Authors: Lorraine Daston & Peter Galison
Objectivity has a history, and it is full of strange things. In objectivity, Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison document the emergence of objectivity in mid-19th century sciences – and show how the concept differs from alternatives, reality to nature and learned judgment. This is a story about epistemic high ideas related to workday practices in making scientific images.
From the 18th through the early 21st century, the images that reveal the deepest promises of the empirical sciences – from anatomy to crystals – are those that appear in scientific atlases: The compendia that ‘teach users control over what’ s worth looking at and how to look at it. Atlas images describe the workings of the eye sciences: avalanches, galaxies, skeletons, even basic grains.
Whether an atlas maker identifies an image to capture the essentials in the name of truth in nature or refuses to erase even the most accidental detail in the name of independence or illuminating patterns in the name of learned judgment a decision is enforced by philosophy as well as by epistemology, says a review of the University Press website.