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L’épistémologie historique

 | 
Jean-François Braunstein
, 
Iván Moya Diez
, 
Matteo Vagelli

Objets épistémiques, savoirs, sciences

Epistemic and Political Things

An Analytical Framework for a Historico-Political Epistemology

Laurens Schlicht et Martin Herrnstadt

Texte intégral

  • 1 V. Roelcke, “Auf der Suche nach der Politik in der Wissensproduktion. Plädoyer für eine historisch- (...)
  • 2 The sociology of science has already pointed out the necessity of analysing the production of knowl (...)
  • 3 Bruno Latour’s concept of political ecology and his focus on “social things” rather than on social (...)

1A couple of years ago, the historian of medicine Volker Roelcke noted in a programmatic paper that the political dimension of knowledge production is indispensable to the framework of historical epistemology. He put forward the thesis that processes of knowledge production are always at the same time inherently political, and that “an obligatory and systematic consideration of the political dimension” is a necessary dimension of any analysis of historical processes of knowledge production1. Following Roelcke’s plea for a systematic consideration of the political dimension, we want to propose an analytical framework that would enable us to carry out such an investigation. The basic theoretical move consists in analysing the strategic and polemical interventions in the scientific and political realms symmetrically2. While Roelcke argues that processes of knowledge production always have to be understood as belonging to a specific cultural model of interpretation (“kulturelles Deutungsmodell”), our focus is more limited” Instead of referring to big discursive formations and heuristic models, we aim to offer an analytical framework that provides a vocabulary and a set of techniques to investigate the production of knowledge and the production of social norms/power on a micro-level. In order to make this analysis feasible, we want to take up one notion that is already used widely in historical epistemology—the epistemic object—and complement it with a new one: the political thing3.

2Before we explain how these terms might help to analyse what we will call epistemic and political configurations, we want to prevent a misunderstanding we have often encountered while presenting our approach: When talking about epistemic objects and political things, we are notat least not necessarilytalking about two different entities in the world, but about two different perspectives on a phenomenon. This means that, at least on the first layer of analysis, we do not pose the question of causation. We do not ask in which ways epistemic procedures caused political processes or vice versa, but rather in which specific regards a phenomenon was at the same time epistemic and political. While this scission may appear somewhat artificial—as we ourselves assume that we cannot in fact separate “the political” from “the epistemic”—we hope that this analytical operation will provide the basis for a series of continuing investigations (e.g. of the causes of changes in the political structure by epistemic procedures).

Epistemic things and epistemic configurations

  • 4 “An experimental system is the basic unit from which experimental reasoning proceeds. It constitute (...)
  • 5 See H. J. Rheinberger, Toward a History of Epistemic Things. Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube(...)
  • 6 . See H. J. Rheinberger, On Historicizing Epistemology. An Essay, Stanford, Stanford University Pre (...)

3While Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s approach to historical epistemology may be familiar to many readers, allow us to shortly recapitulate its main elements. Rheinberger makes a distinction between two elements within research processes that shape the basic situation of research in the laboratory sciences, which he describes as an “experimental system4”. The first element is what he calls the “epistemic thing5”. It is the thing about which one wants to know something (e.g. an “electron”). The second integral part consists of the ensemble of “technical things”. Technical things are all the material or intellectual things that are designed to solve the problems posed by epistemic things, e.g. an electron microscope; but intellectual practices—such as calculating or designing research plans—can also be regarded as technical things as long as they take place in the laboratory as techniques for solving problems posed by an epistemic thing. Thus, the distinction between epistemic and technical things is functional: anything about which one wants to know something is an epistemic thing. Hence, the technical things in the laboratory can also be—and actually are—made into epistemic things, if they start to pose problems that need to be solved. In turn, an epistemic thing can also become a technical thing, whenever the knowledge about it is stable enough to use it as a tool to solve problems in other research contexts. The process of research in the laboratory is constituted by this reciprocal dynamic between epistemic and technical things, which Rheinberger—referring to Jacques Derrida’s concept of différance—calls “differential reproduction6”. It implies that during research procedures, both epistemic and technical things are interdependently transformed. The process of research does not simply materialise questions and generate answers to them, it also shapes, and may perhaps completely change, the questions to be answered.

  • 7 See T. Lenoir, “Epistemology Historicised. Making Epistemic Things”, in H.-J. Rheinberger (ed.), Ep (...)
  • 8 M. Epple, “Knot Invariants in Vienna and Princeton During the 1920s: Epistemic Configurations of Ma (...)
  • 9 “An epistemic configuration […] is the entirety of the intellectual resources that are involved in a (...)

4Within the discourse of historical epistemology it was assumed that this conceptual framework for analysing the research dynamic of laboratory sciences could be generalised to describe all kinds of knowledge production7. Following Moritz Epple’s suggestion, we have made a slight change to our terminology and now talk of “epistemic techniques” and “epistemic objects8”. We assumed that in all kinds of knowledge production, one can very often—perhaps not always—distinguish between these two components. In addition, we supposed that very often, the means used to ask questions about an epistemic object in turn changed the ways one answers these questions. Therefore we will very often—if not always—find some kind of differential reproduction. We were then looking for the “epistemic configuration”, i.e. the smallest functional unit of knowledge production9. Such a unit may be a laboratory, a group of researchers in more or less loose contact, or even the desk of a doctoral student dealing with problems of historical epistemology.

Political things and political configurations

  • 10 There are also other approaches that are interested in the interrelationship between the scientific (...)

5While dealing with the history of the human sciences we suspected that they would in some way be connected to the political realm. If this is somewhat obvious, it is less so when it comes to designing a research framework that helps to analyse political aspects in analogy to epistemological ones10. We therefore tried to find functions that were structurally equivalent to the entities we defined for the epistemological configurations.

  • 11 See M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, New York, Vintage Books, 1995, p.  (...)

6We began by positing a new object, the “political thing”. If an epistemic object produces/reflects problems concerned with knowledge, we might suppose that the political thing poses/reflects questions concerned with power. Of course, power is a multilayered concept much discussed in historiography, philosophy, sociology and other disciplines, and we cannot discuss these approaches here. Rather, we want to follow Foucault’s insight that power not only has repressive characteristics but is also and at the same time productive. Hence, our point of departure is Foucault’s supposition that around 1800, a positive practice of power emerges that makes it necessary to focus on the intimate and productive relationship between knowledge production and power apparatuses such as the prison11. By concentrating our analysis on objects of political action (i.e. political things) we intended to make the concept of power useful for historical micro-analyses. To this end we proceeded from the assumption that all political actions aim at modifying or consolidating a norm that regulates a collective. Power would then be the possibility to successfully change or defend norms that regulate the structure of a collective (like a family, an institution, a nation etc.), i.e. the kinds of legitimate action within the collective, the boundaries of legitimate discourse and so on. Some of these norms may be codified and explicit, other norms may be rather implicit and therefore more difficult to analyse. But in the end every political action, we argue, is an act aiming at the establishment, abolition, or modification of a norm governing the structure of a collective.

  • 12 J. W. Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’. Olympe de Gouges’s Declarations”, History W (...)
  • 13 See C. Blanckaert, “Le moment ‘naturaliste’ des sciences de l’homme”, Revue d’histoire des sciences (...)
  • 14 See P. Rosanvallon, The Society of Equals, trans. A. Goldhammer, Cambridge, Harvard University Pres (...)

7To give an example, the norm of equality was a cornerstone for the various political projects during the French Revolution and the starting point of very different interpretations. The exclusion of women from the political realm needed to be justified because it contradicted the call for equality12. The same holds true for the exclusion of slaves or less wealthy inhabitants of France13. “Equality” as a political thing thus produced a number of different—material and discursive—techniques to shape the working definition of equality so that it conformed to the (social, economic etc.) demands of specific interest groups14. At the same time, equality proved to be sufficiently elastic that different political configurations could relate to it. That these configurations did in fact mobilise political techniques to modify or preserve societal enactments of equality did in turn change equality itself as a political thing.

  • 15 I. Wallerstein, The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy. 1730-1840s, New (...)

8Being flexible and underdetermined is thus not a shortfall of political things but, on the contrary, one of their defining characteristics—which incidentally makes them quite similar to epistemic things. Thus, a political thing is so to speak “hot” as long as there are enough different political techniques and ideas of how exactly to give it content and a material implementation. It always comes down to a combination of a given—but more or less underdetermined—content and a set of available options to redefine it. In the case of equality, as Immanuel Wallerstein has put it, this struggle for redefinition has been one of the major concerns of bourgeois society since the French Revolution15.

  • 16 M. Foucault, “What is Critique?” in M. Foucault, The Politics of Truth, ed. S. Lotringer, Cambridge (...)

9This brings us to the second way in which political configurations can be read symmetrically to epistemic configurations. Just as epistemic techniques were needed to tackle epistemic objects, political things produce different kinds of political techniques. We may say that political techniques produced and put into practice norms of collectivization (e.g. the political technique of protest or “critique16”). Usually political techniques refer to some preexisting political thing but disagree with its interpretation and the practices connected to it. There are, for example, some groups that agree in principle with the necessity of the principle of “fairness” but then disagree when it comes to its local and specific interpretations. Some of these groups may use the political technique of protest to establish new rules for interpreting fairness, while other groups may choose different techniques (like publishing articles, various intellectual practices, or even war). All of these techniques, however, have minor or major repercussions for the political thing itself and for the ways it can be approached. As in the case of the epistemic object, we can therefore describe the political process as a differential reproduction in which both political things and techniques are transformed interdependently. The political thing is thus essentially unstable. Like epistemic things, political things cease to be political things the moment they stop posing problems.

10Within this framework of analysis, we thus talk about politics when we have successfully identified and described the political things and techniques connected to a given political configuration. Since this task seems to be beyond the scope of most research projects, the advantage of an analysis of political things and techniques is that it provides a point of reference for describing the various changes in the ways political problems are dealt with as well as the emergence and transformation of political problems themselves.

Equality and observation

  • 17 See D. Bindman, Ape to Apollo. Aesthetics and the Idea of Race in the 18th Century, London, Reaktio (...)
  • 18 J.-M. de Gérando, The Observation of Savage Peoples, Hoboken, Taylor and Francis, 2004 [1re éd. 180 (...)
  • 19 J.-M. de Gérando, Le visiteur du pauvre, Bruxelles, Chez tous les libraires, 1844 [1re éd. 1820].
  • 20 This technique has been the object of considerable research in the field of historical epistemology (...)

11For the sciences of man during the 18th century, equality clearly was an epistemic thing. As David Bindman has shown, this was especially the case for the development of racist schemes within the human sciences, which was also connected to the contemporary systems of aesthetic beliefs and practices17. For the sciences of man it was essential to define in what sense and to what degree different types of human beings, systems of signs, and laws or governments were equal. In the following, we want to provide an example of how an epistemic technique migrated from the sciences of man into the arena of professional politics and how the epistemic thing “equality” was transformed and adapted in the course of the creation of political techniques to deal with the challenge of equality. We can see this process of transition and adaptation very clearly in the case of Joseph-Marie de Gérando (1772-1842). For our present purpose we want to focus on two of his texts. The first, Observation of Savage Peoples, was written in 1800 and treats of the methodological problem of how to observe so-called “savage peoples18”. The second text, published in 1820, takes up the interesting figure of the “visitor of the poor”—a mixture of savant and administrator whose function was to observe poor people in their homes in order to determine their type of—allegedly often feigned—poverty19. We will argue that the epistemic technique of observation20 originally designed by Gérando to measure the differences among peoples on the scale of human perfection was consciously adapted as a means to organize economic inequality within the evolving welfare system of the post-revolutionary French state.

  • 21 See P. Rosanvallon, The Society of Equals, op. cit, p. 10f. Pierre Rosanvallon recently called for (...)
  • 22 J. Jamin, “Le syndrome chinois des idéologues ou les débuts de la sociolinguistique”, Histoire Épis (...)
  • 23 M. Staum, Minerva’s Message. Stabilizing the French Revolution, Montreal/Kingston/London/Buffalo, M (...)
  • 24 “L’humanité, se présentant dans un grand nombre d’individus, sous des modifications inconnues jusqu (...)

12After the French Revolution, equality became a highly contested political thing not only because it was connected to the measurement of differences, but because it was also the main point of reference for the establishment of a society which challenged a corporatist world based on privilege21. Furthermore, the period after the Revolution is of particular interest because it was characterised, as Jean Jamin has also remarked, by a profound interconnection between the shaping of a secure state apparatus and the emergence of an increasingly professionalised field called the sciences de l’homme22. Many of the actors engaged in this field were at the same time very active in designing new forms of government or administration23. These actors experienced the Revolution very often as a stark rupture in the ways human beings conceptualised their own ways of life, modes of individuality, and so forth. Gérando reflected extensively on this rupture and in 1800 was convinced that humankind, “which presents itself as a great number of individuals under hitherto unknown modifications”, posed a new challenge for the observers of man24.

13Within scientific societies and state-funded organisations, the project of the observation of man and the establishment of a permanent and secure state apparatus were closely connected from the start. Sometimes this connection led to very programmatic formulations, like in the following quotation from Pierre-Louis Roederer (1754-1835), whose protégé Gérando was in the first years of his career:

  • 25 “Le gouvernement est une machine composée des hommes, dont chaque pièce est un homme ou une agrégat (...)

The government is a machine composed of men, of which every piece is a man or a group of men. It is therefore necessary to know man in order to build a machine that works securely, just as in mechanics it is necessary to know the materials from which one composes a machine to make it apt to fulfill the objectives which one had while designing it25.

  • 26 J. Senebier, L’art d’observer, 2 vol., Geneva, Chez Cl. Philibert & Bart. Chirol, 1775. See R. Sing (...)
  • 27 “Le premier moyen pour bien connaître les sauvages, est de devenir en quelque sorte comme l’un d’en (...)
  • 28 Stocking thinks that François Péron, who composed an extensive report of the Baudin expedition for (...)
  • 29 One of the best histories of ideas in this respect is perhaps S. Auroux (ed.), Histoire des idées l (...)
  • 30 A famous example for this belief is Gérando’s contemporary Joseph Jacotot (1770-1840), who was rece (...)
  • 31 Again, Roederer can serve as a good example. While he also was very active in designing political r (...)
  • 32 For Gérando “language” is not a homogenous medium of representation. On the contrary, it is a tool (...)
  • 33 See M. Herrnstadt, “Vom Geheimnis des Staates zum Staat als Geheimnis. Aspekte der Geschichte der S (...)

14Gérando’s 1800 text on the observation of “savage peoples” was written as an instruction manual for an expedition to Australia. He was able to draw on a number of intellectual and scientific traditions, including the classification practices of natural history (especially Buffon) and comparisons of European and supposedly savage customs (moeurs) as well as earlier methodological reflections, such as Jean Senebier’s treatise on the art of observation26. The objects of the practice of observation Senebier advocated were composed of a mixture of contemporary beliefs about the civilisation process. However, Gérando’s approach also contained something original. He was convinced that in order to gain empirical knowledge about “savage” peoples’ customs, languages, systems of government and so on, one had to live with them27. The epistemic technique of observation was therefore reinterpreted by Gérando and given a new twist: observation was for him no longer a one-way process but one that necessarily included the activity of self-observation and self-transformation. Only someone who had experienced the customs and languages of the “savages” first-hand would be able to give an accurate account of their ways of life and their place on the scale of civilisation. Thus, one aspect of Gérando’s project of observation was intense observation by living together with the “savages”. The other, equally important element was accumulating and comparing the observations of many observers, which was most likely inspired by natural history. The attempt to organize peoples within a conceptional framework thus became an empirical challenge of collecting observations. Now, this scheme was never—at least not fully—implemented in any working epistemic configuration28. With regard to the epistemic thing “equality”, two aspects of this observation programme seem noteworthy: firstly, for Gérando equality was not only a programmatic claim but an object of empirical research and, secondly, this empirical research was supposed to form the basis for organising and easing phenomena of inequality. In other texts of Gérando’s of the same period, he clearly diverges from concepts of equality that were based on important 18th century traditions of linguistic philosophy29. Actors who adhered to adoptions and reinterpretations of this tradition (the tradition of Port-Royal and Condillac) mostly thought that the phenomenon of inequality was caused by artificial obstacles and that once these (often political) obstacles were eliminated, human beings would enjoy the equal power of their moral and intellectual faculties30. Therefore these authors often assumed that by creating a well-made educational system, reforming and universalising the means of communication, and balancing existing economic inequalities, one would be able to realise some or all of the utopian promises of Enlightenment philosophy31. To Gérando this concept of equality seemed delusive, as human beings were for him not able to create a perfect system of signs, government or administration. For Gérando, human beings were conflictual beings that had to constantly balance between the needs of reason and the demands of sensibility32. He therefore used the vocabulary of 18th century philosophy to produce a model of graded and naturalised inequality: Not all human beings had the same degree of reason or sensibility, but all men had to accommodate their inner balance to the requirements of social life. Furthermore, he suggested ways to evaluate these forms of graded equality by empirical observation. It is therefore not surprising that Gérando became very interested and successful in the field of statistics, which met the demand for intense, on-the-spot observation and subsequent analytical comparison33.

  • 34 “L’antiquité eut ses voyages d’explorations philosophiques. Les temps modernes ont eu leurs voyages (...)
  • 35 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1.
  • 36 Ibid., p. 4.

15Precisely this technique of observation and this concept of equality became highly relevant for Gérando’s career as an administrator. He saw administration as a continuation of the project of the sciences of man around 1800. It is therefore not astonishing that he also used techniques developed for the observation of “savage” peoples in order to design a system of public welfare. The empirical question of differences among civilizations was therefore translated into an observational challenge to determine degrees of poverty. The “visitors of the poor” thereby continued the scientific voyages of discovery of the past and should adapt their epistemic techniques to the framework of a new “class of explorers”—the “philanthropic voyagers34”. Twenty years after his reflections on the observation of “savage peoples” Gérando was thus producing a new kind of “savages within”: the poor. As in the case of the “savages” we find a combination of, on the one hand, intense observation through interaction and intimacy with the poor—here transformed into the concept of the “visite”—and, on the other hand, the necessity of forming a coherent system of observations. Within the framework of a Christian welfare state Gérando consciously translated the epistemic thing (in)-“equality” into a moral and political challenge. He assumed that only “frivolous men” would see in the “inequality of the conditions of human life” a phenomenon of coincidence; wise men would instead recognise the hint of providence, the educational intervention of a divine force reminding us of the fact that this world is only a preparation for a better one35. Since the dynamics of the three social classes (rich, industrious/intermediate, poor) were of fundamental importance also for the moral activity of a society, Gérando was not interested in absolutely eliminating economic inequalities. The “secret of the moral world”, he thought, lay in the acts of giving and receiving36. Observing poor people should therefore enable a given society to form a moral system of harmonising economic differences, a system of welfare that reflected the dynamics of giving and receiving.

16Let us recapitulate this process of migration. During the 18th century, philosophers, educators and naturalists increasingly called for an observational science of human beings. One of their principal epistemic objects was equality, which appeared in different configurations and had different meanings. One of the main demarcation lines that sometimes separated the actors was the question of whether inequality was somehow natural, and therefore not to be eliminated, or whether existing inequalities were only artefacts of bad systems of government. Gérando participated in the French attempts to carry out an observational science of man and developed a methodological framework for the observation of human beings. This epistemic technique then migrated into the sphere of administration and public welfare, were it was transformed and given a new—Christian—twist. However, Gérando upheld basic beliefs concerning the structural location of inequality within the sphere of human life. It was one necessary component among others, and in 1820 it became an essential component for the establishment of an état de providence. We also showed that the observation of human beings was a political endeavour from the start, as it was part and parcel of the more precise definition of human inequalities. In Gérando’s career, however, the epistemic technique of observation, which according to his plan would form the cornerstone of a new and universal science of man, was translated into a professional political technique that was in some respects institutionalised in administrative practices.

17If we have done our job well, it should now be clear that a structurally equivalent analysis of epistemic and political techniques is possible. We want to conclude this paper by indicating some concrete challenges that arise when trying to carry out this program. (a) The first problem we had to deal with was the consistency of concepts. On the one hand, the term “observation” could denote very different things, only some of which are interesting for the analysis of the epistemic technique of observation. In addition, the whole epistemic and political configuration may change over a very short period of time. On the other hand, other terms of which we are unaware might also be used to denote the epistemic technique of observation. This could result in neglecting important sources due to terminological ignorance. (b) The second challenge was the scarcity and dispersal of source material. Since the quality and density of the analysis is directly linked to the density of material, this is a real challenge, especially for the formation phase of a science. Since these sciences often have not developed proper inscription devices or, if so, they are often not preserved, it is at least difficult to identify the type of differential reproduction of the epistemic and political configurations that we are interested in. In many cases we have only some inscriptions of a larger time span while the rest remains a black box. (c) The third challenge is of a more theoretical kind and typical of the kind of micro-analyses we carried out. It consists in the question of how to relate this micro-analysis to large-scale development.

18To sum up, we have described a methodological framework for analysing the interrelationship between epistemic and political problems. The starting point was a homologous description of epistemic and political problems. We thereby defined epistemic objects and political things. Following Rheinberger’s and Epple’s suggestions we defined epistemic objects as objects that produce questions that need to be solved. In turn, epistemic techniques are ways to answer these questions. The ways of answering and the things that produced problems were in a process of differential reproduction, meaning they constantly changed during and because of research practices. We tested a symmetrical analysis for the political realm, showing how a “political thing” can be understood as a thing that produces political problems. Political problems are understood as challenges to modify or consolidate norms governing the structure of human interaction within a collective. The techniques used to modify or consolidate these norms can therefore be called “political techniques”. This analysis works especially well when carried out with epistemic and political things that were contested in both fields. We therefore demonstrated how, after the French Revolution, equality became both a problem for knowledge systems and a challenge to organise societal systems. The short case study of Gérando showed how the scientific task of observing existing inequalities in different, so-called “savage” peoples around 1800 migrated into the field of adminstration and welfare systems. There, the epistemic technique of observing “savages” became a political technique for coping with the problem of poverty.

19Even if we agree with Bourdieu’s claim that all epistemic procedures are at the same time political—because the field of scientific activities itself can be described as a struggle for symbolic power—it makes sense to analytically separate epistemological and political things. This enables us to analyse in which ways, how exactly, and perhaps why, epistemic techniques were transferred from certain areas of society to others. In turn, we might learn how political techniques (e.g. rhetorical devices) were used in areas that apparently dealt with rather epistemological problems.

20The objective of this proposal would be to not only say that the sciences are political, which is a proposition that is widely shared. Rather, we need a framework that allows us to analyse how exactly the sciences are political and in what regard.

Notes

1 V. Roelcke, “Auf der Suche nach der Politik in der Wissensproduktion. Plädoyer für eine historisch-politische Epistemologie”, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 33, 2010, p. 176-192, here p. 177.

2 The sociology of science has already pointed out the necessity of analysing the production of knowledge and the production of power and collectives symmetrically. The two most famous, classical approaches are: Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the “scientific field”, see P. Bourdieu, “The Specificity of the Scientific Field and the Social Conditions of the Progress of Reason”, Social Science Information, 14/4, 1975, p. 19-47, here p. 21; and the “strong program” initiated by the Edinburgh school: David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976. Both assume that epistemological and political conflicts (Bourdieu) or epistemological and ideological debates (Bloor) are essentially related and have focused on the question of the transfer between them. Bruno Latour has more recently objected that the “sociology” of knowledge presupposes its object of inquiry—“society”—and has opted for a “truly” symmetrical approach that overcomes the metaphysical division of culturally constructed and natural phenomena. B. Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 96. For a reaction to this critique see D. Bloor, “Anti-Latour”, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 30/1, 2007, p. 81-112; D. Bloor, “Toward a Sociology of Epistemic Things”, Perspectives on Science, 13/3, 2005, p. 285-312; P. Bourdieu, Science de la science et réfléxivité. Cours du Collège de France 2000-2001, 3 éd., Paris, Raisons d’agir, 2007.

3 Bruno Latour’s concept of political ecology and his focus on “social things” rather than on social facts is one of the more elaborate redefinitions of the subject matter of politics. For Latour, “the social” is not a mystical or ideological concept but a specific relationship between things and their power to produce consent or difference. B. Latour, P.Weibel (eds.), Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy, cat. expo., Karlsruhe, ZKM, Center for Art and Media Technology (20/03/2003-03/10/2005), Cambridge, MIT Press, 2005.

4 “An experimental system is the basic unit from which experimental reasoning proceeds. It constitutes a scientific object within the frame of technical conditions. […] Instead of speaking about theories, experiments, instruments and their connection in order to characterize the scientific enterprise, I speak about the experimental situation: about scientific objects or ‘epistemic things’, the differential reproduction of experimental systems, and the conjuncture of such systems”, H. J. Rheinberger, “Experiment, Difference, and Writing: I Tracing Protein Synthesis”. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 23/2, 1992, p. 305-331, here p. 306-307.

5 See H. J. Rheinberger, Toward a History of Epistemic Things. Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1997, p. 24-37.

6 . See H. J. Rheinberger, On Historicizing Epistemology. An Essay, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010, p. 74-77.

7 See T. Lenoir, “Epistemology Historicised. Making Epistemic Things”, in H.-J. Rheinberger (ed.), Epistemology of the Concrete. Twentieth-Century Histories of Life, Durham, Duke University Press, 2010, p. xi-xlix. The interdisciplinary use of Rheinbergian tools to study and create experimental systems is remarkable. It spans the various historical disciplines, from early modern literature (J. E. Boyle, Anamorphosis in Early Modern Literature. Mediation and Affect, Farnham, Ashgate, 2010) to medieval Islamic astronomy (C. Chism, “Transmitting the Astrolabe. Chaucer, Islamic Astronomy, and the Astrolabic Text”, in F. Wallis, R. Wisnovsky [eds.], Medieval Textual Cultures. Agents of Transmission, Translation and Transformation, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2016, p. 85-120) and the history of knot theory in mathematics (M. Epple, Die Entstehung der Knotentheorie. Kontexte und Konstruktionen einer modernen mathematischen Theorie, Wiesbaden, Vieweg+Teubner Verlag, 1999) and also includes emerging fields as diverse as artistic research (M. Schwab [ed.], Experimental Systems. Future Knowledge in Artistic Research, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 2013) and the theory of theatre (M. Cairo et al. [eds.], Episteme des Theaters. Aktuelle Kontexte von Wissenschaft, Kunst und Öffentlichkeit, Bielefeld, transcript, 2016). The examples chosen are arbitrary and many more could be named. On the proximity of scientific and artistic practice, see H. J. Rheinberger, “Experiment, Forschung, Kunst”, paper presented at the “Jahreskonferenz der Dramaturgischen Gesellschaft”, Oldenburg, 26th-29th of April 2012 (URL: j.mp/18epBdj, accessed 06/01/2017).

8 M. Epple, “Knot Invariants in Vienna and Princeton During the 1920s: Epistemic Configurations of Mathematical Research”, Science in Context, 17, 2004, p. 131-164, here p. 150.

9 “An epistemic configuration […] is the entirety of the intellectual resources that are involved in a particular research episode. It comprises the […] language, the skills and techniques […] the set of research topics and open problems under consideration, the horizon of aims and more general heuristic guidelines followed by the researchers, etc. […] An epistemic configuration […] thus constitutes a (usually rather small) working unit for the production of knowledge”, M. Epple, “Knot Invariants”, op. cit., p. 148.

10 There are also other approaches that are interested in the interrelationship between the scientific field as a field of professionals and the political field as composed of more or less professional politicians (See P. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, trans. G. Raymond and M. Adamson, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1991; M. Ash, “Wissenschaft und Politik als Ressourcen füreinander”, in R. vom Bruch, B. Kaderas [eds.], Wissenschaften und Wissenschaftspolitik, Stuttgart, Steiner, 2002, p. 32-51); our approach does not primarily deal with this phenomenon, but rather with political functions that can be found everywhere.

11 See M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, New York, Vintage Books, 1995, p. 194. For a critical assessment of Foucault’s concept of power, see W. Detel, Foucault and Classical Antiquity. Power, Ethics, and Knowledge, Cambridge/New York, Cambridge University Press, 2005. For further developments of Foucauldian historical epistemology, see among many other examples Ian Hacking’s concept of historical ontology (I. Hacking, Historical Ontology, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2002), and A. Davidson’s account of the history of the science of sexuality (Arnold Davidson, The Emergence of Sexuality. Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2004). A critical engagement with Foucault’s historical thesis can be found in J. Goldstein (ed.), Foucault and the Writing of History, Oxford, Blackwell, 1994. For a feminist and postcolonial appraisal of Foucault’s thought, see A. L. Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire. Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things, Durham et al., Duke University Press, 2000 and A. Allen, The Politics of Our Selves. Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory, New York, Columbia University Press, 2008.

12 J. W. Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’. Olympe de Gouges’s Declarations”, History Workshop, 28, 1989, p. 1-21, here p. 7.

13 See C. Blanckaert, “Le moment ‘naturaliste’ des sciences de l’homme”, Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, 3, 2000, p. 117-160, here p. 118, 152-153.

14 See P. Rosanvallon, The Society of Equals, trans. A. Goldhammer, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2013.

15 I. Wallerstein, The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy. 1730-1840s, New York, Academic Press, 2001 [1989].

16 M. Foucault, “What is Critique?” in M. Foucault, The Politics of Truth, ed. S. Lotringer, Cambridge, MIT Press, 2007, p. 41-81.

17 See D. Bindman, Ape to Apollo. Aesthetics and the Idea of Race in the 18th Century, London, Reaktion Books, 2002.

18 J.-M. de Gérando, The Observation of Savage Peoples, Hoboken, Taylor and Francis, 2004 [1re éd. 1800].

19 J.-M. de Gérando, Le visiteur du pauvre, Bruxelles, Chez tous les libraires, 1844 [1re éd. 1820].

20 This technique has been the object of considerable research in the field of historical epistemology (see especially L. Daston, Observation as a Way of Life. Time, Attention, Allegory, Uppsala, Uppsala universitet, 2011; L. Daston, E. Lunbeck [eds.], Histories of Scientific Observation, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2011; L. Daston, “On Scientific Observation”, Isis, 99, 2008, p. 97-110). P. Singy, “Huber’s Eyes. The Art of Scientific Observation Before the Emergence of Positivism”, Representations, 95, 2006, p. 54-75.

21 See P. Rosanvallon, The Society of Equals, op. cit, p. 10f. Pierre Rosanvallon recently called for revisiting the concept of equality. He starts his analysis with a distinction between the epistemic and political thing but does not follow through on the methodological implications. “Equality was […] understood as a relation, as a way of making a society, of producing and living in common. It was seen as a democratic quality and not merely as a measure of the distribution of wealth” (ibid.). For a critical perspective on the idealistic reading of the principle of equality, see I. Wallerstein, The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, op. cit., p. 111f.

22 J. Jamin, “Le syndrome chinois des idéologues ou les débuts de la sociolinguistique”, Histoire Épistémologie Langage, 4/1, 1982, p. 83-92.

23 M. Staum, Minerva’s Message. Stabilizing the French Revolution, Montreal/Kingston/London/Buffalo, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996.

24 “L’humanité, se présentant dans un grand nombre d’individus, sous des modifications inconnues jusqu’alors, ce spectacle a fixé l’attention, attiré la curiosité des observateurs, déterminé de nouvelles comparaisons ; chacun a eu besoin de s’expliquer à lui-même des faits qui sortoient si fort de l’ordre accoutumé, et de l’enceinte de ses idées sur notre nature” (J.-M. de Gérando, Des signes et de l’art de penser considérés dans leur rapports mutuels, 4 vol., Paris, Henrichs, vol. 3, p. 20).

25 “Le gouvernement est une machine composée des hommes, dont chaque pièce est un homme ou une agrégation d’hommes ; il faut donc connaître l’homme pour faire une machine dont le jeu soit sûr, comme il faut, en mécanique, connaître les matières dont on compose une machine pour la rendre capable de répondre aux vues qu’on s’est proposées en la construisant” (P.-L. Roederer, “Cours d’organisation sociale”, in P.-L. Roederer, Œuvres du Comte P.L. Roederer […] publiée pas son Fils, vol. 8, Paris, Firmin Didot frères, 1859 [1793], p. 129-305, here p. 131). Roederer implicitly refers to Helvétius, who as early as the 1760s had pointed out the fundamental role a “science of man”, and especially a science of the human mind, could play for the true art of government, see J.-L. Chappey, “De la science de l’homme aux sciences humaines. Enjeux politiques d’une configuration de savoir (1770-1808)”, Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, 15, 2006, p. 43-68, here p. 45ff.

26 J. Senebier, L’art d’observer, 2 vol., Geneva, Chez Cl. Philibert & Bart. Chirol, 1775. See R. Singy, “Huber’s Eyes”, op. cit.

27 “Le premier moyen pour bien connaître les sauvages, est de devenir en quelque sorte comme l’un d’entr’eux […]” (J.-M. de Gérando, Considérations sur les diverses méthodes À suivre dans l’observation des peuples sauvages, Paris, s. l., 1800, p. 13).

28 Stocking thinks that François Péron, who composed an extensive report of the Baudin expedition for which Gérando’s text was composed, did not really try to meet the demands of the instructional texts (one was by the naturalist Georges Cuvier): “[T]here is no evidence that Péron tried systematically to carry out Cuvier’s instructions—nor those of Degérando, although Cuvier mentioned ‘vocabularies’ which Péron collected for various languages. True, Péron’s published account of the voyage is interspersed with ethnographic material, but the most systematic treatment is in fact a description of the English penal colonies in Australia, with which he was tremendously impressed” (G. W. Stocking, “French Anthropology in 1800”, Isis, 55/2, 1964, p. 134-150, here p. 144). Siegfried Huigen assumes that there was only one ethnographical study that successfully implemented Gérando’s programme: Lodewyk Alberti’s study of the Xhosa people (De Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika, Natuur- en Geschiedkundig beschreven [1810]), see S. Huigen, “De eerste etnografische monografie: De Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika (1810) van Lodewyk Alberti”, Tydskrif vir letterkunde, 43/1, 2006, p. 68-82.

29 One of the best histories of ideas in this respect is perhaps S. Auroux (ed.), Histoire des idées linguistiques, vol. 2, Le développement de la grammaire occidentale, Liège, Mardaga, 1992.

30 A famous example for this belief is Gérando’s contemporary Joseph Jacotot (1770-1840), who was recently rediscovered for the philosophical discussion of equality by Jacques Rancière in his book The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1991 [1987]). The principle of Jacotot’s enseignement universel, which placed itself self-consciously in an emancipatory Cartesian tradition, is that of radical communication based on a fundamental intellectual equality of humanity in general. For him “tous les hommes ont une intelligence égale” (J. Jacotot, Enseignement universel. Langue maternelle, Louvain, De Pauw, 1824, p. 236).

31 Again, Roederer can serve as a good example. While he also was very active in designing political regimes and helped to write the constitution of the year VIII, he at the same time upheld some of the utopian beliefs which were voiced during the Revolution: “Philosophy is no longer enclosed in the books of the sages; she has escaped from them, like the light emanating from the sun; like the light, she is today widely spread throughout the whole world, she shines brightly over all heads; she is reflected by most of the social institutions, mixed with the air which we breathe” (P. L., Roederer 1799, De la philosophie moderne, op. cit., p. 41). For the epistemological as well as political struggle for a stable social order in France after the end of the terror, see B. Baczko, “Ending the Terror. The French Revolution after Robespierre”, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994; A. Jainchill, Reimagining Politics after the Terror, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2008.

32 For Gérando “language” is not a homogenous medium of representation. On the contrary, it is a tool for the distinct mental activities of imagination and reason: “l’univers semble se présenter sous deux aspects opposés aux artistes et aux philosophes; ceux-ci cherchent à expliquer, pendant que ceux-là s’efforcent à peindre” (J.-M. de Gérando, Des signes…, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 270).

33 See M. Herrnstadt, “Vom Geheimnis des Staates zum Staat als Geheimnis. Aspekte der Geschichte der Statistik in Frankreich (ca. 1661-1800)”, in Sebastian Klinge, Laurens Schlicht (eds.), Geheimnis - Wissen. Perspektiven auf das Wissen vom Geheimnis seit dem 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin, Trafo, 2014, p. 65-94.

34 “L’antiquité eut ses voyages d’explorations philosophiques. Les temps modernes ont eu leurs voyages d’exploration commerciales et scientifiques. Notre siècle a eu la gloire de voir naître une nouvelle classe d’explorateurs, celle des voyageurs philanthropes qui parcourent les diverses régions, pour y recueillir les exemples du bien” (J.-M. de Gérando, Le visiteur du pauvre, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 152).

35 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1.

36 Ibid., p. 4.

Auteurs

Humboldt University, Berlin

Tel Aviv University

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