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CHAPTER THREE

THE APPEAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY FOR

THE SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENTIFIC

KNOWLEDGE

And here we come to what is perhaps the crucial difference (...) between Zande

society and ours: we have this activity of theoretical understanding which seems to

have no counterpart among them. (.. ) (A) theoretical understanding aims at a

disengaged perspective. (...) This kind of activity implies two connected things: that we

come to distinguish this disengaged perspective from our ordinary stances of

engagement, and that one values it as offering a higher – or in some sense superior –

view of reality.

Charles Taylor, Rationality, 89

In this chapter, which is complementary to chapter 2, I examine why the concept of

‘anthropology’ appealed to the vanguard of the sociology of scientific knowledge involved in the

struggle for the socialization of epistemology. First I look at the way these advocates applied the

concept of ‘anthropology’. Subsequently I raise the question whether their appeal to

anthropology succeeded in tapping this discipline’s potentials for describing science as a cultural

phenomenon. I treat the so-called laboratory studies, which are commonly conceived as the first

‘real’ anthropological studies of science, on a par with the work in early sociology of scientific

knowledge, since both are mainly concerned with the ethnography of science. As I am focusing

here on the question what made ‘the anthropological perspective’ attractive for the sociology of

scientific knowledge, I restrict my discussion to what Woolgar calls its ‘strategic importance’.

Regarding this strategic aspect, there is no significant difference between lab studies and the early

studies of sociology of scientific knowledge. Hence I will ignore the distinctions between them

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and ask what value – if any – did lab-studies add to the sociologists' appeal to ‘the

anthropological perspective’.

The structure of this chapter is as follows:

In section 1, I examine why the vanguard of the sociology of scientific knowledge

thought it wise to appeal to ‘the classical anthropological perspective’. Their main point is that

‘anthropology’ can be helpful in the emancipatory struggle of their discipline. ‘Anthropological’,

comparative studies were supposed to reveal that the alleged unique epistemological status of

science is founded on a myth. So these studies were assumed further to undermine the authority

of the sociologists’ philosophical adversaries. At the end of the section it will turn out that by

doing ‘anthropology’ the sociologists of scientific knowledge have created a heuristically fruitful

ethnological fact for the anthropologist of science. For, by focusing on what they call the ‘normal

practice’ of science, they are confronted with difficulties concerning the relation between theory

and practice. This enables the anthropologist of science to raise the question whether these

difficulties are caused by the way the relation between theory and practice is defined.

In section 2, which has the status of a Fieldnote, I examine this latter question.

Taking my cue from Barnes’ assertion that ‘the classical anthropologist’' will avoid ethnocentric

evaluations and misleading analogies with his own culture, I look into the famous Azande-case

(Evans-Pritchard 1937), discussed by Barnes, in order to find out whether Evans-Pritchard (a

classical anthropologist if ever there was one) fits in such a description. .

In section 3 I briefly examine the development of laboratory studies and what came after.

I discuss one example, which from my point of view, is most interesting viz. Latour’s proposal

(1993) to develop a ‘radical symmetrical anthropology’. Even though this proposal is a better

example for the anthropology of science than the early sociology of scientific knowledge, it still

requires more radicalization before it allows us to generate anthropological questions in a

systematic way.

In section 4, which has the status of a Fieldnote, I reflect on the interesting elements from

Latour’s recent proposal, putting them in the context of the ‘imaginative preconceptions’ which

we have discovered so far.

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I. THE APPEAL TO ANTHROPOLOGY

In the Introduction to chapter 2, I cited Barnes (1992: 134), who argued that in the early

sociology of scientific knowledge...

... beliefs and bodies of knowledge of all kinds, including those of the sciences and

even those of mathematics and formal logic, have been analysed and accounted for

much as an anthropologist would analyse and account for the beliefs of a tribe or

preliterate society.

We noticed the odd fact that Barnes and Shapin (1977a: 64) did not refer to the work of

anthropologists but to that of certain historians of science, which, they said, “already involves an

implicitly anthropological perspective”. They referred primarily to the work of the historian cum

philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, because in his writings “tradition and received culture are

foci for empirical curiosity” (Barnes 1982: 8). According to Barnes, Kuhn’s principle that

scientific actors should be understood against the background of the ‘enabling constraints’ of

their own tradition deserves to be tagged an ‘anthropological’ one. For, says Barnes (1982: 5), the

anthropologist...

... addresses the members of an alien culture just as Kuhn treats historical agents. He

assumes that the alien discourse is coherent and meaningful: he seeks to understand it in

its own terms, avoiding ethnocentric evaluations and misleading analogies with his own

culture: he reads social and cultural change forwards from past to present.

The sociologist of scientific knowledge should follow a similar anthropological approach in his

analysis.

(J)ust as the anthropologist seeks to understand an alien culture, so the sociologist seeks to

understand the sub-culture of science - in its own terms and from past to present (ibid.).

So the main methodological advance of 'the classical anthropological approach' for the early

sociology of scientific knowledge seems to be that it allowed its vanguard to apply the tenets of

impartiality and symmetry to the study of scientific knowledge. ‘The classical anthropologist’,

whom I described in chapter 1, was impartial and symmetrical in that he tried to reduce his

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puzzlement by listening to every informant he could snare, fitting all the information he secured

in the gigantic jigsaw-puzzle he called ‘their culture’. It was the image of this stereotypic ‘innocent

anthropologist’ (Nigel Barley) that the early sociologists of scientific knowledge called on as an

ally in their struggle against the philosophical guardians of the chastity of scientific knowledge.

And it was the alleged authority, surrounding this image like a halo, that was supposed to make

the help of this ally effective.1 The fact that classical anthropology had gradually come under

attack, from the inside (see e.g. Hymes, ed., 1969; Asad, ed., 1973; think also of the publication of

Malinowski 1967) as well as from the side of the ‘natives’ (see e.g. Deloria 1969) had apparently

remained unnoticed. 2 Ironically, though not incorrectly, it could be maintained that just this

idealized public image of the anthropologist as an exotic butterfly collector was attractive for the

protagonists of early sociology of scientific knowledge.3 The point to notice, however, is that the

ideal image of ‘the classical anthropologist’ was not only contrasted with that of the philosopher;

it was also at odds with usual anthropological practice! As an explanation for this oddity, the

vanguard of the sociologists of scientific knowledge argued that not only Mertonian sociologists

but also most anthropologists were under the spell cast by traditional epistemology. In chapter 2

(section 1.1), we noticed that Mertonian sociology of science had declared epistemological

questions unfit for sociological scrutiny. Obedient to this dictum – which Laudan tagged the

arationality assumption – the sociologists had piously refrained from touching epistèmè and left it

in the hands of the proper authorities. Now, says Barry Barnes (1973: 182), it appears that

anthropologists had accepted some version of the arationality assumption as well…

1 Briefly put, my argument is that the sociologists’ appeal to ‘anthropology’ was simply a rhetorical move in their struggle against their philosophical opponents. This argument ill appear more credible, perhaps, if we notice the ease with which the skills ascribed to the ethnographer can be attributed to the sociologist or the historian, if the circumstances require it. Thus, for instance, Collins and Yearley (1992: 301), following Peter Berger, speak of the professional ability of the sociologists “to switch between different frames of reference”. “The achievement of the sociology of scientific knowledge”, they argue, “can be understood as an extension of this ability to alternate” (1992: 302). 2 The first reference to this type of criticism came only after the introduction of the laboratory studies. See Knorr-Cetina 1982: 40. 3 To be fair, this is only part of the story. In chapter 4, I will discuss a different, more important appeal the sociologists made to the Durkheim-Mauss approach in anthropology, as modified by Mary Douglas. But the Durkheim-Mauss-Douglas approach represents a separate line in the arguments of the early sociology of scientific knowledge. The appeal to what I have called ‘the classical anthropologist’ was mainly made in the context of the struggle against philosophy. The appeal to Mary Douglas was mainly made in the context of putting the sociology of scientific knowledge on a firm scientific footing. Barnes and Bloor (1982: 25, note 8) say that “(a) large number of examples could be provided from recent work by historians, sociologists and anthropologists which conform to the requirements of our equivalence postulate” (emphasis added). Apart from the work of Mary Douglas, they refer to Cole, Gay, Glick and Sharp, 1969 and Horton and Finnegan, eds. ,1973.

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Attempts to understand or explain preliterate systems of belief have frequently led

anthropologists to compare them with ideal ‘rational’ models of thought or belief; in

practice such comparison has been used to separate beliefs into those which are

‘rationally’ intelligible (...) and not in need of explanation, and those which deviate

from this ideal and are consequently puzzling and in need of explanation.

The specific form of the arationality assumption accepted by anthropologists, Barnes goes on to

say, is mainly determined by the conception of ideal scientific practice found in philosophy of

science. The misleading thing is that, in comparing non-Western and Western belief-systems, a

detailed and sophisticated treatment of anthropological material is related to sketchy and often

implicit notions of what is rational or scientific (Barnes 1969: 94). At least British anthropology,

Barnes concludes, owes little to physics or biology but much to philosophy (Barnes 1973: 182).4

How could the public image of ‘the classical anthropologist’ nevertheless help the

vanguard of the sociology of scientific knowledge in its attempts to challenge the dominance of

epistemology over the minds of sociologists, historians and anthropologists alike? Mainly by

showing that, when compared to the ‘belief systems’ of other cultures, the alleged specific

epistemic status of scientific knowledge is founded on a myth. I will not discuss the specific

arguments on which this latter claim is built, as they have little to add to what is discussed in the

previous chapter. In the present context I am only interested in the conclusion of this exercise,

which is that, when treated ‘anthropologically’...

... natural science should possess no special status in sociological theory, and its

beliefs should cease to provide reference standards in the study of ideology or

primitive thought (Barnes 1974: 43). The different beliefs and modes of thought of

different societies are all naturally rational. Hence the differences between them are

cultural differences and nothing more. Sociologists and psychologists studying

different cultures are accordingly justified in a decision to treat them symmetrically as

equally problematic, or equally puzzling (Barnes 1976: 121). It follows that science

should be treated as a part of culture like any other, to be studied by the same methods,

explored by the same techniques (1976: 124; italics added).5

4 Barnes refers to Beattie 1966; Jarvie and Agassi 1967. Both articles were reprinted in Wilson, ed., 1970. 5 Barnes (1976) and Bloor (1981) distinguish ‘natural rationality’ from ‘normative rationality’. “Natural rationality refers to typical human propensities; normative rationality refers to patterns of inference that are esteemed or sanctioned. The one has reference to matters of psychological fact; the other to shared standards or norms” Bloor 1981: 207). Natural rationality is a species-specific feature, common to all members of the species homo sapiens sapiens. It is the task of biologists and cognitive psychologists to say how this species-specific rationality can be specified. The sociologist of knowledge with no expertise in this field will rely on their conclusions. Barnes (1976: 121) finds in

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I will accept these conclusions as ethnological facts and write them down alongside those of my

philosophical informants. It will be my task to make both conclusions intelligible in the context

of my description of the culture I am studying.

1.1 THE WEIGHT OF TRADITION

The beliefs and practices of any individual, says Barnes (1982: 7), have to be understood by

situating them in the particular cultural background of this individual.6 This goes both for the

scientists working in the Big European Bubble Chamber and for the Azande performing poison

oracles or practising witchcraft (Barnes 1972: 378). When put so generally, this statement would

worry hardly anyone. Barnes has a much more specific aim though. The beliefs and actions of

both scientists and Azande have to be understood against the background of their respective

traditions because they are ultimately founded on these traditions. Neither the beliefs and actions

of the scientist nor those of the Azande can be grasped, let alone legitimized, from anything else

but the tradition of their culture. The status of the former is, sociologically, not different from

that of the latter. This is why an anthropologist, or for that matter a sociologist, can treat both

clusters on a par. That is to say: he can treat both clusters impartially and symmetrically. Now this

conclusion would obviously worry a rationalist.

Most commentators on the famous Azande case (see further in section 2), described by

Evans-Pritchard, have agreed that Azande oracular beliefs are ‘objectively irrational’, although

there are some disagreements about what exactly the rationality criteria are which they fail to

meet. Mainly it is the ‘closed’ character of the Azande beliefs which make them objectively

irrational. Azande are supposed to maintain their beliefs in oracles and witchcraft in the face of

recalcitrant experience by using a series of ad hoc arguments which render the beliefs irrefutable.

(I)n traditional cultures there is no developed awareness of alternatives to the

established body of theoretical tenets; whereas in scientifically oriented cultures, such an

awareness is highly developed. (...) (A)bsence of any awareness makes for an absolute

acceptance of the established theoretical tenets, and removes any possibility of

Mary Hesse's The Structure of Scientific Inference (a philosophical work) “the most interesting recent account of natural rationality”, because it tries “to elucidate the natural proclivities which make learning of any kind possible”. 6 I have inserted ‘beliefs and practices’ where Barnes writes ‘work’. This substitution, however, is in full agreement with the spirit of Barnes’s text.

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questioning them. In these circumstances, the established tenets invest the believer with

a compelling force. (Horton 1970: 153-154).

Obviously the early sociologists of scientific knowledge reject such a rationalist view. Referring

mainly to the work of ‘Kuhn-the-anthropologist’, Barnes argues that if we focus on the culture

of science and recognize the central role that authority, trust and commitment play in

transmitting scientific beliefs, the openness to alternatives in science turns out to be grossly

exaggerated.7 Just like the Zande witch-doctor, the scientist has to be initiated into the esoteric

beliefs and practices of his sub-culture. In the scientific sub­culture this initiation procedure is

called training. Just like the prospective Zande witch-doctor (see Evans-Pritchard 1937: 202-250)

the would-be scientist undergoes a transformation during his training-period: his reasoning

abilities, dexterity, memory and perception are appropriately channelled and structured (Barnes

1982: 17).

Looking at a contour map, the student sees lines on paper, the cartographer a picture

of a terrain. Looking at a bubble-chamber photograph, the student sees confused and

broken lines, the physicist a record of familiar subnuclear events. Only after a number

of such transformations of vision does the student become an inhabitant of the

scientist's world, seeing what the scientist sees and responding as the scientist does

(Kuhn 1970: 111).

Scientific training mostly concentrates on the transmission of existing knowledge and procedures

and prepares the neophyte to solve tiny puzzles within the existing paradigm (Barnes 1982: 17).

When doing what Kuhn has called ‘normal science’, the scientist refuses to give great weight to

anomalies (Barnes 1969: 97).8 This is not to say that normal science is static. The paradigm which

7 Barnes (1972b: 374) emphasizes that he is expounding a view on the scope of sociological explanation in natural science, as it appears to be implicit in Kuhn '.s work. He acknowledges (1982: 15) that Kuhn himself has not sought

to develop a sociological theory, or to understand knowledge and culture in sociological terms, and has tended to

discourage the extension of his ideas to forms of culture other than science. (Cf. Kuhn 1969; reprinted in Kuhn

1977). Kuhn's explicit aim, says Barnes (1982: 15), has been to discover what is peculiarly distinctive and efficacious

in scientific research. But he goes on to say that, whether Kuhn himself recognises it or not, “his description of

science had called into question his preconception: at least in so far as sociologically interesting factors are

concerned, it has revealed nothing fundamentally distinctive in the culture of science”.

8 Barnes mentions that Kuhn's view of scientific training has often been taken to be critical of science. In The Essential Tension(1959; reprinted in Kuhn 1977) Kuhn argues, however, that it was offered as an account of a well-

organized regime which explained the success of science. The more standardized their training, the more scientists

are bound together in a communal enterprise with all the gains in efficiency this entails (Barnes 1982: 19). Although

Kuhn (1963) stresses the importance of dogma in scientific research, he also identifies circumstances in which actors

perceive clusters of anomalies as sufficiently important to necessitate modification of their attitudes to normal

practice (Barnes 1972b: 383). As anomalies can be described in actor's terms, Barnes (1973: 190) suggests that the

different reactions to anomalies within various cultures offer the best framework within which those cultures can be

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guides it can be, and regularly is, extended, altered or re-interpreted by the scientists who have

been disciplined by it (Barnes 1972: 388; cf. Kuhn 1970: 187-198).9

The main point of Barnes's criticism of Horton is that the latter’s distinction between

‘open’ and ‘closed’ societies is a matter of degree, not of essence. Consequently, the gap alleged

to exist between the scientist and the primitive narrows (Barnes 1969: 97).10 Not merely does

Levi-Strauss’s (1962) description of the ‘savage mind’ as that of a bricoleur apply to the scientist

(Barnes 1969: 98- 99, 1973: 187), other similarities between scientific and Zande culture become

visible as well (Barnes 1973: 186).

Azande, like all actors in stable situations, normally believe what has been dictated by

socialisation and subsequently maintained by the normal causal nexus of influences

surrounding them. (...) (A)s the objective irrationality of Azande is generally held to

consist in their 'ad hocery,' one might compare their beliefs (...) with the beliefs of

classical physics and the 'ad hocery' of Planck and Lorentz. Sociologically, the situations

are amorphous (Barnes 1972: 378).

We are now in a position to reformulate the main question of sociology of knowledge: Why are

some beliefs accepted as knowledge in some context? From whence do they derive their

credibility? Sociology’s answer is: They are accepted because they are embedded in tradition, which

lends credibility to them. And it is tradition which determines (a) the range within which received

culture may be modified and (b) the resources from which this may be done. This goes for

Azande as well as for scientists. Consequently, “all beliefs-systems, scientific or preliterate, ‘true’

or ‘erroneous’, are most profitably compared and understood within a single framework" (Barnes

1973: 183; see also Peel 1969). What is this framework? The concept ‘normal practice’ – coined

by analogy of Kuhn's ‘normal science’ (see Barnes 1972) – is advanced as a regulatory concept for

sociological analysis. However, “(u)se of a concept as a regulatory idea does not involve an

compared. Bloor 1978 and 1983 has placed the comparison of reactions to anomalies in a methodical context by applying the group-grid model of Mary Douglas. Tbis issue is discussed in chapter 4. 9 In arguing this, Barnes (1972b, 1973) looks at scientific thought as analogical or metaphorical; a view based on the works of Max Black (1962), Mary Hesse (1966) and Donald Schon (1967). I do not want to get involved in this issue which has no direct relevance for my study. Let it be noted that Kuhn’s (and Barnes’s) emphasis on the function of dogma in scientific training and normal practice should not be taken to imply that in their view normal practice is a static activity. The point that human beings are not detenmined by what they have learned is a crucial theme within the Strong Programme, where it is discussed under the heading of ‘finitism’ See chapter 4. 10 Barnes (1969: 97) adds that "perhaps we can narrow it a little more by remarking that paradigm changes in science take place over a number of years”, and asking how convinced we ought to be about the stability of primitive beliefs over long periods”.

Barnes (1982: 53-57) differs on this issue from Kuhn.

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assumption about what is necessarily the case” (Barnes 1972: 376, note 5). What does the

regulatory concept ‘normal practice’ mean?

1.2 In two minds

Rouse (1987: 26-40) has clarified the issue by presenting two ‘readings’ of Kuhn. Both are based

on a different view on science, both of which are present in Kuhn's work. The first reading is the

current ‘Philosophers’ Kuhn.' This Kuhn depicts science primarily as a theory-directed affair:

“the construction and appraisal of theories that aim to represent the world” (1987: 36).11 In the

context of this reading, normal practice is taken to be "the attempt to fit nature into the pattern

defined by the existing orthodoxy" (Barnes 1982: 11).

(It is) a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes

supplied by the professional education (Kuhn 1970: 5).

The second reading produces the image of the ‘Radical Kuhn’.12 The 'Radical Kuhn' emphasizes

the character of science as a set of practices. Science is not primarily a way of representing and

observing the world, but rather a way (or ways) of manipulating and intervening in it. Scientists

are practitioners rather than mere observers (Rouse 1987: 38; cf. Hacking 1983).13 In the context

of this second reading, normal practice is: "research in which scientists know their way about"

(Rouse 1987: 30).

11 Contrary to the logical-positivists, the ‘Philosophers Kuhn’ argues that the contexts of discovery and justification cannot be neatly distinguished. “(A)n essential aspect of the justification of theories is their fruitfulness in leading to new discoveries; an essential aspect of discovery is the justification of the discovery as genuine, including defending the theoretical context within which its appears” (Rouse 1987: 37). 12 Rouse derives his ‘Radical Kuhn’ from Kuhn’s attempts to indicate the differences between his position and those of critics like Shapere (1964, 1971), Scheffler (1967, 1972), Suppe (1977) and Shimony (1976). Rouse’s argument is based mainly on Kuhn's ‘Afterword’ (1970: 266-339) to the second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and on Second Thoughts on Paradigms (In Kuhn 1977: 266-339). Rouse (1987: 27) admits that in developing his argument he “undoubtedly take(s) (Kuhn) further in the direction of an account of science as practice than (Kuhn) himself would be happy with”. His justification for doing this is that “(a)ny attempt to understand Kuhn’s own position must ultimately take account of both readings” (ibid.), as Kuhn is constantly in two minds about how to characterise science. 13 Rouse (1987: 38) emphasizes that the distinctions between the two Kuhns should not be exaggerated. “Scientists do construct theories and record observations . One can even argue that what is distinctive about scientific practice is the way it uses theories”. He emphasizes, however, that there still is a difference between “theoretically depicting

the world and knowing your way about in it scientifically (in part using theories)”.

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(The) confidence (of the scientists) is developed from their practical grasp of one or

more paradigms, concrete scientific achievements that disclose a field of possible

research activities. (...) Accepting a paradigm is more like acquiring and applying a skill

than like understanding and believing a statement. Actually it involves multiple skills

simultaneously: ... an essential (one) is understanding new situations like old ones, to

do for them what has already been done in the exemplary case (ibid.).

In this case, lack of a standard interpretation of a paradigm will not prevent a paradigm from

guiding normal practice, because normal practice primarily involves shared skills, not shared

beliefs (Rouse 1987: 30-31; cf. Kuhn 1970: 44).14

Rouse's analysis is very illuminating, because both the shadows of both ‘Kuhns’ are also

present in the texts of the early sociology of scientific knowledge. The ‘Radical Kuhn’ is

emphatically present there. Barnes (1974) advanced a view on paradigms as exemplars for

behaviour which, even in its phrasing, bears strong resemblances with Rouse’s ‘Radical

Kuhn’ ( (cf. Barnes 1974: 62-63 with Rouse 1987: 30). Barnes (1974: 55), however, also draws

attention to the fact that, although practical-manipulative activities play an important role in day-

to-day science, scientists define theoretical developments as the most important contribution of

science to modern culture. That is why “(i)t is explicitly theoretical innovation which has won the

major proportion of formal scientific awards and honours”.

The identification of science with theory by scientists themselves is by no means an

idiosyncratic custom of this esoteric subculture. On the contrary, the way scientists view their

own activity is a reflection of the received image of science. From the time of the Scientific

Revolution onwards, this image has been the dominant one among the general public, students of

science, and scientists alike.

However, while warning us not to overrate theoretical activity, the sociologists of

scientific knowledge themselves have not escaped from the centripetal force of this conventional

practice. That is why, in spite of the conspicuous presence of the ‘Radical Kuhn’ in their texts, it

is the ‘Philosopher’s Kuhn’ who demands the main attention in their theoretical reflections.15

14 Consequently, scientific groups are not communities of believers but communities of fellow-practitioners. They are ‘characterized by common problems and techniques and by reference to the same achievements, not by monolithic consensus” (Rouse 1987: 32). 15 15 The tension between both positions can be illustrated by comparing two propositions from Bloor 1976. On page 142 Bloor reproaches Popper for representing science as “a matter of pure theory rather than reliable technique”. Popper, says Bloor, “only provides an ideology for the purest scientist and leaves the engineer and craftsman without succour”. On page 12, however, Bloor remarks that “it is largely a theoretical vision of the world that, at any given time, scientists may be said to know. It is largely to their theories that scientists must repair when

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It was only in the course of the 1980's that this one-sided interest of science students in

scientific theories has been redressed somewhat . The introduction of laboratory studies (Latour

and Woolgar 1979) and the philosophy of experiment (Hacking 1983) have increasingly directed

attention to “the disgusting kitchen of science” (Latour 1990: 151). Moreover, Latour (1986) –

following Goody (1977) – has emphasized the important role played by skills in the practice of

science, by arguing that any passable account of science should not ignore “the precise practice

and craftsmanship of knowing” (Latour 1986: 3).

It appears that by doing ‘anthropology’, the sociologists of scientific knowledge have

created a heuristically fruitful ethnological fact for the anthropologist of science. By focusing on

‘normal science’, they run into difficulties concerning the relation between theory and practice.

This raises the question whether these difficulties may be caused by the way the relation between

theory and practice is defined in the target culture? Put in a broader, historical context this

problem reads:

1. Since the time of the Scientific Revolution, the majority opinion has been that in

science, theory has primacy over practice. That is to say: for over half a millennium at

least, practice was taken to be an application of theory (Caws 1979: 227-228).

2. Recently, this view has come under attack, but no clear alternative has supplanted it yet.

3. What does the long-standing view that science is a theory-dominated affair tell us about

the culture which is the habitat of science?

In the next Fieldnote, I discuss this problem.

asked what they can tell us about the world”. Bloor, though, is very well aware of this tension. “(W)hilst I have stressed the materialist character of the sociological approach”, he writes (1976: 141-142), “still the materialism tends to be passive rather than active( ...) (I)t represents knowledge as theory rather than practice. The possibility for the right blend seems to me to be there, even if it has not been realised."

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FIELDNOTE

II. THEORY AND PRACTICE

In The Sociological Roots of Science, Edgar Zilsel (1942) shows us that the problem

of the relation between theory and practice has its roots in the historical origin of

science itself. Historically, he argues, science is the product of the merging of theory

and practice; a development, unique in world history, which took place in Western-

Europe from the 14th till the 17th century (on the Zilsel thesis see Keller 1957 and

Krohn 1976: 8-43). Zilsel detects In this period the gradual converging of three social

(and intellectual) strata: university scholars, humanists and artisans. University

scholars and humanists were rationally trained; they were the carriers of formally-

systematized, logical and mathematical knowledge. Craftsmen were the pioneers of

experimentation, observation and causal thinking. They were lacking, however, in

methodical training. Distinct institutional and social locations and upper-class

prejudice towards manual labour had strictly separated these strata from each other.

Thus, the two main components of science (theory and practice) were separated by a

social barrier: theory was reserved for upper-class scholars, while practice was left to

more or less plebeian artisans. The latter’s importance, however, increased in the

15th and 16th century because in this period they brought about many innovations, to

do with shipbuilding, architecture and instrument making, the drawing of maps, the

construction of canals and sluices, etc. These innovations furthered the growth of

early capitalism and began to attract the attention of scholars. The upper stratum of

these craftsmen, the 'artist-engineers', developed a communication net- work of their

own, through which reports of their activities and findings, written in the vernacular,

were distributed.16 ,

16 Zilsel calls these men ‘artists-engineers’, because they were painters, sculptors, architects,

inventors and engine-constructors simultaneously. He refers (1942: 552) to men like Brunelleschi (1377-1446), Ghiberti (1377-1466), Alberti (1407-1472), Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Leonardo daVinci (1452-1519), and Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571). In 'The Scholar and the Craftsman in the

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Briefly put, according to Zilsel the origin of science is the result of the merging of

knowledge and skills present in the strata mentioned, a process brought about by the

progress of technology and the social reordering which was the effect of early

capitalism.

Zilsel’s argument (a) that science is the product of a unique development and

(b) that the crucial factor in this development is the merging of theory and practice,

may well remind us of something important. The amazement that science arose at all

– an experience to which Zilsel (1942: 545) refers – concerns the fact that theory and

practice actually did ‘come together’. Zilsel emphasizes that this is not a ‘natural’

event. According to him it is the product of a unique constellation of historical

circumstances, which, being a good Marxist, Zilsel describes in terms of social-

economic conditions.

Here I want to make a distinction between:

1. Zilsel’s thesis that the origin of science is the result of the merging of theory

and practice.

2. Zilsel’s of this process.

It is not necessary to endorse Zilsel’s explanation (I will explain why I don’t in chapter

6) to accept his thesis, and to share his amazement that theory and practice came

together at all (which I do).

A critic might object that Zilsel has not proved that the merging of theory and

practice is not a ‘natural’ situation. It could be argued that if it is the case that distinct

institutional and social locations and upper-class prejudice towards manual labour

had strictly separated the ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ social strata from each other,

then this separation was the effect of unfavourable circumstances obtaining in class-

societies. Maybe in classless societies, where these circumstances are absent,

theory and practice go happily together in one stable form of knowledge. Should one

Scientific Revolution' Rupert Hall (1959) warns against exaggerating the role of the craftsmen andtheir technology in the Scientific Revolution. Basically his argument is that (1959: 21): (a) the Scientific Revolution is primarily a revolution in theory and explanation; (b) the successes of the Scientific Revolution sprang mostly from its novel treatment of questions that went back to the medieval philosophical tradition; (c) the initiative for using the methods of observation and experiment lay with the scholars rather than the craftsmen. For a similar view, see Merton (1959: 26).

74

adopt this line of reasoning, then one could reverse the Zilsel-thesis by asking why

this ‘natural’ development – the merging of theory and practice – did not occur, for

instance , in Ancient China or in Greek and Roman Antiquity? In fact, many authors –

Joseph Needham among them – have raised this question.

If we are to accept the Zilsel-thesis, we have to address this line of reasoning

first. As I discuss the China-case in chapter 6, let us look here briefly into Greek

Antiquity.

2.1 Plato’s indignation

In his Life of Marcellus (GBWW 13: 252), Plutarchus tells us that Plato pronounced

his undisguised contempt for the (few) philosophers ( e.g. Eudoxus and Archytas)

who tried to solve geometrical problems with the help of mechanical tools and

experiments.17

(B)ecause of Plato's indignation at it, and his invectives against it as the mere

corruption and annihilation of the one good of geometry, which was thus

shamefully turning its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence

to recur to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without base

supervisions and depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to

be separated from geometry, and, repudiated and neglected by philosophers,

took its place as a military art.

And about the war machines of Archimedes he says:

These machines he had designed and contrived, not as matters of any

importance, but as mere amusements in geometry; in compliance with king

Hiero's desire and request, some little time before, that he should reduce to

practice some part of his admirable speculation in science, and by

accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use, bring it

more within the appreciation of the people in general (...) Yet Archimedes

possessed so high a spirit, so profound a soul, and such treasures of

scientific knowledge, that though these inventions had now obtained him

the renown of more than human sagacity, he yet would not deign to leave

17 “Eudoxus and Archytas had been the first originators of this far-famed and highly-prized art of

mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration of geometrical truth, and as means of sustaining experimentally, to the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof by words and diagrams” (Plutarchus, Life of Marcellus, GBWW 13: 252).

75

behind him any commentary as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of

engineering, and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit, he

placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where

there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life (ibid.: 252-253).18

Surely, it would be all too easy to simply point at Plato's indignation as an explanation

of the non-occurrence of this ‘natural’ development – the merging of theory and

practice – in Ancient Greece. Was the situation different in the age before Plato?

Pleket (1980) has raised this latter question and, like Zilsel, he too looks at the

historical constellation for an answer. Zilsel explained why the constellation in

Western-Europe at a certain period was such that theory and practice could merge.

Pleket tries to explain why in Greek Antiquity the historical constellation prevented it.

He mentions two main causes: (1) abundance of man power (1980: 112) and (2) the

mentality of the upper classes (1980: 112-119). It is quite likely, Pleket argues, that

the upper classes in ancient society generally shared the view expressed by Plato

and Archimedes concerning the value of the practical application of theory (1980:

113). Two components are involved here: (a) the literary-rhetorical and the semi-

philosophical ideal image of education (1980: 113-114) and (b) the economy:

investment was meant to expand landownership and not increase the productivity of

labour. That is why the development of labour-saving devices was not encouraged

(1980: 114-119).

Whatever the merits of these accounts, they implicitly assume that a

connection between theory and practice has to occur, if no unfavourable conditions

prevent it. Of course this may be true. But the reverse may also be true. This implicit

assumption may as well stem from a misleading analogy with the historian’s own

culture. How are we to decide if the latter is the case? Obviously, a historian – or for

that matter an anthropologist – cannot avoid analogies with his own culture. He

assumes, for instance, that people everywhere have language, organize themselves

into societies, have families, have the ability to acquire knowledge about the world,

18 Against the view expressed by Plato and Archimedes we have the position of the Alexandrian

School of Engineers. Adherents of this School assumed the unity of theory and practice. (Pleket 1980: 98-99). Their opportunity was restricted to certain sectors in the ancient society, for instance in militarytechnology. Development in this field was promoted especially by certain rulers like Dionysius theElder, tyrant of Sicily, who in 399 BC ordered his engineers to construct military engines in preparationfor war with Carthage (1980: 99-100 .ff).

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have religion, etc.. How is he to establish if any of these analogies is misleading?

Instead of answering this question in a general way, I will deal with it by presenting a

case, which allows me to put the theory-practice issue in a broader context.19

2.2 THE AZANDE-CASE

A much-discussed issue from Evans-Pritchard's well-known book on Witchcraft,

Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937), is about the Zande poison oracle. The

poison is called benge, the extract of a wild forest creeper (Evans-Pritchard 1937:

314). It was administered to a fowl and a question answerable by a simple 'yes' or

'no' would then be put (1937: 295 ff.). The fate of the fowl constituted the answer of

the oracle. Certain checks were built into this procedure, however. The benge was

tested before it was used (1937: 281); and questions were always put twice. If a fowl

died during the first test, another one had to survive the second test for the judgment

of the oracle to be accepted as valid (1937: 299; for further details see pp. 258-351.)

Discussing the poison oracle, Evans-Pritchard thinks it wise to inform the home-front

by saying:

I must warn the reader that we are trying to analyse behaviour rather than

belief. Azande have little theory about their oracles and do not feel the need for doctrines (1937: 314; emphasis added).

Some pages later, he expresses the same warning in even stronger terms (‘little

theory’ is replaced by ‘no theory’ now). This time, however, he adds an important

piece of information concerning the traditional status of the oracle.

Azande have no theory about it; they do not know why it works, but only

that it does work. Oracles have always existed and have always worked as they work now because such is their nature (1937: 320; emphasis

added).20

19 The material for this case is taken from Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the

Azande (1937).It was discussed by Polanyi 1958. After the publication of Wmch 1964 (reprinted in Wilson 1970), the Azande-case was taken up in the rationality debate in British philosophy. It became “effectively, the standard example for use in discussions of this kind” (Barnes 1974: 27). It was discussed by, among others, Horton 1967(reprinted in Wilson 1970), Gellner 1968, Barnes 1974, Bloor 1976, Triplett 1988 and Jennings 1989.

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In fact, says Evans-Pritchard, Azande are interested in the poison oracle only as part

of their tradition.

Proper benge is endowed with potency by man’s abstinence and his

knowledge of tradition and will only function in the condition of a séance

(1937: 314; emphasis added).

It is their adherence to traditional beliefs, he says, which makes Azande stand

out against the educated Westerner.

(l)t is necessary to point out that Zande ideas about benge are very different

from notions about poisons prevalent among the educated classes of

Europe. To us it is a poison, but not to them (1937: 314). It is certain that

Azande do not regard the reactions of fowls to benge and the action of

benge on fowls as a natural process, that is to say, a process conditioned

only by physical causes. (…) Indeed, we may ask whether they have any

notion that approximates to what we mean when we speak of physical

causes (1937: 315).

It is true that the educated classes of Europe have often shown a very good

understanding of the nature of poison. But why would a Zande have a very different

notion of it? Evans-Pritchard is ambiguous on this point. On the one hand, he cannot

but admit that Azande actually have a “crude common-sense notion of poisons”.

They know that certain vegetable products can be lethal without attributing supra-

sensible properties to them (1937: 315). They also know that benge is poisonous. On

the other hand, however, unlike educated Europeans, Azande “have no idea that it

might be possible to kill people by adding it to their food” (1937: 316; emphasis

added). But then again, a fowl used in an oracle is sometimes eaten. Where this is

the case, the fowl is cleansed of poison first: its neck and stomach are removed.

“(T)his action”, Evans­ Pritchard admits, “would imply a knowledge of the natural

properties of benge that they refuse to allow in other situations” (1937: 317).

20 So strange is this lack of theory that on the next pages (1937: 321-322) Evans-Pritchard once more

repeats his warning: “I must repeat that Azande themselves have no theory of oracles. Oracles can reveal hidden things to man. The Zande feels no need to explain why they can make their revelations. He never asks himself this question.”

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Obviously Evans-Pritchard – a classical anthropologist if ever there was one –

has trouble in understanding the poison oracle against the background of Zande

tradition. “It is not always easy to reconcile Zande doctrines (sic!) with their behaviour

and with one another”, he says (1937: 317; emphasis added). This, however, is an

odd complaint: one would have thought that Evans-Pritchard was trying to analyse

behaviour rather than belief. Azande, he emphasizes, have no ‘theory’ about their

oracles and do not feel the need for doctrines. So what is the point of trying to

reconcile something which is not there, with what is there? Nevertheless, despite his

own warning, this is precisely what Evans­ Pritchard keeps doing.

Azande observe the action of the poison oracle as we observe it, but their

observations are always subordinated to their beliefs and are incorporated

into their beliefs and made to explain them and justify them (1937: 319;

emphasis added). As a matter of fact, Azande act very much as we would

act in like circumstances and they make the same kind of observations as

we would make. (...) But Azande are dominated by an overwhelming faith

which prevents them from making experiments, from generalizing

contradictions between tests, between verdicts of different oracles, and

between all the oracles and experience (1937: 318; emphasis added).

What is the source of Evans-Pritchard's difficulties? Can we place these difficulties in

the context of a culture that has sent Evans-Pritchard on his mission?

2.2.1 Beliefs and actions

Evans-Pritchard's difficulties have to do with what he perceives to be the lack of

coherence of Zande ‘discourse’. What does this incoherence boil down to? There are

two issues involved here, the first of which causes Evans-Pritchard little trouble

because he can easily explain it. This first issue concerns the fact that Azande beliefs

often seem to contradict each other. Like Goody (1977) would do after him, Evans-

Pritchard attributes this lack of coherence in Zande ‘discourse’ to the lack of literacy.

(T)he contradiction between (...) beliefs and (...) observations only become

a generalized and glaring contradiction when they are recorded side by

side in the pages of an ethnographic treatise.(...) But in real life these bits of

knowledge do not form part of an indivisible concept, so that when a man

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thinks of benge he must think of all the details I have recorded here.

They are functions of different situations and are uncoordinated. Hence

the contradictions so apparent to us do not strike a Zande (1937: 319).

So, the apparent incoherence of Zande ‘discourse’ has – partly at least – to do with

the fact that Zande beliefs have never been recorded and systematized in a manner

possible only in a literate culture. Were these beliefs written-down and systematized,

then the contradictions would be apparent to the Azande. In this view it is literacy that

promotes rationality.21 However, the second issue is the real source of Evans-

Pritchard's difficulties in grasping the poison oracle on its own terms.

In order to compensate for the lack of rationality in Zande culture, Evans-

Pritchard recorded and systematized Zande beliefs and subsequently invited his

informants to reflect on them. Thus he asked them what would happen if benge were

to be administered to a fowl without a question being put? (Tradition says that benge

is only effective if a question is addressed to the oracle.) Or if more benge was

administered to a fowl than the dose prescribed by tradition? Or if benge were added

to the food of an enemy? His efforts, however, were in vain. He could only conclude

that the Azande were not interested in these kind of problems at all.

The Zande does not know what would happen, he is not interested in what

would happen, and no one has ever been fool enough to waste good oracle

poison in making such pointless experiments, experiments which only a

European could imagine (1937: 314; emphasis added) (…) Were a

European to make a test which proved Zande opinion wrong they would

stand amazed at the credulity of the European who attempted such an

experiment. If the fowl died they would simply say that it was not good

benge. The very fact of the fowl dying proves to them its badness (1937:

315).22

21 Goody 1977, 1986, 1987; Goody, ed., 1968. See further in chapter 6.

22 In itself, this argument is logical. It has the structure of the modus tollens. Evans­ Pritchard (1937:

320) acknowledges that Zande “mystical notions are eminently coherent, being interrelated by anetwork of logical ties, and are so ordered that they never too crudely contradict sensory experience”.However, he says, Zande presuppositions are wrong. “The Zande is immersed in a sea of mysticalnotions, and if he speaks about his poison oracle he must speak in a mystical idiom” (ibid.).

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Why were the Azande not interested in drawing the kind of conclusions a Westerner

would draw? Or in ‘scientifically' testing their oracle? Evans­ Pritchard's explanation

is that the Azande are “dominated by an overwhelming faith” in tradition (1937: 318).

They “make the same kind of observations as we would make”, but these

observations “are always subordinated to their beliefs” (ibid.). So it is not so much

their actions that make Azande different from ‘us Westerners’; after all Azande “act

very much as we would act in like circumstances”. What makes them different though

is their traditional beliefs. Their actions are ‘subordinated’ to these beliefs and it is this

that accounts for the incoherence of their ‘discourse’. If one accepts these strange,

traditional beliefs, these “mystical notions” (1937: 320), one could not but admit that,

on these terms, Azande “reason excellently” and “display great ingenuity in ex­

plaining away the failures and inequalities of the poison oracle and experimental

keenness in testing it” (1937: 338; emphasis added). But, of course, as a Westerner

one cannot accept these beliefs because they are obviously false.

2.2.2 The relation between beliefs and actions: a misleading analogy?

It appears then that Evans-Pritchard has run into trouble. Despite his warnings that

Azande have no ‘theories’ about their oracles and do not feel the need for doctrines,

and despite his intention to concentrate on behaviour and not on beliefs, he can only

conceive of Zande behaviour as being “subordinated to beliefs” and guided by “an

overwhelming faith” in tradition. That is to say: the Azande have no ‘theories’ about

their traditional practices, but are nevertheless guided by the former when performing

the latter!

The question which arises is if Evans-Pritchard's difficulty is caused by a

misleading analogy with his own culture. At this point of my Fieldnote it is difficult to

answer this question with "yes" or "no." For how are we to decide whether Evans-

Pritchard's difficulty is to do with an idiosyncratic bias or with a misleading cultural

analogy? It would be helpful if we would have at our disposal an alternative

description which:

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1. focuses on the relation between beliefs and action;

2. does not run into the kind of difficulty Evans-Pritchard is facing.

Fortunately there is such a description.

2.3 THE AKHA ZAN

Deborah Tooker (1990) has given us the kind of alternative we are looking for.

Drawing mainly upon ethnographic material from the Akha of Northern Thailand, she

examines the relation between tradition on the one hand and beliefs and theoretical

tenets on the other.

Tooker begins by establishing that in Akha language there is no equivalent for

the Western terms ‘religion’ or ‘ethnic' The closest Akha term, which combines

connotations a Westerner would call ‘religious’ with connotations a Westerner would

call ‘ethnic’ is a word meaning ‘types of people’ (Tooker 1990: 800).

For the Akha, ‘types of people’ are distinguished by their zan. Identity

switches are seen as switches of behaviour or zan whereby one ‘becomes’

(...) one of another ‘type of people’. ( ..). A switch of ethno-religious identity

is not a statement that one's beliefs (..) have changed, but rather a

statement that one's behaviour (one's zan) has changed (ibid; emphasis

added).

Thus, to be an Akha is: to practise Akha zan. Roughly zan can be translated as

‘tradition’. The term covers a set of practices which a Westerner would characterize

as heterogeneous.

Zan includes things that we would term religious practices, such as how to

worship spirits, how to honour the ancestors and how to carry out rituals,

but it also includes what we would call technological practices such as how

to plant rice properly, how to construct a house, where to keep domestic

animals, or how to boil eggs. In addition, zan includes rules for action, such

as how to take rice out of the rice steamer, how to interact with your father-

in-law, what kind of clothes you are to wear and at what age, or in what

order you are to marry in relation to your siblings (Tooker 1990: 803).

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For the Akha, you cannot believe or not believe in zan. You can only ‘carry’ or 'not

carry' zan, like a mule can carry or not carry a load of rice. 'Carrying' Akha zan makes

you into an Akha, not 'carrying' Akha zan makes you into someone else. If you do not

carry Akha zan, you are not permitted to live in an Akha village. Conversely, if you do

not live in an Akha village, you cannot, for the most part, 'carry' Akha zan, since the

proper structure is not there, and the proper people are not present (1980: 805).23

Behaviour is evaluated as either correct or incorrect in relation to zan. The Akha

frequently argue about how to carry out zan properly. In this they focus on the

appropriateness of behaviour (as opposed to the truth value of conceptions relating

to it). For the Akha, truth and falsehood is not an issue.

Thus, if one carries out the proper procedures with the proper speech

attached in the proper circumstances with the proper participants, one is

'lining up' with zan (ibid).

The Akha are by no means exceptional in this. Similar observations have been made

by Watson (1988) for ancient China, by Lewis {1980) for contemporary New Guinea

and by the historian Robin Lane Fox for ancient Rome (Fox 1976; see also

Balagangadhara 1994). Like Tooker, Watson opposes the Chinese emphasis on

'orthopraxy' (correct practice) to the Western emphasis on 'orthodoxy' (correct belief).

(T)he proper performance of rites in the accepted sequence, was of

paramount importance in determining who was and who was not deemed

to be fully 'Chinese.' Performance, in other words, took precedence over

belief – it mattered little what one believed (...) as long as the rites were

performed properly(...). (T)he ideological domain in China does not

assume universal belief or unquestioned acceptance of the truth (Watson

1988: 4 and 10).

Likewise, speaking about ancient Rome, Robin Lane Fox (1976: 31) asserts:

By modern historians, pagan religion has been defined as essentially a

matter of cults. (...) Pagans performed rites but professed no creed or

doctrine. They did pay detailed acts of cult (...) but they were not committed

23 A similar case from contemporary Japan was described by Sharon Traweek (1992: 457): In Japan

“(p)eople who have been abroad for more than about five years are said to no longer have a Japanese soul (ki) and not to be able to lead other Japanese because they lack crucial skills (hara-ge); they and their children are generally treated with disdain, at best”.

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to revealed beliefs in the strong Christian sense of the term. They were not

exhorted to faith (see also Nock 1933).

In his discussion of the Gnau ritual of penis bleeding, Lewis (1980: 2) noticed that the

Gnau – who live in the West Sepik Province of New Guinea – when asked why they

practised this ritual usually said “no reason but tradition, that it was the right thing to

do, one that their forefathers had taught them”.24 Sometimes, however, they did give

a reason, but in those cases “they did not overtly link the custom and the reason”

(ibid.; emphasis added). In his discussion of the ritual, Lewis (1980: 19) comes to the

conclusion that “(w)hat is clear and explicit about ritual is how to do it – rather than its

meaning”.

Just like the Zande, the ancient Chinese, the ancient Romans and the New

Guinea Gnau, the Akha have no 'theories' about their traditional practices on which

these practices are supposedly founded, nor is there a need for doctrines. Unlike

Evans-Pritchard – and many other anthropologists - Tooker suggests that the

'beliefs' and 'theories' Western anthropologists are trained to infer from the observed

behaviour are just that: inferred beliefs, which probably tell us more about the

anthropologist's own culture than about the others. She endorses Dan Sperber's

(1985: 45) warning that:

It is a truism – but one worth keeping in mind – that beliefs cannot be

observed. Ethnographers do not perceive that the people they study

believe this or that; they infer it from what they hear and see. Their

attributions of beliefs are therefore never incontrovertible. Both the way in

which the content of a belief is rendered and the description of the people's

attitude as one of 'belief' are open to challenge.

Tooker kept this in mind when she did what she was trained to do, viz. infer Akha

'beliefs' from their rituals. She noticed (1980: 813) that “ordinary villagers would often

contradict those inferred 'beliefs' or just be uncertain about them without showing any

desire for certainty” (italics in original). Unlike Evans-Pritchard, however, she did not

conclude from this that Akha 'discourse' was 'incoherent.' On the contrary, she

decided that if the Akha have no specific theories about their traditional practices,

24 To say about a practice that ‘it is the custom’ is certainly to reflect on the status of the practice and

not merely report on it (cf. Lloyd 1990: 20).

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then the Akha relation to tradition should better not be described in terms of a

discourse, because 'discourse' presupposes a web of beliefs and propositions in

which a certain account of the world is confirmed as true. Put differently: as the Akha,

or for that matter the Zande, the Gnau, the ancient Chinese, and the Ancient

Romans, do not found their tradition on beliefs, then describing their relation towards

tradition in terms of a coherent and meaningful discourse would amount to imposing

a misleading analogy on it.

Regarding the characterization of 'traditional societies' as 'closed,' Tooker says

that while the 'traditional' may rightly be associated with a certain type of rigidity,

Westerners are inclined to immediately associate this rigidity with inflexible beliefs. In

fact, she emphasizes (1980: 815), the situation may be quite the reverse. If so

inclined, the Akha may speculate freely about the meaning of traditional practices

and many different answers may be given. This does not concern the Akha at all as

long as traditional practices are carried out properly. In this sense Akha society is

less 'closed' than Horton would have it, but for a different reason than Barnes

presumed (see section 1.1). Speculation is free because it has no direct bearing on

traditional practice. Beliefs about 'how the world is' have no direct relevance for the

proper behaviour of an Akha (1980: 813).

(W)hile, on the one hand, there is no great concern about 'beliefs' attached

to zan, precisely because this concern is lacking villagers did not hesitate to

make alternative statements about the meaning of zan, thus illustrating a

sceptical capacity. They were not, however, concerned about which

statement was the 'true' interpretation, and which statements were false

(1980: 814; italics in original).25

2.4 THE PRINCIPLE OF HUMANITY

Now that we have contrasted Evans-Pritchard's with Tooker's description, we are in a

better position to decide whether Evans-Pritchard runs into difficulties because of a

misleading analogy with his own culture. Evans-Pritchard could only conceptualize

tradition as a belief-guided and theoretically founded set of practices. If Tooker,

25 For similar observations about ancient Rome, see Balagangadhara 1994, chapters 2 and 9.5.

85

Watson, Lewis and others are right, however, he thereby transformed the terms of

description, by providing practical certainties with something they never had or ever

needed: a theoretical foundation (Balagangadhara 1994: 367).The crucial question is

whether this transformation had a cultural origin.

We may take a clue from Barnes' suggestion that the troubles 'the British

anthropologist' had to deal with arose from the latter's inclination to apply some

version of the arationality assumption as a standard for rationality and coherence.

Measured by this standard, Barnes says, the 'belief systems' of other cultures cannot

but appear incoherent and irrational. At the same time, however, Barnes also

assumes that “the alien discourse is coherent and meaningful”. That is to say: Barnes

thinks it is obvious that another tradition can be adequately described as (a) a

discourse, which is (b) coherent and (c) meaningful. Problems arise from the fact that

an ‘alien discourse’ is subjected to a misleading standard. But the presupposition that

other traditions can be adequately described in terms of a discourse remains

unchallenged, just as it was in Evans-Pritchard.

This transformation of description – describe practical certainties in terms of a

theoretical foundation – is also implied in Grandy's (1973: 443) ‘Principle of

Humanity’, which stipulates that in an anthropological description of other cultures

'the imputed pattern of relations among beliefs, desires and the world be (described)

as similar to our own as possible”. This Principle, says Putnam (1981: 117), is:

the basis of all the various maxims of interpretive charity or 'benefit of the doubt',

such as 'interpret them so that their beliefs come out reasonable in the light of what

they have been taught and have experienced', or Vico's (...) directive to maximize

the humanity of the person being interpreted (emphasis added).

Likewise, Steven Lukes (1982: 264) says that the Principle of Humanity – which

“prescribes the minimizing of unintelligibility” – “has the singular virtue of being the

principle we do in practice apply in the interpretation and translation of beliefs"

(emphasis added) .

The 'we' in Lukes' argument applies to Evans-Pritchard as well as to Barnes.

Likewise, it applies to Robin Horton who – referring to Evans-Pritchard's study –

maintained that 'traditional cultures' are 'closed,' because there is no developed

awareness of alternatives to the established body of theoretical tenets. Obviously the

86

presupposition that cultures have (are?) 'an established system of beliefs' and that

they can be adequately described by explicating these beliefs, which 'somehow'

guide the behaviour of the participants, has had a great impact on the intellectual

landscape of Western anthropologists. Apparently, it is inconceivable to them that

behaviour is not ultimately guided by 'a system of beliefs.' That is why they assume

that a culture can be described as a coherent and meaningful discourse. What at first

sight may strike the eye as ‘madness’ will appear to have ‘method in't’ as soon as the

anthropologist has penetrated the 'system of beliefs' behind it.

2.5 IN CONCLUSION

I come to the conclusion that the assumption that other traditions may be adequately

described as 'systems of beliefs' is a misleading analogy with Western culture. Why

the West conceives cultures in terms of beliefs is a question we still have to examine.

But let’s for the moment suppose that it does so on good grounds. The long-standing

view that science is a theory-dominated affair would fit nicely in this Western

conception. The problems which sociologists of scientific knowledge face when they

try to describe the relation between scientific theory and practice in a new way, may

be better understood when read in this context.

I further conclude that by appealing to 'classical anthropology' – defined as a

method for analysing and accounting for the beliefs of a tribe or preliterate society on

their own terms – the early sociology of scientific knowledge has not put anthropology

to proper use. By concentrating on the beliefs of a culture one is not avoiding

ethnocentric evaluations and misleading analogies with one's own culture. On the

contrary, one is transforming the terms of description, by providing practical

certainties with something they never had or ever needed: a theoretical foundation.

End of Fieldnote

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III. HAVE WE EVER BEEN ANTHROPOLOGICAL?

Despite their appeal to 'anthropology,' the sociologists, in their first move towards a full-blown

sociology of scientific knowledge, had in fact stuck to the received methods of macro and micro-

sociology. Their aim was not to put forward anthropological method for the social studies of

science, but to pick up the thread of classical sociology of knowledge and to expand and

generalize it to other areas of knowledge. This situation began to change int he late 1970's, when

a plea to introduce anthropological field-methods into the study of science was made.26 "In the

move towards a sociology of science," Steve Woolgar (1982: 481) concluded, “it is surprising that

only a small proportion of research had been devoted to the practice of science” (italics in

original).

The social study of science continue(d) to rely mainly on removed, secondary sources:

interviews with scientists, published scientific papers and other documentary evidence.

To put the point bluntly, relatively few sociologists of science have bothered to go and

see for themselves what actually goes on in science (ibid.).

Laboratory studies were designed to redress this situation by focusing on the in situ observation

of scientific activity.

As I examine here the question what made ‘the anthropological perspective’ attractive for

the sociology of scientific knowledge, I will not discuss what laboratory studies have added to the

sociology of science and to our understanding of scientific practice, conceived as practical-

manipulative activity. Instead, I will restrict myself to their “strategic importance” (Woolgar 1982:

482), which is that they contested prevailing “philosophical views about the nature of scientific

method” (Woolgar 1991: 79). My first question is what laboratory studies have added to the

strategic significance of the sociologists’ appeal to anthropology. My second question is whether

laboratory studies have succeeded in tapping anthropology’s potentials for describing science as a

cultural phenomenon.

26 See Knorr 1977, 1979; Latour 1979, 1980; Latour and Woolgar 1979.

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3.1 Opening the black box

The sociologists of scientific knowledge have introduced anthropological field-methods

“to counter misleading and idealized portrayals of science and scientific method” (Woolgar 1988:

84). These methods should allow sociologists to open the ‘black box’ of the research site (Whitley

1972) and provide it with a methodological and theoretical significance denied by the

philosophers of science (Knorr-Cetina 1982a: 101). These field-studies of scientific practice ‘at

the work-bench’ confirmed in great detail, what controversy studies had already demonstrated:

the production of scientific knowledge was stamped by a local, contingent setting.27 Not only

that. These studies also suggested an answer to the problem (Ravetz 1971: 2) of how stable

knowledge arises from an unstable, contingent context. Stable knowledge emerges from a

continuous process of negotiation over the entire research activity, whereby the fluid inter­

actions between individuals gradually solidify and a consensus grows on what are facts and what

artefacts.

What is behind the growth of consensus though? A rationalist philosopher will not be

upset by the finding that knowledge production is stamped by local, contingent factors. He will

simply claim that consensus is based on evidencing reasons. Likewise, a Mertonian sociologist of

science will argue that local, contingent influences will eventually be filtered out of scientific

knowledge through the way science is organized as an institutionalized activity.

Laboratory studies were intended to undermine these arguments by showing that

contingent social influences are not filtered out of scientific knowledge but are cosmetically

smoothed away (Woolgar 1988: 67-88).28 The strategic importance of laboratory studies was that

they described this process of’ 'cosmetic engineering’, with special attention for the instruments

and other objects available in the laboratory, because the latter have the aura of:

(…) rhetorical neutrality in the sense that they are thought of as being merely ‘used’ or

‘applied to’ the materials (or animals) being investigated (...) By merely ‘using’ the

device scientists invoke as neutral a mechanism which in fact drains upon, and is

27 E.g. Collins 1975, 1976; Collins and Cox 1976, 1977. 28 In this way, these studies were supposed to provide the sociologists of scientific knowledge with the knock-

down argument against the philosophers of science. We have seen already, though, that this kind of evidence will

not convince a rationalist, because it is irrelevant for the validity of scientific knowledge.

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shaped by, a multitude of previous decisions, inventions and selections by previous

communities of scientists (1988: 87-88).

An interesting promise of laboratory studies is that “the in situ monitoring of scientific activity,

gives us the benefits of the experiences of an observer undergoing prolonged immersion in the

culture being studied” (Woolgar 1988: 85). Application of an outsider’s perspective to the

laboratory ‘culture’ is supposed to enable the anthropologist to recall some of the puzzles this

‘culture’ has solved as puzzles. Generally accepted answers could be recognized as the upshot of

a contingent ‘decision-impregnated’ (Knorr-Cetina 1982a) negotiation process, in which the

very content of scientific knowledge has been defined. According to Collins (1985: 1), this

whole operation has significance for more than a few academic specialists interested in science

studies.

(W)hen it is regarded in this way the study of science can tell us things about culture as awhole (...) Our cultural environment – the everyday world – has to be turned into a

strange place if we are to see that its perceived orderliness is a remarkable and

mysterious human accomplishment (ibid.; italics added).

But how can a study of ‘decision-impregnated’ negotiation processes tell the anthropologist

something about ‘our culture as a whole?’ The problem here is identical to the one discussed

earlier (chapter 2 section 4.1) with regard to Barnes’s reference to ‘particular forms of culture’ and

‘our general culture’. Laboratory ‘culture’ is only a tiny fragment of ‘our general culture’. The

claim that prolonged immersion in laboratory ‘culture’ can tell us things about ‘our general

culture’ is vacuous unless: (1) one is able to say something interesting about ‘our general culture’

and (2) one specifies how laboratory ‘culture’ is nested in ‘our general culture’. The ethnographers

of the laboratory, however, have little to say about ‘our general culture’. That is why their studies

tend to get stuck in the minutiae of a self-defeating empiricism. Some practitioners of lab studies

have seen this problem. Their answer is the development of Actor Network Theory, whose most

well-known champions are Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law.29 Has their alternative

succeeded where laboratory studies failed?

29 I will ignore the subtle differences between these authors, as they are not relevant for my purpose (but see Law 1992).

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3.2 Actor network theory: a promising alternative?

The adherents of Actor Network Theory have criticized the sociologists of scientific knowledge

for not fully implementing Bloor’s symmetry tenet, which is at the core of their theoretical

position. The sociologists have been keen to deconstruct Nature 'out there,' but yet they believe

that there is a macro social context 'out there,' which 'somehow' influences 'ideas about' Nature

(Latour 1993: 21). They are "simultaneously constructivist where nature is concerned and realist

where society is concerned" (1993: 27). This asymmetrical stance is "the final obstacle separating

us from an anthropology of science" (1993: 26).30 In order to remove this ‘final obstacle’ Latour

advances a ‘generalized symmetry’, which not only treats theories and belief-systems on a par – as

did Bloor's symmetry tenet – but which extends the symmetry and impartiality tenets to the

relation between humans and objects – or between Society and Nature – as well. Here we have

the most controversial point of Actor Network Theory. The network which is at the core of the

theory is conceived as a heterogeneous field of forces in which actants – a term which applies to

humans as well as non-humans – are engaged in continuous "trials of strengths, of

weakness" (Latour 1988: 158).

Whatever resists trials is real. (...) The real is not one thing among others but rather

gradients of resistance (1988: 158-159).

An implication of this view is that “for us to recognize this co-construction of machines by

humans and of humans by machines, we must be prepared to grant machines the status of active

actants rather than passive objects which are simply present-at-hand” (Lee and Brown 1994:

775).31 Another implication is that those non-human actants well under way to achieve the status

of ‘rhetorical neutrality’ have a higher gradient of resistance than human actants. In fact they

form the main stabilizing nodes in the network.

(I)n order to understand (social order) we have to turn away from an exclusive

concern with social relations and weave them into a fabric that includes non­ human

30 Even Shapin and Schaffer have not been able to avoid this “final obstacle”. Nevertheless, Latour (1990: 147) calls their Leviathan and the Air-Pump (1985) “the real start of an anthropology of science, ;because the authors have made an object (the air-pump) into one of the main figures of their story. By doing this, says Latour (1993: 16) Shapin and Schaffer have at least implicitly "”ruin(ed) the privilege given to the social context in explaining the sciences as they shifted their focus from the world of opinions and arguments to the world of practice and skills” (Latour 1990: 151). 31 For a discussion of this implication of actor network theory, see the papers in American Behavioral Scientist 37, nr. 6 (1994), devoted to “Humans and Others: The Concept of ‘Agency’ and its Attribution”. For a critique, see Collins and Yearly 1992; for the reply from actor network theory, see Callon and Latour 1992; for the response see Collins and Yearly 1992a.

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actants, actants that offer the possibility of holding society together as a durable

whole.(..).We are never faced with objects or social relations, we are faced with chains

which are associations of humans and non-humans . (...) Whenever we discover a

stable social relation, it is the introduction of some non-humans that account for this

relative durability (Latour 1991: 103 and 110-111).

Or, in terms of the title of one of Latour’s papers: Technology is society made durable.

Describing “the irruption of objects into the human collective, along with all the manipulations

and practices that objects require” (1991: 94), gives us a new approach for the problem of socio-

cognitive order. Society and Nature are both conceived of as “the dual result of one single

stabilization process” (ibid.). A ’symmetrical anthropology’ of our modern world follows the

dynamics of this stabilization process (Callon and Latour 1992: 362). This anthropology is really

symmetrical, because it not only describes Western and non-Western belief-systems on a par. By

describing every human collective in terms of a constantly shifting field of opposing forces –

temporarily stabilized by the strength of non­human actants – it will completely abolish the

Great Divide that the West has erected between itself and ‘the Rest’ (Latour 1993: 97-109).

The ethnologist of our world must take up her position at the common locus where roles,

actions and abilities are distributed -those that make it possible to define one entity as animal

or material and another as a free agent; one as endowed with consciousness, another as

mechanical, and still another as unconsciousness and incompetent (1993: 15).

3.2.1 Towards an anthropology of the modern world?

Actor Network Theory has enabled Latour to transform his anthropology of science into what is

announced as nothing less than an anthropology of ‘the modern world’ (Latour 1993). So his

implicit claim is that by studying science we can say something about ‘our general culture’ indeed.

In current discussions Latour’s project seems to be accepted as exemplary for the anthropology

of science. So my own proposal actually can be seen as an alternative to Latour’s. This obliges me

to point out what his project is and why an alternative is needed.

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3.2.1.1 Latour's Project

Latour has formulated his recent project in We Have Never Been Modern (1993). He argues that ‘the

modern world’ arose from a dynamic in which three entities were simultaneously created, viz.:

(1) the world of the humans (or Society);

(2) the world of the non-humans (or Nature);

(3) the ‘crossed-out God’.

The secret of the modem world is that these entities – which have come into being in relation to

each other – are assigned three strictly separate ontological domains. Their conjoined birth is

carefully masked and the domains constituted by these entities are treated as separate under all

circumstances. A ‘modern person’ is someone who believes in this ‘masquerade’. Conversely, one

ceases to be modem as soon as one recognizes that this so-called modern world was based on an

illusion all along.

As the title of his book indicates, Latour’s message is that in fact we have never been

modern. In the modern world, humans and non-humans were allocated separated ontological

realms and on this separation a Great Divide was postulated between ‘moderns’ and ‘primitives’

who – from the modern point of view – were constantly confusing the human and the non-

human domain.32 The alleged separation of Nature and Society, though, has actually never been

effectuated. The claim that it has been, was the smoke-screen behind which humans and non-

humans were continuously interconnected through networks of hybrids – mixture of human and

non-human forces – on a scale unprecedented in human history.33 It is Latour's hypothesis that

the strength of modernity consists precisely of this unrestrained proliferation of hybrids under

the assumption that hybridization has not taken place.34

32 The primitive's inability to make a clear distinction between the human and the non-human realm was taken to be the essence of la mentalité primitive. 33 The modern world, says Latour, is characterized by the proliferation of entities which do not neatly fit into the pigeon-holes tagged ‘Nature’ or ‘Culture’. (Think of the hole in the ozon layer, agro-industry, in vitro fertilization, to give only a few examples.) That is why he ironically calls these entities ‘hybrids’ or ‘monsters’, indicating that they are blendings of ‘Nature’ and ‘Culture’. 34 Latour calls the practice which is based on this latter assumption ‘purification’.

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3.2.1.2 The Guarantees of the modern world

According to Latour, the Protean dynamics of the modern world is ensured by Four Guarantees:

The First Guarantee is that Nature is transcendent: it can be known and mastered

objectively.

The Second Guarantee is that Society is immanent: people are the creators of their own

society.

These two Guarantees, however, are only effective, if they work together.

Simultaneously, they produce the Third Guarantee. It allows the moderns to invoke and

ignore the other two Guarantees, as circumstances require.

Now the modems can believe in the distinctness of Nature and Society – or of humans and non-

humans – and act as though no such separation existed. To give an example from experimental

science: The modern believes that the laws of Nature are independent of human intervention; at

the same time, however, he ‘produces’ these laws in the laboratory.

(Experimental) scientists create experimental analogues to (theoretical) models, which

like them are isolated systems, which often attempt to distinguish more and isolate

more effectively objects, events, or processes to which theories might refer, but which

would not otherwise appear unmasked from more complicated, unanalysed situations

in the world at large. Experimental micro-worlds are thus generally designed to be amenable to

theoretical treatment (Rouse 1988: 105; emphasis added).

The Fourth Guarantee settles “the question of God by removing Him for ever from the dual

social and natural construction, while leaving Him presentable and usable nevertheless" (Latour

1993: 32-33).

No one is truly modem who does not agree to keep God from interfering with

Natural Law as well as with the laws of the Republic. God becomes the crossed­ out

God of metaphysics, as different from the premodem God of the Christians as the

Nature constructed in the laboratory is from the ancient physis or the Society invented

by sociologists from the old anthropological collective and its crowds of nonhumans

(1993: 33).

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The moderns treat this Fourth Guarantee in the same ambiguous way they treat ‘transcendent

Nature’ and ‘immanent Society’.

(God's) transcendence distanced Him infinitely, so that he disturbed neither the free

play of nature nor that of society, but the right was nevertheless reserved to appeal to

that transcendence in case of conflict between the laws of Nature and those of society.

(...) The moderns could now be both secular and pious at the same time. (...) Modern men and women

could thus be atheists even while remaining religious ( ibid.; emphasis added).

Unlike the first three Guarantees, Latour discusses the Fourth one in a casual way. So, his view

on the relation between ‘settling the question of God’ and the other Guarantees remains almost

completely in the dark. Nevertheless, Latour makes some remarks which are well worth

developing further.

Latour intriguingly hints at the re-entrance of the crossed-out God into the modern

world in a secular guise, when he notes that the crossing-out of God goes together with the

“reinterpretation of the ancient Christian theological themes” ( ibid.). This suggests that the

crossing-out of God took place in terms of ancient theological themes. In order to make this

reinterpretation possible, the explicit theological character of the ancient themes has given way to

a reformulation in not-recognizably-religious, i.e. secular terms. What structured the crossing-out

of God, so that ancient theological themes could breed their own alternatives? My provisional

and partial answer is that ancient religious themes had become part of the ‘implicit knowledge’ of

the modem world. In the next Fieldnote I will elaborate this theme.

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FIELDNOTE

IV. THE CROSSED-OUT GOD AND THE MODERN WORLD

If the crossing-out of God really is a Guarantee for the modern world, we must

conclude that the modern world could come into being only in a culture where the

existence of God is taken for granted in the first place. Not only that. If it is true that

“(n)o one is truly modern who does not agree to keep God from interfering with

Natural Law as well as with the laws of the Republic” it must also be true that in this

culture, conventionally, God is assumed to have this power. Moreover, if it is true

that:

1. the crossing-out of God was part of a broader process in which Nature and

Society were separated into distinct ontological domains in direct connection

with God's crossing-out; and

2. the moderns could now be both secular and pious at the same time,

because the crossing-out of God took place in terms of ancient theological

themes,

then it must also be true that the power of God to ‘interfere’ with the ‘laws’ of Nature

and of the Republic will have been transformed into a secular guise and, in this

secular garb, were made into a constitutive part of the modern conception of Nature

and Society.

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4.1 PRIESTS OF NATURE

How is the crossing-out of God connected to the separation of Nature and Culture?

On this important question, Latour remains tantalizingly vague. Take his analysis of

Boyle's efforts to get an experimental science off the ground. Relying in his argument

mainly on Shapin and Schaffer (1985), Latour (1993: 22) says that Boyle has taken

“possession of the old repertoire of penal law and biblical exegesis”, applying it “to

the testimony of the things put to the test in the laboratory”.

At first glance, Boyle's repertoire does not contribute much that is new.

Scholars, monks, jurists and scribes had been developing all those

resources for a millennium and more. What is new, however, is their point

of application. Earlier the witnesses had always been human or divine –

never nonhuman (1993: 23; emphasis added).

Subsequently, Latour places all emphasis on this new application of the old

repertoire. The fact that it had been part of the Western heritage “for a millennium or

more” is noticed only casually and almost en passant. It is not explained what made

such a new application of the old repertoire possible. However, in the new application

of the old repertoire we have an excellent example of the reinterpretation of Christian

theological themes. Latour (1991a: 10) himself admits that much:

Hermeneutics is not a characteristic of the social sciences; it is the property

of all exegetic work .(..) All sciences are the offspring of biblical exegesis.

The Book of Nature is the second tome of the Bible; this is what scientists

since Galileo have echoed (emphasis added).

Again, the observation that “all sciences are the offspring of biblical exegesis” is

made almost casually. No argument is given why scientific theories are essentially

exegetical and why Nature could be conceived as a Book. The question, though, is

too important to be treated light-heartedly. Many informants have made similar

observations. “It was one of the commonplaces of early modern philosophical

discourse”, says Steven Shapin (1988a: 23), “'that nature had the status of a text and

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that natural philosophical exercises were hermeneutic in character”. From the

sixteenth century onwards, this view was expressed in the well-known metaphor of

The Book of Nature (Eisenstein 1993, chapter 7), in which the world was conceived

as verbum visibile.35 Reading this Book had almost the same status as reading the

bible, as far as Boyle was concerned (Shapin and Schaffer 1985: 319).

For Boyle (...) the experimental philosophers were to be called the ‘priests

of nature’. (…) (T)hey were charged with the production of ‘successful

arguments to convince men there is a God’. (...) The presentation of

experimenters as the ‘priests of nature’ was extremely influential: their work

was held to have direct effects in the establishment of religion and their

laboratories acquired a sacred status. (...) Boyle suggested that

experimental trials should best be performed on Sundays as part of the

worship of God (ibid ; see also Klaaren: 156 ff.).36

The image of the book, though, was not only applied to Nature.

For many everything that was made by the divine architect was necessarily

intelligible and was itself a revelation. The usual suggestion was that there

were three books - the Book of Creation (or Creatures), the Book of Nature,

and Book of Conscience. Knowledge of the world was deemed to be

available in each of these books (Nelson 1974: 471; italics in original.37

It should be emphasized that "”the image of nature's book was neither a mere literary

trope nor an empty aesthetic analogy. The Book of Nature set the frame of reference

for the natural philosophical enterprise. It determined the nature of the decoding

process that defined natural philosophy, and it licensed the use of the particular

language of natural philosophical discourse” (Shapin 1988a: 24; for relevant

literature, see especially note 2 of Shapin’s paper). Within this context, Nature can be

conveniently conceived as an object, carrying a message from its sender to the

receiving subjects who have to decipher it.

35 This term which was used by Augustine to refer to the sacraments. 36 When offered an ecclesiastical living, Boyle refused, however. For a Christian naturalist, he said, it was best to work in a space impervious to ecclesiastical control (Shapin and Schaffer 1985: 314). The independence of a scientist’s testimony was what made it valuable (1985: 313). 37 On the Book of Conscience, see Morris 1972, especially chapter 4.

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4.2 Science and exegesis

The image of Nature which is inherent in the above observations is that of a message

or a text. This makes the activity of acquiring knowledge about Nature into an act of

decoding or reading. According to my informants , the writer of this text is God and

the reader is man. This image of Nature as a text written by God can be related to the

notion of objectivism (see chapter 2, Fieldnote), by conceiving the latter as a

secularized version of the belief in a transcendent Creator-God, whose creation, in

the words of Boyle, consists of ‘letters’, revealing an order which the great Author-

Creator has published (Klaaren 1977: 157). According to this view, it was man's duty

to understand God's revelation by deciphering those letters and by fitting them into

an interpretation of God's message. But who was qualified to read a message sent

by God himself? And by what standard could such a reading be measured?

As Heyd has told us, in the period of the Reformation science could gain full

legitimacy by relating itself to ‘the soteriological bridge’. In the terms we are

developing here, this is to say that science could legitimate itself by claiming to

provide a reading of God’s message. Rephrasing this point in secularized language,

this means that science could justify itself by claiming to penetrate the intelligible

order of the universe and describing it from an objectivist point of view, sub specie

aeternitatis, so to speak. Describing the universe sub specie aeternitatis – that is, in

the felicitous phrasing of Roth and Barrett: limning the world and specifying what,

ultimately, there is – that is what science, ultimately, was (is) aiming at. Neither the

fact that the history of science is the graveyard of dead theories, nor the

simultaneous existence of different theories is inconsistent with this view of science.

Actually these facts are a part of the religious heritage of the scientific endeavour. To

illustrate this point, let us look once more to Robert Boyle.

Although Boyle was convinced that the ‘letters’ of the universe were clearly

open to direct inspection and that hence there was no need for any ‘hypothesis’

(Klaaren 1977: 154), he never went so far as to deduce particular scientific theories

and results from the divine laws. As Klaaren (1977: 165) says: “there was no direct

line from the law of God to Boyle's law”.38

38 That is why Latour has a point in saying that the laws of Nature are simultaneously transcendent and produced in the laboratory.

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(l)t is striking that for all his emphasis on God's authorship of law, Boyle did not advance examples directly embodying such laws in his chemistry or pneumatics. That is, he did not seek to justify his own particular results or even specific laws by claiming that they were of God (1977: 170).

The latter would have been preposterous indeed! God's Will -which expresses itself

in the laws of nature - is knowable for man only under two conditions.

1. It is only possible for man to know God's Will in as far as it pleases God to

reveal himself.

2. Man’s capacity of understanding is fallible.

Given these conditions, how can man ever be sure that he has understood the divine

message correctly? The answer to this question is simple. Given man's fallible

capacity of understanding, he can never be sure that he has understood God’s

message correctly. This, however, concerns only specific readings of the text. Man

can be sure about the essence of the text, which is that the world is created by God

and that it expresses His Will. Or, to put it in the terms I used before, man can be

sure that there is a uni-verse that is intelligibly ordered – the intelligibility of the uni-

verse being guaranteed by the Will of God. Any human interpretation of this

intelligibility or any description of the order which exemplifies such an intelligibility

could be called into question, though. But it requires another interpretation or

description to do so. Faith in an intelligibly ordered uni-verse is unaffected by the fact

that many partial descriptions of the said order have come and gone. Instead of

weakening it, these alternatives strengthen such a faith, because they provide the

moral certainty (and the empirical evidence) that the search for the correct, true

description of God's message is ceaselessly going on.

Consider now the following sketch of an argument, which will be developed in

the rest of this study:

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1. The ‘crossing-out of God’ took place in terms that preserved the structure of

the world as a text and of acquiring knowledge about the world as an act of

exegesis.

2. The moral duty of man to pursue the correct interpretation of God’s

message was preserved in the pursuit of the correct description of the

universe sub specie aeternitatis.

3. The conviction that there is a uni-verse which is intelligibly ordered has not

been affected by the fact that the history of science is the graveyard of dead

theories. Rather, this fact has strengthened faith that there is progress in

science.

It seems to me that, had Latour elaborated his casual remarks about the Fourth

Guarantee of the modern world, his ‘anthropology of the modern world’ would have

been heuristically more productive than it is now.

4.3 The real start of an anthropology of science?

Remember the claim of the protagonists of laboratory studies that prolonged

immersion in laboratory ‘culture’ can tell us things about ‘our general culture’ I said

that this claim is vacuous unless: (1) one can tell something interesting about ‘our

general culture’ and (2) one specifies how laboratory ‘culture’ – or, for that matter,

science in general – is nested in ‘our general culture’. Laboratory studies were not

inspired by an elaborated notion of ‘our general culture’. So, despite their talk about

‘the culture of the laboratory’ they have added very little to our knowledge of science

as a cultural phenomenon.39 Has Actor Network Theory fared better in this respect?

Above I argued that one obstacle to describing another tradition on its own

terms is the Principle of Humanity (‘interpret them so that their beliefs come out

39 A similar argument (although not directly directed against lab studies) is brought forward by Peter Dear (1995: 4-5). If one's goal is to give an account on the level of culture, he suggests, concentrating on local accounts is not the way. They will tell little about culture, but leave instead a constellation of inexplicable coincidences stretching from London to New York, from San Diego to Rome. That is why, in his book on the gradual acceptance of ‘Physico-Mathematico-Experimental Knowledge’, Dear places the emphasis on what those local settings shared rather than on their local idiosyncrasies.

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reasonable in the light of what they have been taught and have experienced’).

Inspired by this Principle, the early sociologists of scientific knowledge prescribed an

impartial and symmetrical stance towards all ‘belief systems’ and traditions. This

stance was supposed to close the gap between the ‘primitive’ and the Western

scientist. Put differently, this stance aimed at reducing the differences between

cultures. It did so, however, by changing the terms of description: practical certainties

were provided with a theoretical foundation.

It is debatable whether a strategy aimed at reducing the differences between

cultures is of any avail to anthropology, or, for that matter to a Comparative Science

of Cultures. Of course, Barnes is right in saying that both the Zande witch-doctor and

the scientist have to be initiated into the esoteric beliefs and practices of their own

society. They both believe what they are told by the teachers of their tribe. Having

admitted this much, however, anthropology (or a Comparative Science of Cultures)

can only begin to raise interesting questions. By contrasting the way a scientist is

initiated with the way a Zande with-doctor is, such an inquiry will focus on the

differences between both practices. Then comes the crucial question: What makes

these differences into cultural differences? Barnes, again, is right in arguing that such

a comparative approach requires that the anthropologist avoids misleading analogies

from his own culture. But the possibility has to be reckoned with that a strategy

designed for reducing differences between groups of people by changing the terms of

description, may well be such a misleading analogy itself.

It can be argued that Latour in his Actor Network Theory has transformed the

Principle of Humanity into a ‘Principle of Actants’.

The goal of anthropology is not to (…) provoke incomprehension .(…) (W)e can now drop

entirely the ‘Us’ ‘Them’ dichotomy, and even the distinction between moderns and pre-

moderns . (...) There Are No Cultures. (...) In other words, the differences are sizeable, but

they are only of size. They are important (…) but they are not disproportionate (...) The

collectives are all similar, except for their size (Latour 1993: 102, 103, 108; emphasis added).

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Latour, of course, is right in arguing that the goal of anthropology is not to provoke

incomprehension. But neither is its goal to force ‘comprehension’ by wiping out all

qualitative differences between groups of people. The Principle of Humanity reduced

all differences between groups of people to differences in beliefs. The Principle of

Actants only recognizes differences of force. Maybe it is possible to re-describe

societies in these terms. But is it productive?

By describing every human collective in terms of a constantly shifting field of

opposing forces – temporarily stabilized by the strength of non-human actants – it

completely abolishes the Great Divide that the West has erected between itself and

‘the Rest’, says Latour (1993: 97-109). However, it is not anthropology's goal to

abolish ethnological facts. If it is true that the West has erected a Great Divide

between itself and the others, than the task of anthropology is to make this finding

intelligible as the fact of a culture.

Moreover, we have established that one group of people experiences the

world as an intelligible ordered uni-verse and that another group has problems in

grasping what such a uni-verse is all about. The Azande and Akha cases have taught

us that one group of people (represented in the Azande-case by Evans-Pritchard)

conceives human actions as expressing ‘underlying’ beliefs about the world and that

in other groups ( e.g. the Azande, the Akha) beliefs about ‘how the world is’ have no

bearing on proper behaviour. It is these kind of differences that the anthropology of

science is interested in, because it may well be that they play a constitutive part in

the coming into being of science. By claiming that ‘all collectives are similar’ and that

‘there are no cultures’, Actor Network Theory – like the Principle of Humanity –

stands in the way of comprehending the qualitative differences between groups of

people that may explain why one group developed science and the other ones did

not. Therefore, its claim to have transformed anthropology of science into a full-scale

anthropology of the modern world is not justified by its results. A more promising

alternative is needed.

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