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The chronogeography ofpersuasion: Normative prospectsin constructivist science studiesGer Wackers aa Department of Philosophy , University of Limburg ,Maastricht, NL‐6200 MD, The NetherlandsPublished online: 19 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Ger Wackers (1992) The chronogeography of persuasion: Normativeprospects in constructivist science studies, Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge,Culture and Policy, 6:3, 299-313, DOI: 10.1080/02691729208578666

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SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY, 1992 , VOL. 6, NO. 3 , 2 9 9 - 3 1 3

Symposium on the 'Hard Program' in the sociology of scientificknowledge

The chronogeography of persuasion:normative prospects in constructivist sciencestudies

GER WACKERS

1. Introduction

Having entered the field of science studies a couple of years ago I have no published,professed, or vested intellectual interests in any of the programs subsumed by Schmaus,Segerstrale, and Jesseph (SSJ) under the epithet 'Soft Program'. This, and theassumption that the principal spokespersons of these programs can speak forthemselves, puts me in the comfortable position of being able to speak for myselfwithout being forced to adopt a defensive stance.

In the following sections I will outline my view on the dispute between the Hard andthe Soft Programmers, and on prospects of maintaining critical aspirations inconstructivist science and technology studies. In Section 2 I will argue that we betterget rid of the epithets Hard Program and Soft Program since they only serve therhetorical function of distinguishing between the good guys and the bad guys. InSection 3 I will try to put the positions held by SSJ and—what I willcall—constructivists in proper 'normative' perspectives against the backdrop of a morewide-ranging debate wherein the ideals of enlightenment—or what is left of them—areat stake. Section 4 deals with what various programs in constructivists science andtechnology studies have in common, which will be specified in Section 5 as adenouncement of justificationary rhetorics. In Section 6 I will agree with SSJ that theproblem of persuasion is of central importance, but that I do not support theirapproach. Sections 7-10 will then give a rough outline of my attempts to grasp howpersuasiveness is accomplished by exploring space and time dimensions in scientificwork. Rather tentatively, I will make some remarks about the powerful rhetoricalfunction of invoking desirable and undesirable futures and their neglected criticalpotential. Where appropriate I will give examples from my own research which isprimarily concerned with biomédical science, medical technologies, and medical ethics.

Author: Ger L. Wackers, Department of Philosophy, University of Limburg, NL-6200 MD Maastricht, TheNetherlands.

0269-1728/92 $3.00 © 1992 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

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2. Situating the combatants

The epithets 'Hard Program' and 'Soft Program' serve the rhetorical function—andwith all due respect, no other one—of tracing a boundary between them and us.

'Them' are the 'new' sociologists of scientific knowledge who share a set of mutuallycontradictory assumptions, a radically incoherent blend of anti-realism, relativism andsociological reductionism.1 Soft Programmers treat scientists as unknowing puppetsand attempt to explain their actions exclusively in terms of alleged social forces ormembership of social groups. They proclaim 'forms of life' to be the independentvariable in whose terms all else will be explained.2 Or they treat scientists asMachiavellian strategists with no concern for the growth of knowledge,3 whose onlyhope is, not to gain assent by reason and argument, but rather to silence one anotherthrough the exercise of political power.4 Unlike real scientists Soft Programmers do notseem to 'really' believe what they say.5

'Us' are the sociologists of scientific knowledge who want to bring the scientists andtheir cognitive commitments and styles,6 the values and norms that guide scientificpractice back into a sociological account of science. Hard Programmers want toincrease the scientist's self-understanding7 and thus—for the greater good ofhumanity—contribute to the growth of knowledge themselves and make peoplecollectively wiser than they have been until now.8 According to Hard Programmers thesociology of scientific knowledge is nothing if not the study of the cognitive norms andvalues that govern the acquisition of knowledge. Hence, sociologists who do not studycognitive norms and values but who study social structures and networks are simply notdoing sociology of scientific knowledge;9 they fall outside the constraints of a sociology ofscientific knowledge.

Despite profound conceptual and methodological differences and disagreements theStrong Program, actor—network theory, EPOR/SCOT, the reflexivity program and thenew literary forms approach are all subsumed under the heading of Soft Program(singular), because they do not share SSJ's commitment to the ample and vast powers ofthe human mind:10 'If you do not believe in reasons and arguments, then we do not haveto listen to you'.11

The epithets Hard Program and Soft Program are, in Latour's words, empty warcries that define the frontline between the trenches in a controversy that exceeds theconfines of the sociology of scientific knowledge and in which the last vestiges of theideals of the enlightenment are at stake. Hilary Lawson summarized the positions of thecombatants engaged in this controversy as follows.12 On the one hand there are thosewho hold that: '[WJithout objectivity an untamed irrationalism will sweep all ourcivilized values from under us. We will be loose in a world without constraint, a worldwithout guiding principles, a world in which anything goes for those with power toexercise it'.13 On the other hand there are those who claim that: '[T]ruth is a misleadinggoal that distracts us from the task in hand. Without a metaphysical attachment tograsping reality we can get on with the business of doing as good a job as we can. Thereal danger is not of irrationalism but of the belief in truth. For it is under the guise ofthe rhetoric of truth that the most terrible acts can be justified.'14

A war cry can hardly be considered to be an appropriate name for a researchprogram. A research program's name should reflect what its proponents set out to do.It should reflect the values and ideals that are pursued and to which the researchersdevote their careers. The 4E Program would be a more appropriate name, since SSJ setout to provide an explanation of our beliefs about the world, through an explication of

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the operative norms that govern persuasion, and to provide an evaluation of scientificpractices in so far as they fail to live up to the operative norms of the scientificcommunity, while adhering to the ideals of the enlightenment.15

3. From good to better scientific practice16

Lawson's characterization of the enlightenment debate and SSJ's explicitly statedcognitive commitments and goals help to put the dispute in proper normativeperspectives. The critical, evaluative normative dimension of the 4E Program'ssociology of scientific knowledge is one of self-transcendent, internal and methodologicalnormativity.

As a first step, they propose to investigate the cognitive norms that constitute thebasis of scientific judgement. These norms may be logical, methodological, esthetic orstylistic. Taken together these norms constitute scientists' criteria for good science.11 Togain some critical distance to the individual scientist they distinguish between theindividual scientist's professed methodological norms and the actual operative norms.18

Nevertheless, a scientific community's own criteria for good science will serve as thestandard to assess a particular scientific practice. Accordingly, a salient feature of the4E Program would be to show that certain practices fail to live up to the operativenorms of the scientific community.19

As a second step, the 4E Program will examine the mutual relationship and viabilityof the norms themselves.20 When necessary they will suggest better alternatives to thenorms and practices currently in place.21 According to their own characterization the4E Program will be a sociology of scientific deviance?1 It is the 4E Programmer'sresponsibility to remedy existing deviations through a rational critique of operativecognitive norms and by increasing scientists' self-understanding. In other words, SSJsee it as their moral obligation to help scientists to transcend themselves and improvefrom their current good scientific practice to better scientific practice.23

Although not always explicit in their academic writings, the normative motivation of(European) scholars in constructivist science and technology studies is often externaland political in origin. Their political science critique is not directed towards a scientificpractice that does not live up to its own standards, but to science's role in society. Theirallegiance is not as much with the scientists as with extra-scientific social movements.This external science critique came in several waves during the course of this century, itreceived various, more or less moral or political formulations and addressed variousthemes pertaining to the relation between science, technology and society.

Between the two world wars science was criticized for its servitude to capitalistindustrialization and expansion resulting in overproduction and unemployment.Immediately following World War II science critique focused on physicists' role in theproduction of the atomic bomb, their servility to the masters of war. Science'sallegiance was with the rich and powerful. Whereas this critique primarily addressed theuses to which science and technology were put, the science critique voiced by universitystudents in the 1960s accused science—in its current shape—as being inherentlytechnocratic and antidemocratic. Society was in want of a new science, one that wouldserve the majority of people and not just an elite. In the 1970s and 1980s womenextended their critique on a male-dominated society to science and articulated aheterogeneous set of feminist critiques on science.

Over time a number of changes and shifts have occurred, not only in terms of theissues addressed, or in terms of the main spokespersons. During the 1970s and 1980s

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scholarly research and educational science and society activities were to a growingextent institutionalized in academic settings. This resulted to some degree in adepolitization and pacification of the critique. The ranks of constructivist science andtechnology studies can now be said to be populated on one hand by scholars who werediscontent with the treatment science and technology received in mainstreamphilosophy, history and sociology of science, and on the other hand by people with abackground in one of the social movements for whom researching science andtechnology in society constitutes an academic detour24 to pick up ammunition for theirpolitical work, that is to explore possibilities to (re)gain societal, democratic controlover science and technology. Hence, although the moral and political dimension isoften kept on a low profile in academic writings, the political orientation of the work isstill very much alive and back on the research agenda.

4. Dismissal of standard image of science

Since various researchers and schools in the field of constructivist science andtechnology studies draw on different philosophical traditions and resources it isimpossible to identify a communally shared hard core of ontological and epistemologicalassumptions which would turn these different approaches into one (singular) researchprogram. Thus, talk about a soft core of mutually contradictory assumptions, a radicallyincoherent blend of anti-realism, relativism and sociological reductionism25 is besidethe point.26

What they do share is the rejection, in some way of another, of the standard orreceived image of science. According to this standard image science is concerned withthe production of objective knowledge about a pre-existent world through theconscientious application of appropriate scientific methods. Science discovers facts andfacts are actual states of affair in the world.

The standard image trades on and reinforces deeply rooted distinctions betweennature and society, knowledge and beliefs, facts and values, objectivity and subjectivity,science and metaphysics, religion and politics, between scientific method andspeculation, power and reason. In science speculation, irrationalism and subjectivismhave been expelled. Science is governed by scientific method, logic and rationalprocedures for the generation of theories and for the testing of hypotheses, thusyielding a sound and objective, factual basis for action and policy-making. The standardimage portrays science as a self-propelling, autonomous intellectual activity, aprivileged way of acquiring objective, factual knowledge. It sets science aside as adistinct and autonomous cultural realm producing objective knowledge about how theworld is. On the basis of this knowledge science can suggest means to achieve specificgoals. Setting goals, however, is not the business of science. Science can thus learn uswhat can be done in the world, but not what ought to be done. Goals indicating the wayin which a present state of affairs has to be transformed into a more desirable situation,are expressions of individual or societal values. Achieving agreement about goalsbelongs to the realm of politics and society. Scientists' role in societal issues is in this,what De Vries called a restrictionist view, limited to the role of expert advisors forpoliticians and policy-makers.27

Four waves of external science critique, however, suggest that in practice sciencedoes not fit this standard image. In the past two or three decades empirical studies ofscience in society have shown that we should not take the standard image as a

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representation of how sciences and scientists work. On the contrary, the standardimage of science serves a political and ideological function. Most of the work inconstructivist science studies can be read as a systematic demolition and deconstructionof this ideological standard image, including the distinctions on which it builds and themulti-level, philosophical fortifications designed to support its reification.28 Some ofthe central notions in constructivist science studies embody this principal intention.

The idea that reality is the outcome of the closure of a scientific controversy deprivesthe standard image of science of a foundation in which to ground the purportedcognitive superiority of scientific knowledge, its objectivity and truth. I agree that theaddition that, thus, reality can not be considered to have caused the controversy'sclosure has been misleading. Few scientists and philosophers of science will endorse theview that reality causes, in some way or another, the settlement of a scientific dispute.However, what counts here is that neither scientists nor philosophers of science canderive cognitive authority from reality.

The principle of symmetry is first of all an anti-asymmetry position. It objects to theidea that propositions or theories that we currently hold to be true do not stand out inneed of further explanation, while on the other hand the adherence of great scientiststo false theories is explained by a variety of psychological or sociological factors.According to this view, in the long run no other outcome would have been possible,because currently-held-to-be-true knowledge represents the world as it is.

The contemptuous label 'whiggish' refers to the idea of history as a tale of progress,permitting to judge past scientists by their role in fostering enlightenment as we nowunderstand it. The disqualification of work in the history of science as being whiggishalso objects to the self-sufficiency of such an account. Self-sufficient accounts ofscientific developments are dismissed because they implicitly rely on a pre-existentreality as the source from which currently-held-to-be-true knowledge derives cognitiveauthority.

5. Rhetorics of justification denounced

I read the rejection of the standard image of science as a denouncement ofphilosophical attempts and strategies to justify the cognitive superiority of currently-held-to-be-true knowledge. The standard image of science preserves a claim to science'sepistemic authority and superiority, its autonomous internal dynamics and itsunimpeachability. It constitutes a coherent set of assumptions designed, not to explainthe production of scientific knowledge, but to justify the certainty with which we holdscientific knowledge about the world to be true. For those who consider thesephilosophical, justificatory operations to have failed notions like objectivity, truth andrationality have connotations of unwarranted claims and (mere) rhetoric. As Latourputs it, words like objectivity and truth are war cries exclaimed during the battle toimpress the opponent, and repeated after the battle has been won to justify itsoutcome.29 In short, what is decounced is the rhetoric of justification.

When science is concerned, justificatory rhetorics basically come in two formats,which differ in the basis or the standard from which cognitive authority is assumed toderive. They differ, in other words, in the purported locus of authority. As indicated inthe previous section, in the first format of justificatory rhetorics science's source ofcognitive authority is located in a pre-existent, external reality (empiricists, materialists,realists), and not in the scientist or her mind. In the second format, however, science's

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source of cognitive authority is located in the vast and ample powers of the humanmind, that is reason and rationality (idealists, rationalists). Rationalist reconstructionsof successful scientific developments do not explain the production of certainty; theyare designed as after-the-fact justifications. Compared with detailed empirical accountsof very material, heterogeneous and messy scientific work rationalist reconstructionsoften amount to a kind of hidden hand argument, as if despite the shortcomings of dailyscientific work reason and rationality will, in some miraculous way, in the long runproduce the right outcome.

I read Latour's moratorium on cognitive explanations as a rejection of anyphilosophical justificatory strategy which has the human mind or reason as its locus ofauthority. Thus, in reading Latour's phrase: ' . . . it is towards the mind and its abilitiesthat one looks for an explanation of forms',30 I substitute the word justification forexplanation: ' . . . it is towards the mind and its abilities that one looks for the justificationof forms'. As a rule of method the moratorium on cognitive explanations of science andtechnology is a programmatic appeal for studies accounting for scientific practices by'first lookfing] at how the observers move in space and time, how the mobility, stabilityand combinability of inscriptions are enhanced, how the networks are extended, how allthe informations are tied together in a cascade of representations.. .'.31 This is, in myview, not a denial that scientists think. Of course, scientists think. You think, I think,Latour thinks. But the point is that the human mind cannot serve as a source, a locus, ofcognitive authority, it cannot justify the certainty with which we hold scientificknowledge about the world to be true.

Let me carry the argument one step further and extend it from science to societyand, more specifically, ethics: the quest for certainty in ethics (moral foundationalism)has failed too (many moral philosophers will agree). Ever since the demise of thetraditional authority of the tomes of the past and of the church, in the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries, enlightenment moral philosophers have attempted to find a newlocus of authority for moral issues. Religious moral philosophers may still acknowledgethe unconditional authority of God, despite their rejection of the legitimacy of theuniversal Catholic Church and its leaders as God's authoritative spokesperson in moraland religious questions. In secular moral philosophies this religious vocabularity hasbeen 'metaphorized'. The religious notion of a deity was conceived as the existentiallyrealized ideal vantage point. For secular moral philosophers a deity was a metaphor forthe position of the perfect knower, the viewpoint of the Creator (the God's-eyeperspective). Some philosophers employed this notion of the deity's viewpoint as a'guiding intellectual construct, a regulative ideal against which to measure particularattempts to assess reality and to judge conduct.32 In other secular moral philosophiestalk about a deity—even in a metaphorical sense—has been replaced by talk aboutreason and theory, about rational individuals seeking rational choices and abouthypothetical rational contractors. Many of them have given up aspirations to find aflawless answer in all moral issues, restricted the scope of validity of their viewpointsand adopted a more restrictive stance concerning the role of an ethicist in practicalsituations. However, through adherence to the idea of some kind of locus of authority,some kind of transcendental moral standard, moral philosophers hoped to maintainenough critical distance to past and contemporary human practices and to keep thenotion of moral and social progress alive. The pallet of justificationary rhetorics inethics spans the whole range between aspirations to universalism, asserting thesupremacy of one moral viewpoint, on the one hand, to subjectivism on the other,claiming that nothing sensible can be said about our moral inclinations. Moral

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philosophers linger between the Scylla of absolutism and the Charybdis ofnihilism.

Philosophical attempts to justify the certainty with which we hold our beliefs aboutthe world to be true and one moral judgement to be better than the other, did notsucceed. But, since attempts to justify this certainty—or inequality in certainty—didnot account for its production, there is no ground for the anxiety that from now on 'anuntamed irrationalism will sweep all our civilized values from under us, that we will beloose in a world without constraint, a world without guiding principles in whichanything goes for those with power to exercise it'.33 In practice there is inequalitybetween beliefs. We will have to try to understand how34 as a result, this inequality cameand comes about.3S In answering this question I too consider the question of persuasionto be of central importance.36

6. Rhetorics and the production of certainty

The notion oí persuasion, the art of being persuasive, is closely linked with the notion ofrhetoric. 'Rhetoric' is used in two different meanings. The first usage draws on thedisapproving, pejorative connotations that are often associated with it, that is toindicate a type of language that is insincere and grandiloquent. This grandiloquent,rather sophistical—plausible but fallacious—use of language disguises and mystifiesunjustifiable claims, it attributes undue status and authority. It is in this sense that thenotion of rhetoric is used in the preceding section and in Lawson's: 'For it is under theguise of the rhetoric of truth that the most terrible acts can be justified'.37 I used thephrase rhetorics of justification or justificatory rhetorics to distinguish this pejorative use ofthe notion of rhetoric from its more classical meaning, that is the art of writing andspeaking effectively (persuasively).38 The study of the rhetorics of production (of certainty)in science, technology, ethics and politics is essential to any attempt to understand howcertainty in beliefs about the world and in moral and political issues is accomplished.

But how should we study the rhetorics of production of certainty in science andsociety? SSJ set out to uncover the cognitive norms and values that govern persuasion inscience. These cognitive norms and values govern science to the extent that it aims atthe growth of knowledge and define science as a social institution like any other socialinstitution is defined by the norms and values that govern it. They constitute thescientists' concept of science and the scientists' desire to increase knowledge inaccordance with these norms is what makes a social group a group of scientists.39 Associological facts the actually operative cognitive norms and values—which can bediscovered—are intended to provide an answer to the question why we are persuadedof the truth of many of our contemporary beliefs about the natural and social world inwhich we live and which are the product of science.40 It is assumed that persuasiveness isa set of intrinsic qualities (logical, methodological, esthetic, stylistic, etc.) of science'sproducts which have an operative force of their own and by virtue of which one theoryor explanation ¿5 better than another. SSJ reject the naive view that there is one correctset of norms of rationality which, if followed correctly, will provide a truerepresentation of an independently existing nature.41 Currently operative norms andvalues can be rationally criticized however, and proposals for improvement can bemade (even when an ideal set of norms and values—a transcendental standard forjustification—cannot be listed now).42 Like many others, SSJ seem to have given upaspirations to find a flawless answer, but they adhere to the idea of some kind of locus of

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authority (the vast and ample powers of the human mind), some kind oftranscendental—inexplicable—standard of rationality by which they hope to maintainenough critical distance to past and contemporary scientific practices and to keep thenotion of cognitive and social progress alive.

A constructivist perspective on the rhetorics of production of certainty would notstart from the assumption that a proposition or theory is true and that itspersuasiveness derives from intrinsic qualities. A constructivist perspective wouldconsider our belief in a theory being true to be the result of its presentation in apersuasive way. A constructivist would study what people do, how they transform andorganize the stuff with which they work, how they present it to other people in order topersuade them to accept the claims put forward.

It is obvious that persuasion has two sides to it. On the one hand there are those whotry to persuade others. On the other hand there are those who are being persuaded.Whether the act of persuasion succeeds depends to some extent on the audience: theireducation and training, the kind of practices in which they are currently involved, thelanguage and stories used to talk about the world. Let me give an example from my ownresearch.

In the nineteenth century the nervous system was the only organ system that wasconsidered to have an integrating, homeostatic function in the animal (and human)body, influencing and regulating physiologic functions in distant parts of the body. Innormal physiological conditions information about the tissues' sugar requirements wastransmitted to a sugar center in the brain stem through the nervous system. The sugarcenter, in a reflex-like manner, translated incoming signals in outgoing signals to theliver mediated through the nervous system (spinal cord, splanchnic nerves). In the liverthe nervous signals activated the enzyme that converted the stored glycogen in glucosewhich was released into the blood, thus meeting the sugar requirements of the tissues.43

Pathological conditions and experimental lesions affecting the nervous system couldkeep the sugar center in a permanent state of stimulation, resulting in anoverstimulation of the liver. Too much glycogen was converted into glucose, more thanthe tissues could burn. As a result blood sugar rose and sugar spilled over into the urinegiving rise to glycosuria, that is: diabetes mellitus. In 1889 Oscar Minkowski found thatthe complete surgical removal of the pancreas in dogs produced diabetes too. A smallremnant of pancreatic tissue, linked to the rest of the body only by blood vessels, wassufficient to forestall diabetes. In Minkowski's view, the pancreas produced a substancewhich was secreted into the blood (internal secretion) to regulate the burning of sugarin the tissues.

Eduard Pflüger, one of the most authoritative experimental neurophysiologists inGermany, rejected Minkowski's claims. Pflüger was trained as a neurophysiologist in thetradition of Claude Bernard. He worked on animals' brains and nerves, isolating,stimulating and destroying brain centers and nerve tracks with meticulous precision. Noother organ system than the nervous system had an integrating function. In diabetesthere was an overproduction of sugar. Minkowski's internal secretion theory claimedthat the pancreas too, through the blood vessels, had an integrating function(regulation of carbohydrate metabolism). In the diabetic organism there was a decreasein the destruction of sugar in the tissues, nothing being wrong with its production in theliver.

Other scientists, familiar with the use of animal tissues for the treatment of diseases(organotherapy), and many physicians, equally familiar with the grave prognosis ofsevere forms of diabetes in humans, accepted Minkowski's internal secretion theory or

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gave it the benefit of the doubt. They assumed that, if Minkowski was right, it should bepossible to use the internal secretion of fresh pancreatic tissue of animals to substitutethe deficiency in human diabetics. Hence, one of the most appealing (persuasive?)aspects of the internal secretion theory for the explanation of pancreatic diabetes inexperimental animals was its implications and future prospects for a therapy of diabetesmellitus in humans.

Thus, a new theory—like donor blood in blood transfusions or donor organs intransplantations—may be more or less compatible or incompatible with pastexperiences, practices and types of stories about the world in different audiences,determining the (initial) reception of the proposal. Authors have to be aware of theseparticularities of their audience, and many are. Authors have to decide who theirprincipal audience will be and anticipate its criticism.

Let us now turn to the analysis of the author's rhetorical work and skills. How can weconceptualize what constitutes persuasiveness when we are studying what people do inlaboratories, in fieldwork, in offices, at conferences, in writing, etc.?

7. Perceptive immediacy

The study of rhetorics focused mainly on texts. But writing and publishing textsconstitutes only one, although important, strategy or level of persuasion. We need anotion of rhetorical work and strength that captures a wider range of activities.44

The creation of perceptive immediacy seems to be of central importance in an analysisof what it is that constitutes rhetorical strength. Touch and vision rank highest in thehierarchy of senses through which we can perceive the world in which we live. Physicalresistance to touch is very persuasive with regard to the reality of the object at hand.Visibility is not far behind. Seeing is believing. But, the natural perceptive range of ourunaided senses is limited. The world beyond these limits is inaccessible. However, wehave learned to overcome this accessibility problem through the development andapplication of a class of technologies which extend or substitute for the limited naturalcapacities of the sense organs of our body. Astronomers use optical and radiotelescopes to look at and listen to the universe. Biologists use optical and electronmicroscopes to investigate the cellular and subcellular dimensions of tissues.Electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) apparatus record the weakelectrical currents of the heart and the brain. X-ray pictures give access to anatomicalstructures that otherwise would have remained hidden in the darkness of the livingbody. What would the hole in the ozone layer be without the computer screen on whichit is visualized? What would dinosaurs be if their bones had not been dug out of the soil,when their skeletons had not been reassembled and displayed and when their softtissues and their environment had not been reconstructed?

The impression of getting access to a world that is (or was) distant in space and time isillusionary, but this is the effect novellists, film-makers and scientists alike strive for.From the perspective of the 'inaccessible world' these technologies constituteintermediaries, translating the world in visible or tangible inscriptions or traces.45 Inthis view our bodily perceptive apparatus is not extended to the world, but the world isin a specific sense mobilized and brought within the perceptible section of our world.Indispensable in the interpretation of these images are the assumptions of conservationof information and of the passiveness of the intermediary technology. The role of thetechnology is assumed to be a passive one, in the sense, that it facilitates representation

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without affecting the character of the world or distorting the information.46 Thetechnology facilitates the world to inscribe itself on photographic plates and pieces ofpaper, to transmit and translate information. In a chapter titled: 'The translation ofphysiological actions into the language of machines', medical historian Stanley Reiserrelates how physicians welcomed the electrocardiograph as a way of capturing transientclinical events through visual records: 'The little strips of paper, imprinted by the diseaseitself, form a permanent and unquestionable testimony of events which haveoccurred'.47

When the creation of perceptive immediacy succeeds the author or scientist isallowed to step back and the pictures, figures and tables are allowed to speak forthemselves. The people who do all the work adopt a passive stance, while mute entitiesare given a voice; but not really. The swap of roles holds as long as the story told by thescientist about the world goes unchallenged. When doubt arises it becomes clear that itis the scientist who acts as a spokesperson for the traces. Doubt rises about what it isthat the traces are traces of, what they represent, and whether they are traces ofsomething at all or just artefacts. When doubt is raised the legitimacy of the scientist asa spokesperson for the world is called into question, like the legitimacy of the churchleaders as reliable spokespersons for God was questioned and rejected. Let me give anexample.

In the years before World War I the German physiologist Georg Ludwig Zuelzer wasworking on pancreatic extracts in an attempt to capture the hypothetical internalsecretion of the organ and find a treatment for human diabetics. In Hoffmann-LaRoche's laboratory in Grenzach he extracted 100 kg of pancreas and injected a sampleof this batch in pancreatectomized, diabetic animals to see whether the extract reducedthe secretion of sugar. The injection was unexpectedly followed by severe convulsions.Zuelzer attributed the convulsions to some kind of poison in the extract, a coppercompound released by the copper containers used in large-scale extraction. In 1922, ina laboratory in Toronto, James Bertram Collip sometimes observed lethal convulsionsand coma in rabbits injected with pancreatic extract. He took a blood sample, dissolvedglucose in water and injected the solution into a comatose and convulsive rabbit. Therabbit recovered quickly and subsequent examination of the blood sample revealed thevirtual absence of sugar in the blood. The convulsions were caused by an overdose ofinsulin. Collip established the hypoglycémie reaction or insulin shock.

One wonders whether the convulsions that Zuelzer observed were traces of a toxiccopper compound, or whether they were traces of insulin's action causinghypoglycemia? A few years later a mouse convulsion method was adopted as astandardized biological assay in which insulin displayed and performed its presence andpotency. Now researchers could say: 'Look, this is insulin'.48

8. The chronogeography49 of persuasion

Thus, the creation oí perceptive immediacy can succeed or fail. It may hold for some time,dissolve and be re-established. But how can perceptive immediacy be established? Whathappens? To answer this question we'll have to take the time and space dimensions ofscientific work into consideration. In other words, we will have to study thechronogeography of persuasion.

Latour introduced the notions of immutable, combinable mobiles and centres ofcalculation to describe how inscriptions, and traces were collected at places that were

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distant in space and at moments that were distant in time. These stable and immutabletraces were then moved through space and time and accumulated in a center ofcalculation where they could be compared, combined, juxtaposed, transformed,translated, rearranged and presented to an audience in a format in which the distancesin time and space were reduced to fit the visual field of an individual.50 The histories ofcartography and natural history provide nice examples, since the movements throughspace spanned the whole earth and it took a considerable time to bring items home tothe center of calculation, i.e. the cartographer's office or the museum for naturalhistory. But the same principles apply on a smaller scale too.

A physician who examines a patient writes the findings during physical examinationin the patient's journal. Subsequently the patient is sent to the X-ray department and toseveral laboratories where urine and blood samples are examined. The inscriptionsproduced in these laboratories return to the physician's center of calculation wherethey are combined and compared with each other and with textbooks to establish adiagnosis and prognosis.

Minkowski, in his attempt to discover the pathophysiological mechanism in humandiabetes mellitus, encountered diabetes in at least three different places: (1) in the livingpatient, that is, in the patient's home, the physician's office or in the hospital; (2) in thedead patient, that is in the autopsy room; (3) in dogs, frogs, ducks and otherexperimental animals in the research laboratory of the experimental physiologist. Then,as now, the relevance of what can be observed in the dead body, or in experimentalanimals, to the understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms at work in the livingpatient, is never obvious. Minkowski accumulated inscriptions from these distantplaces, including information about the circumstances in which they were obtained, andjuxtaposed them in his office and in his writings. Only by paying attention to thechronogeographic dimensions of his work, how he moved, stored and combined tracesgathered at different times in different places, can we begin to appreciate Minkowski'sdifficult task of translating these mute items in a strong and persuasive argument for anew, unknown substance and organ function.

Although the creation of perceptive immediacy through the use of material, that isvisible and tangible displays (tables, pictures, graphs, models, demonstrations, etc.)contributes to an argument's rhetorical strength, texts are indispensable. Materialdisplays do not speak for themselves. They always need a spokesperson to speak forthem, in spoken or written explanations of what it is that can be seen. Of course, textscan also be more or less persuasive without the explicit use of traces. Numerous studiesexamined the rhetorical power of plots, the presence or absence of the author, themonovocality of texts, the use of tropes, positive and negative modalities andstratification, the function of indirection or captation.51 Skillfully written, persuasivetexts mobilize past, present and possible future worlds. According to my Webster'sNinth New Collegiate Dictionary mobilize means: to marshal (as resources) foraction.

9. The rhetorical potential of the future

The time dimension in the notion of immutable combinable mobiles pertains to thetime intervals between the production or collection of traces, in the same place or indifferent places, and the time required to move them to and store them in a center of

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calculation in a stable form to allow for subsequent processing and translation intomaterial displays in order to create perceptive immediacy in a text. However, the worldsthat are mobilized in texts span the whole time axis from past to future.

All the 'paleo-sciences'—from paleoanthropology, via paleoepidemiology topaleozoology—mobilize ancient worlds that once were but are no more. The tracesused by scientists in these disciplines have been collected relatively recently, (over thepast decades, a few centuries at the most). The worlds that are mobilized, however, spanthe whole of geological time, which itself is a product of modern geology. We arecertain that once dinosaurs populated this earth, that ancient Egyptians suffered fromdiabetes mellitus and that the evolution of man really happened.52

But possible future worlds are mobilized in texts too:—not only in science fiction andliterature. The scientification of the future, the construction of possible futurescenarios with scientific means, is a rather recent phenomenon. Implicit or explicitappeals to desirable or undesirable futures have a long-standing history as rhetoricaldevices and resources for action.

In the case of the Pflüger/Minkowski controversy on the cause of diabetes mellitus, itwas Pflüger who was most explicit about his obligation as a research scientist to seek thetruth. The truth was, according to Pflüger, that diabetes was a reflex neurosis whichcould be triggered by a wide variety of neorological affections in all possible provincesof the nervous system. And how much he regretted that he could not offer diabeticpatients the prospect of a treatment for their ailment, this was the truth. Despite itsincompatibility with a long-standing and authoritative neurophysiologic tradition indiabetes research, Minkowski's internal secretion theory did offer the prospect of a verydesirable future in which diabetes could effectively be treated. It was this prospect thatspawned a 33-year search for the internal secretion and which can explain manyscientists' tenacity in the light of failing attempts to capture insulin in pancreaticextracts.53

The rhetorical function of possible futures in political and moral controversies isoften far more explicit. In debates concerning definitions and criteria of death, forexample, at least two different futures have been invoked which can be roughlyoutlined as follows. Biomédical research has increased medicine's technologicalcapabilities in organ transplantation and many more patients can now be saved. Inorder to do so medicine needs good-quality donor organs from brain-dead patientswhose oxygen supply to the organs has not been interrupted by cardiac or respiratoryarrests. Opponents of a brain death definition mobilize a future world in whichsurgeons harvest patients' organs even before they are properly dead, denying patientsan, albeit small, chance of survival and recovery. Scientific, technological, moral, legaland political matters are inextricably linked.

By claiming that 'without objectivity an untamed irrationalism will sweep all ourcivilized values from under us, that we will be loose in a world without constraint, aworld without guiding principles, a world in which anything goes for those with powerto exercise it',54 torch-bearers of the enlightenment mobilize an undesirable future too.They too use the future as á rhetorical device to convince others that, on scientific,political and moral grounds, it is essential to hang on to notions, like objectivity, truthand rationality—despite the many philosophical problems these notions are fraughtwith.

To my knowledge little work has been done in constructivist science and technologystudies on the rhetorical function and power of invoking, mobilizing possible—goodand bad—futures.

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10. Conclusion: the critical potential of the future

The critical, productive and mobilizing potential of invoking possible futures has beenwidely practiced, but largely neglected, in science studies. Constructivists face a seriousdilemma. Are they, through their deconstructivist work and the rejection of thepossibility of ever finding an independent locus of authority in cognitive, moral orpolitical issues, silencing themselves? Are they not bound to give up their political andcritical aspirations because they have assigned to themselves a descriptive and analyticalrole?

This dilemma is only a dilemma if having a locus of authority is considered to be aconditio sine qua non for any critical stance. Constructivists have no privileged access to alocus of authority either. Their claims, accounts or proposals are no more justifiable byreference to an independent standard than those of rationalists or realists. But no lesseither, that is, constructivists are not worse off than anybody else. There is no reasonwhy they should not be allowed—or should not allow themselves—to speak.

The question is not one of justifiability. It is neither in the tomes of the past nor innature, neither in a transcendental religious realm nor in society that we will find thecritical perspective that we are looking for. It is in the future. The problem is one ofestablishing common technoscientific, moral and political points of orientation whichmake traditional distinctions between science and society redundant.55 Bothestablishing these points of orientation and achieving them are rhetorical problems.Exploring the chronogeography of persuasion might teach us how this can beaccomplished.

Notes

1. SCHMAUS, W., SEGERSTRALE, V. and JESSEPH, D. 'The "Hard Program" in the sociology of scientificknowledge: A manifesto", Social Epistemology (1992) 6(3): pp. 243-266.

2. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 259.3. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 243.4. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 260.

5. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 247.6. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), pp. 245-246.7. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), pp. 249-250 and 252.8. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 263.9. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 263.

10. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 263.11. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 262.12. LAWSON, H. 'Stories about stories', in LAWSON, H. and APPIGNANESI, L. (eds), Dismantling Truth. Reality in

the Post-Modern World, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London (1989), pp. xi-xxviii.13. LAWSON, (see note 12), p. xiii.14. LAWSON, (see note 12), p. xiii.15. SCHMAUS, et al. (see note 1), pp. 249 ff., pp. 253-254.16. See: JENSEN, U. J. 'From good medical practice to best medical practice', International Journal of Health

Planning and Management (1989) 4: pp. 167-180.17. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 250.

18. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 250.19. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 252.20. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 252.21. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 253.22. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 252.23. Management consultants and social workers might serve as role models for the 4E sociologists of scientific

knowledge.24. See: BIJKER, W. 'Do not despair: there is life after constructivism', Kennis en Methode (1990) 14(4): pp.

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324-345. Paper presented at the conference on 'Technological Choices: American and EuropeanExperiences', 12-14 April 1990, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.

25. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), pp. 243-244.26. This does not mean that I find all of SSJ's critique on the different bodies of work besides the point.27. DE VRIES, G. 'Feitelijk expansionisme, een restrictionistische visie: praktische wetenschappen en

waardevrijheid', Kennis en Methode (1990) 14(1): pp. 44-59.28. The demystification and deconstruction of universal knowledge claims and a priori distinctions, that is

revealing their contingent and constructed character, accounts for the popularity of constructivist sciencestudies in social movement circles.

29. LATOUR, B. 'Clothing the naked truth', in LAWSON, H. and APPIGNANESI, L. (eds) Dismantling Truth,Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London (1989), pp. 101-126.

30. LATOUR, B. Science in action, Open University Press, Milton Keynes (1987), p. 246.31. LATOUR (see note 30), pp. 246-247. Latour's moratorium does not differ from SSJ's appeal (see note 1 ), p.

263) to good minds to contribute studies in the sociology of scientific knowledge along the lines which theyset forth in their manifesto, which they believe to be the path to people's augmented collective wisdom forthe greater good of humanity.

32. ENGELHARDT, H. T. The Foundations of Bioethics, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 19.33. LAWSON, (see note 12), p. xiii (see notes 12 and 13).34. Why questions ask for justifications. How questions ask how it is accomplished.35. Showing that beliefs that we hold to be true or right cannot be justified does not imply that therefore these

beliefs are wrong or merely subjective. Any constructivist account of science and society will have to dealwith the egalitarian fallacy, that is with the tendency to draw the conclusion that unless one judgement(moral or cognitive) can be shown to be more valid than another, then all judgements must be equal orequally valid. See: HERNSTEIN SMITH, B. Contingencies of Value. Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory,Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (1988), p. 98.

36. See SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), pp. 249-250.37. LAWSON, (see note 12), p. xiii.38. See Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.39. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), pp. 250, 254, 255.40. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 249.41. SCHMAUS et al. (see note 1), p. 244.42. Compare SSJ's discussion of cognitive norms and values with Beauchamp and Childress' discussion of tests

for the assessment of currently available ethical theories. These tests constitute a list of virtues that an idealethical theory should possess (clearness, internal consistency and coherency, comprehensiveness,simplicity). According to Beauchamp and Childress, these virtues constitute a moral standard thattranscends the insights and beliefs of many particular groups and traditions and which is useful forcritically examining and restructuring past moral thinking and present moral perplexity. BEAUCHAMP, T. L.and CHILDRESS, J. F. Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Oxford University Press, New York (1989), pp. 14-15,23-24.

43. This mechanism is similar to our modern understanding of the regulation of respiration in whichchemoreceptors in the wall of blood vessels detect oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations. Thisinformation is transmitted to the respiration center in the brain stem, which gives off signals to therespiration muscles to increase or decrease the frequency and/or depth of respiration.

44. Latour provided in my view the most inspiring attempt to develop an analysis of the rhetorics of production inLaboratory Life (1979, 1986, together with Woolgar), in The Pasteurization of France (1988) and in Science inAction (1987).

45. I prefer the notion of traces since it covers a wider range of entities than artificially produced inscriptionsand allows for the inclusion of petrified dinosaur footprints, fossils and arthritic bone deformations.

46. WOOLGAR, S. 'The ideology of representation and the role of the agent', in LAWSON, H. and APPIGANESI, L.(eds) Dismantling Truth. Reality in the Post-Modern World, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London (1989), p. 134.

47. REISER, S. Medicine and the Region of Medical Technology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, p.109.

48. See: WACKERS, G. 'Insulin: from hypothesis to standardized treatment' (forthcoming).49. I borrowed this word from: PARKES, D. and THRIFT, N. Times, Spaces and Places. A Chronogeography

Perspective, Wiley, Chichester (1980).50. LATOUR, B. Science in Action, Open University Press, Milton Keynes (1987), p. 215 et seq.51. A growing body of literature on the rhetorics of scientific writing is emerging. See for example: GROSS, A.

G. The Rhetoric of Science, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (1990); WHITE, H. Metahistory. AnIntroduction, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (1973) and Tropics of Discourse, Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, Baltimore (1978); BAZERMAN, C. Shaping Written Knowledge. The Genre and Activity of theExperimental Article in Science, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI (1988); BILLIG, M. Arguingand thinking. A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA (1987);NELSON, J. S., MEGILL, A., MCCLOSKEY, D. N. (eds) The Rhetorics of the Human Sciences: Language andArgument in Scholarship and Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI (1987), Mason, J.Philosophical Rhetoric. The Function of Indirection in Philosophical Writing, Routledge, London (1989).

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52. Revealing the sources and mechanism of rhetorical strength of this knowledge does not prove it to bewrong or mere fiction. Such an account however does show that this knowledge cannot be justified interms of correspondence to the world as it really was (it does no longer exist). The only things that are leftto compare are different accounts using the same type of rhetorical strategies.

53. See WACKERS, (note 48).54 See note 13.55. The notion of sustainable development is a good candidate for such a common point of orientation. It

invokes both desirable and undesirable futures and calls for a fundamental reorientation in political,economical, technoscientific and moral thinking and action.

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