer should not introduce themselves into the act. Will-to-will-lessness became a virtue of the working scientist as the self came to be seen more as an intrusion on the proper representation of things. Since the pursuit of truth has the avoidance of error as its companion, this suppression of one's individuality, along with all its own subjective inclinations, came to be the paragon of objectivity in 20th century science. It happened to coincide with a positivist philosophy which pushed for universalism in how science was communicated. It also coincided with the actual emergence of a global community of working scientists.
And this is probably what the general public thinks of as objectivity today. Yet among working scientists this uninvolved and blind copying of nature began to show its limitations as well. One may emphasize the importance of representing what the object is in itself, but eventually one questions whether there is any "in itself" to be found. Observation of an object is not without an observer. And knowledge of what things are, like all forms of knowing, must be knowledge for us and conform to our own specific capacities for receiving it. The emphasis shifts from science as theory to engineering, where things are less about "being" and more about "doing" (How do we make it work?) This is where the purpose of representation is to instruct. And at this point the "re" of "representation" is dropped and what remains is a presentation, that ephemeral performance before an audience that is seen once and exists no more. This is theater over cinema. The atlas image exists for training the eye of the acolyte. No longer does the working scientist labor to make the perfect carbon copy of nature. Instead they create emphasis to highlight important features. Training the judgment of a brain surgeon to recognize the signs of tumors may require more than natural images of actual cases. At first they may require guidance in seeing what the expert notes at a glance. Once the acolyte becomes the expert, these training images can be abandoned.
The book traces this history through that of atlases, those published manuscripts of deliberate observation intended to be comprehensive references of their subject. This is appropriate for several reasons. One reason is that there is a very clear publishing record of atlases in biology, botany, crystallography, and other natural sciences. Many of these books still exist. Second is the ancillary record, also still well preserved, of the authors' own account of their methodology and its justification. We have good data about what atlas authors believed to be the proper way to represent their subject. Third, it is obvious that the atlas is meant to be the crystallized product of observation. Whatever else objectivity might mean, it is rooted in observation, and to observe what is present for the purpose of representation (with the emphasis on re-presentation -- to present again) must, in some significant sense, capture what is essential to the object represented.
This history of the atlas goes through phases corresponding to the aforementioned aspects of scientific objectivity. Truth-to-nature came be a virtue of objective representation earliest. Though this did not mean to represent accurately. Rather, it was considered more virtuous to represent the species, even when this meant picking and choosing the most beautiful parts among many specimens and representing a composite that would stand in for the ideal of its kind. An ideal which was never--and perhaps would never be found in any single specimen. This task may have been made easier by the fact that photography would not exist for another century. The artists could blend their specimens according to criteria that had less to do with technical accuracy than with an individual sense of aesthetics.
The above is anathema to our modern sense of objectivity. Questions about whether atlas representations were unduly influenced by their authors' theoretical biases lead to heated debates, even at the time. So truth-to-nature gave way to mechanism, the substitution of fallible human judgment for dispassionate, instrumental copying. When photography entered the scene it became both the symbol for--and preferred instrument of the new epistemic virtue. The invention of new instrumental aids for observation went hand in hand with the new belief that the observer should not introduce themselves into the act. Will-to-will-lessness became a virtue of the working scientist as the self came to be seen more as an intrusion on the proper representation of things. Since the pursuit of truth has the avoidance of error as its companion, this suppression of one's individuality, along with all its own subjective inclinations, came to be the paragon of objectivity in 20th century science. It happened to coincide with a positivist philosophy which pushed for universalism in how science was communicated. It also coincided with the actual emergence of a global community of working scientists.
And this is probably what the general public thinks of as objectivity today. Yet among working scientists this uninvolved and blind copying of nature began to show its limitations as well. One may emphasize the importance of representing what the object is in itself, but eventually one questions whether there is any "in itself" to be found. Observation of an object is not without an observer. And knowledge of what things are, like all forms of knowing, must be knowledge for us and conform to our own specific capacities for receiving it. The emphasis shifts from science as theory to engineering, where things are less about "being" and more about "doing" (How do we make it work?) This is where the purpose of representation is to instruct. And at this point the "re" of "representation" is dropped and what remains is a presentation, that ephemeral performance before an audience that is seen once and exists no more. This is theater over cinema. The atlas image exists for training the eye of the acolyte. No longer does the working scientist labor to make the perfect carbon copy of nature. Instead they create emphasis to highlight important features. Training the judgment of a brain surgeon to recognize the signs of tumors may require more than natural images of actual cases. At first they may require guidance in seeing what the expert notes at a glance. Once the acolyte becomes the expert, these training images can be abandoned.
December 20, 2012
A genealogy of epistemic aesthetics. This book is a helpful map of the current insistence on objective primacy, and how that idea came to be prized as a completion or settler of dispute. Ultimately, the fear of being wrong forces us into walling off possibilities as we insist on being right. An infinite project engaged by finite means. Reality seems to reveal itself in the guise of your expectations, and this is the ethical consideration that makes this book more valuable as it unfolds. On a stylistic level, the writing and pace tend to unveil the scope of this momentous paradox like a true mystery, retaining each historic concept as new ones accumulate.
October 27, 2017
A fantastic book that delves into a topic I would categorize as common sense. Common sense in that we take objectivity, use it, and think of it as a concept that is so self-explanatory that it gives off a sense of permanence. A permanence into the future and stretching back all through the past. The idea that objectivity could have a history, and as an idea have a birth I find to be something truly important. It is something that I believe to be important in an understanding of the world and history, or perhaps more specific to human psychology and idea synthesis. Common sense in this current year is the accumulation of all of time that has preceded it. Time spent wrestling with trying to wrap our minds around reality and how best to traverse through it by being able to call out all of its aspects by name. And how sometimes in that search we believe that an idea usurps a previous one, only to realize that both are accurate, applicable, true even, depending on context. The search will only end when we have walked every step through our limitations, and continue when we find ways around then. The point is always moving as long as movement is viewed as currently is, and the chase will always continue. Perhaps another insight is that everything is always the same, but only the rules of word and logic around it changes. Changing the angel and/or lens from which it is viewed. Regardless this book is a staple in the taxonomy of foundational ideas. In my opinion of course.
October 25, 2022
Objectivity achieves all that is promised and more. Through its study of objectivity and opposing epistemic virtues, this book completely morphed my views on epistemology. The history of epistemic virtues is carefully unraveled and each chapter becomes more enjoyable. I found Daston and Galison’s masterful depiction the role of the self to be the apotheosis.
September 21, 2023
adding this to my folder of texts that are classified 'how have they made such incredible points while still keeping their prose so readable'
such a great dive into objectivity and its relationship to the practices of image making in a variety of (albeit european) contexts and i feel very happy to have had the opportunity to just go cover to cover through it. excited to see how this aligns to representations of eclipses across the 19c in my research!
such a great dive into objectivity and its relationship to the practices of image making in a variety of (albeit european) contexts and i feel very happy to have had the opportunity to just go cover to cover through it. excited to see how this aligns to representations of eclipses across the 19c in my research!
March 25, 2021
That took quite a long time to read. It is interesting and not particularly hard to read. There is, however not a story to follow as the history of objectivity is not told as one single move forward but as complex process with changing concerns and philosophies.
If you ever have worked on a research-like activity and were asked if your work is “objective” the book’s content might be particularly interesting.
Parts of the theory and observations are also published as 10-20p publications, in case you prefer you objectivity reading to chunked up a bit.
If you ever have worked on a research-like activity and were asked if your work is “objective” the book’s content might be particularly interesting.
Parts of the theory and observations are also published as 10-20p publications, in case you prefer you objectivity reading to chunked up a bit.
December 18, 2023
It is rare for an academic book to both make a significant intervention in our way of understanding science and to be written in beautiful prose. This book does both (not unlike the combination of the scientific and the aesthetic discussed in the final chapter). The book is longer than it needed to be and fairly repetitive, but this is not necessarily a problem when it requires the reader to completely rethink what objectivity is (and when it is such a pleasure to read).
September 27, 2018
Sehr spannende Überlegungen zur Geschichte der Objektivität und dem Übergang von "Naturwahrheit" zu "mechanischer Objektivität" und schließlich zum "geschulten Urteil". Manchmal aber vielleicht etwas zu ausschweifend und in Fallbeispielen versinkend.
August 5, 2020
Clearly the result of two lifetimes steeped in the history of science. I couldn't imagine this level of erudition and mastery could have been pulled out without at least 50+ years of haunting the science section of the library. I didn't understand a lick of the portion on nanotechnology, but the bulk of this title on scientific ethics and epistemology seems incomparable.
November 9, 2023
Time to add some books I'm reading for the PhD, I guess. This one was really great. Daston is such a good writer and she offers a really interesting perspective on the history of science. Also, I strongly appreciate the focus on the visual as a way to illustrate changing ideas about science/epistemology!
November 12, 2020
Over the past decade or so Objectivity has been considered a field-defining work, sparking discussions and continuing to be relevant in various scholarly disciplines. It was a partial inspiration for my PhD project, and I have now read it exactly with that in mind. As it has already been lauded by historians of science since it was first published, I don't see how my praises would add anything new. I look forward, rather, to seeing how historians will continue to use it critically and constructively. So perhaps I can comment on how I see this happening. In the foreword to the paperback edition Daston and Galison suggest various ways scholars can build on their work:
I'd like to add to this list a few of my own aims. First, Daston and Galison often use images as single coherent entities, with particular epistemic fingerprints which situate them in the historical framework of objectivity they construct. Yet this means that visualisation practices and methods are considered retroactively; the image is always introduced before the process which led up to it. I wonder if different conclusions can be drawn from starting with observation and/or illustration methods, and seeing how these lead to different types of images (e.g. say you want to picture an electron, how do you get to that point from scratch, and how do the methods you choose impact your image?). Especially those historians concerned with tacit knowledge, who may contend whether images are fundamentally the product of epistemic decisions, would find in such an approach a way of highlighting how technologies and gestures influence visual ontology.
Second, whereas Daston and Galison limit themselves (justifiably, as the book is already quite ambitious in scope) to the history of objectivity in the North-American and European contexts, there is certainly much scope for more global approaches. I'm thinking particularly about exchanges between different cultures: if images are encoded with epistemic virtues and practices, are they then decoded differently in different cultural contexts? In the context of my own interest in snowflake visualisation, the transfer of snowflake images around the turn of the nineteenth century from the Netherlands to Japan presents an enticing case study. In what ways do Japanese snowflake images produced in the early decades of the nineteenth century compare to those made by the Dutch several decades earlier? What can such similarities and differences tell us about the epistemology of scientific images in East Asian cultures compared to European ones?
Third, whereas Daston and Galison construct a macro-narrative about what they consider to be the progressive layering of the history of objectivity (truth-to-nature, mechanical objectivity, trained judgement), it might be interesting to see how a narrower (but still longue durée) view would relate to this narrative. One could do so by choosing a (relatively) consistent object that cuts through all of these layers, presenting as it were a cross-sectional perspective on this layering, exposing how different technologies, practices, and epistemic virtues affect the visualisation of one particular object. This is definitely something I'm keen to explore, in combination with the other two avenues for expansion, as well as Daston and Galison's own list. In the meantime I can only highly recommend this book.
We imagined this study as a beginning rather than an end. We hoped that it would engage the curiosity of other scholars about topics that do not yet have a history, despite their leading role in creating modern science: the forms and requirements of collective empiricism, the ways in which scientific experience is molded by image-making and image-reading, the entanglement of epistemology and ethos in epistemic virtues, the mutations of the scientific self, the mesh between the most concrete image-making practices and the most abstract epistemological goals. (p. 6)
I'd like to add to this list a few of my own aims. First, Daston and Galison often use images as single coherent entities, with particular epistemic fingerprints which situate them in the historical framework of objectivity they construct. Yet this means that visualisation practices and methods are considered retroactively; the image is always introduced before the process which led up to it. I wonder if different conclusions can be drawn from starting with observation and/or illustration methods, and seeing how these lead to different types of images (e.g. say you want to picture an electron, how do you get to that point from scratch, and how do the methods you choose impact your image?). Especially those historians concerned with tacit knowledge, who may contend whether images are fundamentally the product of epistemic decisions, would find in such an approach a way of highlighting how technologies and gestures influence visual ontology.
Second, whereas Daston and Galison limit themselves (justifiably, as the book is already quite ambitious in scope) to the history of objectivity in the North-American and European contexts, there is certainly much scope for more global approaches. I'm thinking particularly about exchanges between different cultures: if images are encoded with epistemic virtues and practices, are they then decoded differently in different cultural contexts? In the context of my own interest in snowflake visualisation, the transfer of snowflake images around the turn of the nineteenth century from the Netherlands to Japan presents an enticing case study. In what ways do Japanese snowflake images produced in the early decades of the nineteenth century compare to those made by the Dutch several decades earlier? What can such similarities and differences tell us about the epistemology of scientific images in East Asian cultures compared to European ones?
Third, whereas Daston and Galison construct a macro-narrative about what they consider to be the progressive layering of the history of objectivity (truth-to-nature, mechanical objectivity, trained judgement), it might be interesting to see how a narrower (but still longue durée) view would relate to this narrative. One could do so by choosing a (relatively) consistent object that cuts through all of these layers, presenting as it were a cross-sectional perspective on this layering, exposing how different technologies, practices, and epistemic virtues affect the visualisation of one particular object. This is definitely something I'm keen to explore, in combination with the other two avenues for expansion, as well as Daston and Galison's own list. In the meantime I can only highly recommend this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 5, 2021
Blessedly lucid (and slightly redundant—but these often go hand in hand). The limitation to scientific atlases and image/non-image problems certainly shapes its conclusions, but Daston & Galison's dissensus-oriented overlap model of "epistemic virtues" can actually account, reflexively, for the partiality of their schemata. Those schemata lodge nicely in the brain, and it's gratifying to leave a book like this without the usual hangover of aporia-paralysis or last-minute appeal to relevance/urgency/hope. Instead: a battle of virtues, a self in flux, changing epistemologies in answer to new fears.
October 19, 2015
The title is rather misleading though. Thought I was in for a full blown discussion of objectivity in science, and it turns out to be a massive discussion on scientific atlases and how it governs objective standards. Various examples back up the author's claims, but I think the project deserves more novelty, given the length.
January 12, 2024
I have compiled a bulleted summary of this book, one page per chapter for a total of seven pages, which I am making accessible online for use as a study aide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-...
This book was fascinating in some sections, but dragged in most. I found each successive chapter would repeat information conveyed in prior chapters, so the redundancy compounded over time. As such, the first three chapters contain most of the information related to the book's central thesis, and I view the last four chapters kind of as extras? Feels harsh, but it was my honest reaction.
I do find the book's thesis very compelling, namely, that objectivity is new, in word, in concept, and in the importance it held (and still holds) in many laboratories. Further, the text claims that science has undergone numerous paradigm shifts in the last several centuries, which are not merely technological but reflect changes in 1. epistemology (how we know the things we think we know), 2. epistemic virtue (what characterizes "proper" knowledge, such as accuracy, precision, replicability, generalizability, teachability), and 3. epistemic anxieties (what threatens the pursuit of knowledge, and what behaviors should be trained into (or out of) new scientists to mitigate those threats). New epistemic paradigms do not replace old ones, but rather they influence one another and evolve together. The authors include a variety of different types of evidence to back up these claims. I think they did a great job on both the history and the philosophy.
So, the theories are good. As for the writing and style of the book, I found it somewhat needlessly difficult. It throws out phases like "ontological rococo" and frequent latinisms like "a posteriori" and prima facie" which I feel probably make the text inaccessible to most lay readers. There are occasionally untranslated French phrases, which I guess the reader is presumed to be able to intuit? I've said this in other reviews, but I have a master's degree and took postgraduate coursework related to the philosophy of science, and even I have to stop and google "penury" and "superannuated" and other unfamiliar words. This is part of why I wrote the study guide linked above, to help interested readers access information that might otherwise repel them.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-...
This book was fascinating in some sections, but dragged in most. I found each successive chapter would repeat information conveyed in prior chapters, so the redundancy compounded over time. As such, the first three chapters contain most of the information related to the book's central thesis, and I view the last four chapters kind of as extras? Feels harsh, but it was my honest reaction.
I do find the book's thesis very compelling, namely, that objectivity is new, in word, in concept, and in the importance it held (and still holds) in many laboratories. Further, the text claims that science has undergone numerous paradigm shifts in the last several centuries, which are not merely technological but reflect changes in 1. epistemology (how we know the things we think we know), 2. epistemic virtue (what characterizes "proper" knowledge, such as accuracy, precision, replicability, generalizability, teachability), and 3. epistemic anxieties (what threatens the pursuit of knowledge, and what behaviors should be trained into (or out of) new scientists to mitigate those threats). New epistemic paradigms do not replace old ones, but rather they influence one another and evolve together. The authors include a variety of different types of evidence to back up these claims. I think they did a great job on both the history and the philosophy.
So, the theories are good. As for the writing and style of the book, I found it somewhat needlessly difficult. It throws out phases like "ontological rococo" and frequent latinisms like "a posteriori" and prima facie" which I feel probably make the text inaccessible to most lay readers. There are occasionally untranslated French phrases, which I guess the reader is presumed to be able to intuit? I've said this in other reviews, but I have a master's degree and took postgraduate coursework related to the philosophy of science, and even I have to stop and google "penury" and "superannuated" and other unfamiliar words. This is part of why I wrote the study guide linked above, to help interested readers access information that might otherwise repel them.
March 20, 2023
A masterwork that should be required reading for all philosophers of science—I’m genuinely perturbed that nobody made me read this book over the entire course of my graduate education. Using the example of scientific atlases and atlas-making practices, Daston & Galison cut to the heart of changing epistemic standards in the history of science and the ways in which these changes are paralleled by shifts in our conception of what the scientific self is and the practices these regulative ideals demanded. From page 372-4:
All epistemology begins in fear—fear that the world is too labyrinthine to be threaded by reason; fear that the senses are too feeble and the intellect too frail; fear that memory fades, even between adjacent steps of a mathematical demonstration; fear that authority and convention blind; fear that God may keep secrets or demons deceive. Objectivity is a chapter in this history of intellectual fear, of errors anxiously anticipated and precautions taken. But the fear objectivity addresses is different from and deeper than the others. The threat is not external—a complex world, a mysterious God, a devious demon. Nor is it the corrigible fear of senses that can be strengthened by a telescope or microscope or memory that can be buttressed by written aids. Individual steadfastness against the prevailing opinion is no help against it, because it is the individual who is suspect.
Objectivity fears subjectivity, the core self. Descartes could discount the testimony of the senses because sensation did not belong to the core self as he conceived it, res cogitans. Bacon believed that the ideals of the cave, those intellectual failings that stemmed from individual upbringing and predilection, could be corrected by the proper countermeasures, as a tree bent the wrong way could be straightened. But there is no getting rid of, no counterbalancing post-Kantian subjectivity. Subjectivity is the precondition for knowledge: the self who knows.
October 29, 2021
Wow, this book really taught me a lot and highlighted how little I knew about a) philosophy and b) the subtleties in the words I was using. This book has given me the vocabulary and examples to process both the representations/presentations that I make and see, as well as a new way to think about objectivity. This book helped me separate the way objectivity is used in modernity from the nuances of what it's trying to do — I'm better able to understand the ways to pursue any given metaphysical "truth".
November 9, 2021
necessarily incomplete bc of its ambitious scope, but the book is all the more valuable because of what it cannot capture and the places that invite other insertions from other fields or case studies. not to mention that it does an amazing job of anticipating criticisms and asserting the grounds of its argument: that it is possible to trace a history of objectivity and other epistemic virtues/values.
November 15, 2023
truly an unparalelled banger. the zone book to end all zone books! (at least for me, i know some of y'all out there are ride-or-dies for caroline walker bynum as the zone book historian doyenne.) this is book has been like no other in its capacity to baptize me as an (erstwhile) historian of science -- indeed this is perhaps THE book which can slyly convert art historians into science historians; if this won't convince them, nothing will!
February 16, 2024
A unique book, but not an easy read.
It definitely brings you to think about how knowledge is generated and how everything influences research.
To ask that in questions:
What are our values? How do these values contribute towards our academic research and how we generate and talk about science?
I hope I can apply a more critical view after reading the book.
Only recommend if you like difficult philosophical books.
It definitely brings you to think about how knowledge is generated and how everything influences research.
To ask that in questions:
What are our values? How do these values contribute towards our academic research and how we generate and talk about science?
I hope I can apply a more critical view after reading the book.
Only recommend if you like difficult philosophical books.
January 2, 2023
made me really reconsider how objectivity has been developed as a concept, and how all scientific "givens" are constructed and constantly changing! making me think abt climate
but it did feel very slow and a bit difficult to get through honestly.. would've preferred reading just an article instead
but it did feel very slow and a bit difficult to get through honestly.. would've preferred reading just an article instead
September 17, 2024
An interesting exploration in the history of philosophy/science through the lens of objectivity. I read over half of the book before throwing in the towel. It seemed that they had made their main point(s) within the first couple hundred pages - granted it could be the case that I missed something in the last 200 pages.
March 9, 2021
An exceptionally cool idiea, highlly suggested for all those who have to deal with scientific images every day and probably never had the occasion to stop and think: what am I really looking at?
March 20, 2020
One day this book will be criticised by all historians. Just like how historians all criticise The Order of Things today, while nobody has really stepped out of its paradigm.
July 31, 2020
Truth to nature, mechanical objectivity, structural objectivity, and trained judgment were all interesting ways to approach what objectivity means
August 1, 2021
My first real encounter with the history of science and very eye-opening.
December 13, 2016
Objectivity is an intricate overview of the Scientific Revolution seen through changing approaches to representation. Supported by beautiful images including many color plates, the authors mark the ebb and flow of subjectively influenced depiction and objectivity-enhancing illustration as scientific thought dances with it changing theories of representation. As is said herein, the book reviews “how epistemology and ethos emerged and merged over time and in context, one epistemic virtue often in point-counterpoint opposition to the others.” Authors Daston and Galison tell their history of science and a general argument of the changes in imagery with highly detailed examples and anecdotes of changes in approach through the impact of individuals and individual works.
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September 24, 2015The book traces a critical problem of representation in the Scientific Revolution, particularly relating to representing objects of scientific study in atlases. For example: when making an entry for oak trees in a botany book, what kind of picture should one include? No two oak trees will look the same (though they will look similar), so how does the artist draw it so that it can be easily recognized in real life by referencing the atlas? How do you draw something like cloud formations in an atlas to demonstrate the difference between Cirrus and Cumulus clouds, even though clouds are constantly changing shape? Daston and Galison do a great job explaining the context of these debates and anxieties and what they reveal about the practice of science.
August 27, 2023
Just a big aul' fascinating book! A fine book, with colour pictures too. Objectivity is younger than I thought, only two hundred, and she has many lovers, who don't always see eye to eye. A tale of deception, art, discipline, race, and plants, lots of plants, and then nanotubes of some description, but that part seems kind of made up. A tale in three parts and then some. Drawing stuff really well, then kinda scrapping that and being really finicky about photographing things, then developing a judgmental gaze.
April 20, 2016
A dazzling critical tour de force, Daston and Galison's book dates the emergence of objectivity as a scientific epistemology to the mid-nineteenth century. Despite its current naturalization as the critical mode of science, the development of an objective stance was never a foregone conclusion. Rather, objectivity's rise countered the aims of Enlightenment-era "truth to nature," and likewise differed from the development of "trained judgment" in the early twentieth century.
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