Science as Labor
Wolfgang Lefèvre
Max Planck Institute for the History
of Science
The article takes the term “technoscience” literally and investigates a concep-
tion of science that takes it not only as practice, but as production in the sense
of a material labor process. It will explore in particular the material connec-
tion between science and ordinary production. It will furthermore examine
how the historical development of science as a social enterprise was shaped by
its technoscientiªc character. In this context, in an excursus, the prevailing
notion will be questioned that social relations must be conceived of as pure in-
teractions. Finalmente, the article will go into the relationship between the
epistemic dimension of science and its technoscientiªc character.
introduzione
The speciªc focus of this article is the technoscientiªc character of science
itself. This character is obvious in the case of modern chemistry and all
sciences that produce materially the objects that they investigate. Ma
does it make sense to ascribe a technoscientiªc character to science in gen-
eral? Can we perceive new features of its practice, its preconditions, its dy-
namics, and perhaps also its cognitive dimension, if we regard science in
general in the light of our present experiences of the mutual penetration of
science, technology, and ordinary production? These are the questions that
motivate this article. In other words, I seize the discussion about
“technoscientiªc productivity” as an occasion to discuss some aspects of a
general conception of science that understands it not only as practice, Ma
as production in the sense of a material labor process.
If we conceive of science as a material labor process, the question arises
I want to thank the participants of the two workshops on “Technoscientiªc Productivity”
held at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in 2002 E 2003 for their con-
structive critique of earlier versions of this paper, which was of great help. Special thanks
go to Donald MacKenzie whose comments and advises led to major revisions, particularly
in section 2.
Perspectives on Science 2005, vol. 13, NO. 2
©2005 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
194
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Perspectives on Science
195
of how science relates to the ordinary social labor process. I will argue in
this article that, after the Industrial Revolution, science itself became a
sub-system of the social production process. Ma, rather than a starting
point, this revolution was a turning point in the relationship between sci-
ence and ordinary production which had shaped the former since the early
modern period (Sezione 1). Another question concerns the signiªcance of
the technoscientiªc character of science for its development. I will argue
Quello, because of its technoscientiªc character, the development of science
shares striking features with that of the ordinary labor process (Sezione 2).
Finalmente, I will discuss some issues in connection with the question of
whether and how sciences’ technoscientiªc character also shapes their
epistemic dimension. The role of the material means of the scientiªc pro-
duction process for cognition will constitute the center of this discussion
(Sezione 3).
My attempt at an understanding of science as part of the social labor
processi, and as a speciªc kind of labor, presupposes conceptions of the
large-scale structures and processes of modern societies that transgress the
notions usually applied in social studies of science. Employing such large-
scale categories only rarely and casually, scholars of science studies nor-
mally do not need to develop shared notions in this respect. This poses the
dilemma that this article can neither rest on such notions in dealing with
general categories such as the concept of the social labor process, nor de-
velop itself those notions elaborately within the space given. To ensure at
least an understanding about what the article is dealing with, keywords
will be borrowed from a large-scale theory of social processes that is gener-
ally known and which, così, can serve as a means of communication with-
out obliging anybody to endorse it. The sociological theory used for this
purpose is that of Karl Marx, certainly an expert with respect to the social
labor process. An “Excursus on Marx, S- and N-terms, and Technological
Determinism” will open the second section.1
1. Science as a Part of Economic Production
1.1 Scienza: A Factor of the Production Process
“As the process of production becomes application of science, sci-
ence, inversely, becomes a factor, a function so to speak, of the pro-
cess of production” (Karl Marx2)
1. For a more practically oriented attempt to capitalize on Marx’ theory for an under-
standing of the relationship between science, technology, and the labor process, Vedere
(Levidow and Young 1981/1985). For a more recent interpretation of Marx’s concept of sci-
enze, Vedere (Stachel 1994).
2. “Wie der Productionsproceß zur Anwendung der Wissenschaft, wird umgekehrt die
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196
Science as Labor
For a start, three points, though in no way unchallengeable ones, might be
taken as points of departure for the discussion without submitting any
further evidence:
• In the West, the social labor process has been essentially depend-
ent on the results of the sciences since the nineteenth century.
Beginning with single ªelds of mechanical engineering and ex-
tending to truly science-based branches like the electrical indus-
tries and the chemical industry at the turn of the twentieth cen-
tury, the whole range of industrial production came to rest on
science to different degrees over the course of this century. Al
beginning of the twenty-ªrst century, the same can be stated for
agriculture, transportation, logistics, and communication.
• With regard to the material relations as distinguished from the
economical ones, the present mutual dependency of scientiªc and
economic production is principally of the same kind as that be-
tween different branches of the latter, for instance that between
the manufacturing and the extractive industry. There is a contin-
uous ºow of materials, devices, competenza, ideas, and experts in
both directions, which makes the dependency mutual. None of
the branches can exist without the other.
• There is such a high degree of mutual dependency among the
different scientiªc ªelds themselves that any attempt at dividing
them into groups according to their practical relevance risks
crediting particular ªelds with achievements of practical value
that are actually results of synergetic patterns in many ªelds.
Inoltre, singling out scientiªc ªelds according to the de-
gree of their immediate relevance for the economic production
process would fail to take into account the dynamics of the
scientiªc production process. As recently evinced by
microstructure physics’ engenderment of modern nano-technol-
ogy, ªelds that count as basic research with seemingly little prac-
tical value at one point in time can suddenly ªgure among the
most promising ones with respect to the applicability of their re-
sults.
During the last century and a half in the developed countries, science
has become as important a “factor of the production process,” economi-
cally and strategically, as an economy’s access to the world’s raw materials.
Wissenschaft zu einem Factor, so zu sagen zu einer Function des Productionsprocesses.”
(MEGA) II/3.6 2060, my translation.
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Perspectives on Science
197
As a consequence, scientiªc production must be organized as such a cru-
cial economic factor. The dependency of the economic production pro-
cesses on science called for provisions to ensure that science actually pro-
duces and delivers what is needed for these processes. Tuttavia, these
provisions had to allow for the special nature of scientiªc production and,
in particular, for the fact that discoveries and innovations can neither be
anticipated nor planned beyond certain narrow limits. The uncertainties
given by the openness of scientiªc production processes, and the immense
costs (when the whole infrastructure necessary is taken into account) In
turn set limits to the feasibility of running scientiªc research proªtably
under the direct control of private enterprises. Così, a huge publicly-
funded sector of science and technology proved indispensable both for
economies based on private entrepreneurship and for socialistic economies.
And because of the competition between private companies in the former,
this sector must be organized in a way that prevents it from being openly
subjected to particular private interests.
As a result of complex and ongoing interactions among all social parties
involved—constitutional political boards, public service agencies, IL
military, associations of industrial and commercial companies, and tradi-
tional as well as newly-founded institutions for science and technology—
intricate systems of formally independent, half-dependent, and directly
controlled institutions and sites of research and scientiªc training have de-
veloped and are still developing. This type of complex system comprising
scientiªc institutions of different organizational forms and status is char-
acteristic of the modern industrial nations, notwithstanding peculiar fea-
tures due to the particular historical development of each of these na-
tions.3 These institutional networks represent the social form of science as
part and parcel of the social labor process.
The increasing dependency of economic production on science thus led
to an evolving system of bonds, which tie science to the needs of the social
labor process.4 The consequences of these ties affect even the essentials of
science, such as the free and rational exchange of thoughts. To give just
one indication of this: According to the OECD,5 more than half of the re-
search in the West, in terms of money spent, is performed under direct
3. For the changes in the institutional design of connections and co-operation between
political boards and research institutions in the US in the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury, Vedere, for instance, (Guston 2000, chaps. 1 E 6). For the structures of the European
research policy at the turn of this century, Vedere, for instance, (Trute 1994). See also part 3 Di
(Guzzetti 2000).
4. For the inºuence of the private research sector on the public one, Vedere (Walsh 1998).
5. Compare the Basic Science and Technology Statistics (BSTS) – 2001 edition of the OECD.
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198
Science as Labor
control of the military6 or private commercial companies and is therefore
sealed off from free communication.7 Furthermore, with regard to the cap-
italist structure of the social labor process in the developed countries, IL
non-proªt character of a considerable part of science does not prevent it
from becoming an element of this structure.8
Tuttavia, the relationship between science and economic production
cannot be considered simply a subjection of the former by the latter. Such
a view would overlook an essential aspect of this relationship. Science has
been intimately related to the sphere of economic production since its be-
ginnings. Questo è, this relation predates the Industrial Revolution and the
subsequent attempts to adapt science to the needs of this sphere. This rela-
tion consists in a material connection between science and economic pro-
duction. Themselves comprising material production processes, natural
sciences depend essentially on the economic production process, Qualunque cosa
the speciªc economic character of the latter. This dependency results not
from subjection, but from the fact that the sphere of economic production
is an essential prerequisite condition of science.
Natural science is essentially based on materials and equipment. IL
question of which materials are available and which equipment can be
produced in a given society in a certain age is therefore of decisive impor-
tance for its development. This is well known not only to historians of sci-
ence. Everybody recalls famous instances of the pivotal role that materials,
devices, and apparatus played in the historical development of the sciences
in the early modern period—the telescope for astronomy; the microscope
for physiology; ovens, distillation apparatus and balances for chemistry;
pendulum, prism, air-pump, and the Leyden jar for physics; the compass
6. For the increasing penetration of science and technology by the military during the
last decades, Vedere (Mendelsohn, Smith, and Weingart 1988).
7. For the secrecy policy of military research and development, Vedere, for instance, (Reppy
1988, pag. 511ff.).
8. In questo articolo, I cannot go into this aspect of the role science plays in the modern in-
dustrial societies of the West. Tuttavia, a quotation from Marx’s manuscript “Results of
the Direct Production Process” (chap. 2, subsection “Mystiªcation of Capital, etc.”) may
serve as an indication and reminder of what is left out here: “[. . .] the same naturally takes
place with the forces of nature and science, the product of general historical development
in its abstract quintessence—they confront the laborers as powers of capital. They are sepa-
rated in fact from the skill and knowledge of the individual laborer—and although, In
their origin, they too are the product of labor—wherever they enter into the labor process
they appear as embodied as capital. [. . .] Science realized in the machine appears as capital
in relation to the laborers. And in fact all these applications of science, natural forces and
products of labor on a large scale, these applications founded on social labor, themselves ap-
pear only as means for the exploitation of labor [. . .].” See (MECW 34:455–460; (McLellan
1977, P. 430). See also part 2 Di (MacKenzie and Wajcman 1999).
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Perspectives on Science
199
for geography; exotic animals and plants for zoology and botany. None of
these things would have been available for the sciences without the eco-
nomic development of early-modern Western societies. The devices and
apparatuses owed their coming into being and reªnement to the high
standards achieved by the crafts in Western Europe at this age. And with-
out international commercial relations and, in particular, without the co-
lonial systems built up since the sixteenth century by the European na-
zioni, a systematic exploration of the Earth’s surface would have been
unimaginable. Chemists would have been conªned to domestic raw
materials and naturalists to domestic minerals, plants, and animals.
Inoltre, science required the sphere of economic production not
only as a resource for building needed devices and providing interesting
materiali, but also as a source of inspiration. The wealth of experience ac-
cumulated and passed on in the sphere of production is certainly still un-
derrated with respect to its signiªcance for the development of the sci-
enze. With his idea of an “experimental history,” Francis Bacon pursued a
plan to capitalize on just this wealth of knowledge systematically for the
advancement of the sciences. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
both the problems and the solutions of advanced technologies, ad esempio
pumping machinery in the mining industry, and artillery and fortiªcation
in the armaments industry, contributed essentially to pushing pre-classical
mechanics to its limits9 and beyond.10 Chemistry is another example of
the bearing that experiences and knowledge accumulated in the work-
shops had on the development of early modern sciences. In transgressing
the Aristotelian-Paracelsian doctrines of element, principle, and mixt to-
wards the modern conceptual system of chemical compound and reaction,
eighteenth-century chemists at the Parisian Jardin des Plants rested, no less
than on experiments, on their reºections of workshop experiences accumu-
lated in sixteenth and seventeenth-century metallurgy and the iatro-
chemical production of medicines.11
9. Vedere (Damerow et al. 1992).
10. See the classical studies by Henryk Grossmann: “Die gesellschaftlichen Grundlagen
der mechanistischen Philosophie und die Manufaktur” (1935), English translation:
(Grossmann 1987), and Edgar Zilsel: “The Social Roots of Science” (1942), new edition of
Zilsel’s writings (Zilsel 2000). For a standard assessment of the debate on the tradition of
the workshops and the emergence of modern science, Vedere (Cohen 1994, pag. 345ff.). Nel suo
review of the new edition of Zilsel’s writings, N. Jardine discusses probable reasons for
SSK scholars’ usual neglect of these classic studies; Vedere (Jardine 2003). See also the contri-
bution by Gideon Freudenthal (this volume) who discusses the reception of Grossmann’s
essay and puts it in the context of the fate of Boris Hessen’s famous essay “The Social and
Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia” from 1931.
11. Vedere (Klein 1994a, 1994B).
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200
Science as Labor
It is a characteristic feature of the material relation between science and
economic production before the Industrial Revolution that its beneªts for
the two sides were quite asymmetrical. Friedrich Engels, in notes that be-
long to the convolute of manuscripts published posthumously as Dialektik
der Natur, pointed out the prevailing one-way character of this connection:
“Up to now [it is] only bragged about what production owes to science;
but science owes inªnitely more to production” (MECW 25:465; my
translation).12 True, between 1500 E 1800, the contribution of the de-
veloping modern sciences to the advancement of the economic production
was rather modest. In its main sectors, questo è, agriculture, the handicrafts
and manufactures, the economic production process remained largely un-
touched by science and proved able to do without it.13 But in this period,
there was also a steady increase of production sectors that made use of
knowledge obtained scientiªcally. In mechanical arts such as construction,
shipbuilding, machine engineering, ballistics and fortiªcation, we en-
counter engineers, questo è, new types of practitioners who regularly ap-
plied geometry, arithmetic, and mechanics when pursuing their tasks. An
analogous development can be observed in chemical arts such as metal-
lurgy, salt production, porcelain making, and the production of chemical
medicines. Early modern chemists very much resembled engineers because
of their characteristic combination of practical and theoretical expertise.14
True, when focusing exclusively on high-level theories, one gets the im-
pression that economic production could obtain little from the modern
sciences. Genuine fruits of modern science, like the moon-tables that had
become calculable on the basis of Newton’s moon theory in the eighteenth
century and truly represented a major contribution to navigation, were
certainly exceptions. For a complete picture, Tuttavia, one must take into
account that science began to matter in an increasing number of advanced
production sectors during this period, notwithstanding the fact that the
sphere of economic production did, Infatti, matter much more to science
as a rich source of materials, instrumentation, inspiration, knowledge and
experiences.
A close material connection between scientiªc and economic produc-
tion thus existed long before the Industrial Revolution. What this revolu-
tion changed, Tuttavia, was the until then prevailing one-way character of
this relation which was replaced, step by step, by complex material rela-
tions of mutual dependency. Science’s essential dependency on economic
12. “Bisher nur geprahlt, was die Produktion der Wissenschaft verdankt, aber die
Wissenschaft verdankt der Produktion unendlich mehr” (MEW 20:457).
13. See part 1 Di (Lefèvre 1978).
14. See the contribution by Ursula Klein (this volume).
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Perspectives on Science
201
production—from artisanship all the way up to high-tech processes—
became even deeper with the development of modern industrial societies’
infrastructure—from electriªcation to the Internet—in which science par-
takes. And the industrial production process became increasingly science-
based. In the course of this development, science worked with and was
shaped by materials and instruments provided by industries that were able
to provide these goods thanks to science-based procedures and techniques.
Così, intertwined dependencies between technology and science arose
from this development and constitute the background of today’s techno-
science.
1.2 Scienza: A Sub-System of the Economic Production Process
The term “technoscience” is used in a broader and in a more narrow sense.
In the ªrst case, the term denotes the intricate interlocking of economic
and scientiªc production that developed starting in the nineteenth cen-
tury and is now characteristic of the social production process in the West.
Not only is each side a prerequisite condition of the other—the economic
of the scientiªc, and the scientiªc of the economic—but, furthermore,
each side is just as much a precondition as it is essentially based on the
other: Modern high-tech production is not simply science-based, but rests
on science which became possible only on the basis of these advanced pro-
duction processes developed, questo è, science which rests, for its part, SU
science-based production.15 If one therefore regards this science-based
high-tech production as a world of reiªcations of scientiªc conceptions
and theories,16 technoscience in this broader sense may appear as a self-
referential process: today’s science in action rests on high-tech production
which is the reiªed science of yesterday, and engenders the conceptions
and theories that will constitute tomorrow’s technology when reiªed. Ma
such a view of technoscience, which is quite reminiscent of the self-
referentiality of Hegel’s absolute mind, would not only reduce the eco-
nomic production process to its scientiªc preconditions. It would also dis-
regard the fact that the materials and equipment employed in economic
production cannot simply be taken as embodiments of science. Even if
such materials, macchine, and technologic processes became employable
and developable only because of scientiªcally gained insights, these means
of production are more than reiªcations of scientiªc conceptions. As mate-
rial things, they cannot be reduced to the concepts instrumental in the
15. This does not mean that science today is based exclusively on the most developed
technologies. Co-operation with specialized craftsmen, for instance, is still indispensable
even in high-tech laboratories.
16. For the problems involved with such a notion of reiªcation, see the debate between
Bloor and Rheinberger (this volume, next issue).
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Science as Labor
process in which they were produced. What is worse, such an idealistic
view of technoscience would play down the essential tensions between
scientiªc and ordinary material production also inherent in modern
technoscientiªc production processes. Inoltre, it would deprive the
very conception of technoscience of its heuristic value.
In a narrower sense, “technoscience” denotes sciences that are true hy-
brids of the ordinary and the scientiªc production process. These techno-
sciences comprise not only technologic processes as each experimental sci-
ence does. Piuttosto, they literally produce the material objects that they
study. Modern chemistry and physical ªelds like particle physics were our
examples. It is probably superºuous to stress that producing is not creat-
ing. These hybrid sciences do not create their objects ex nihilo but produce
them in exactly the same way as ordinary production processes, questo è, by
transforming given objects by means of given material agents.
The broader and the narrower understandings of “technoscience” focus
on phenomena that are interdependent: these hybrid sciences were and are
particularly instrumental for the development of twentieth-century high-
tech production; and this production was and is a decisive precondition for
the further development of such hybrids, as can be taken from the emer-
gence of modern bio-technology. Bio-technology is a particularly suitable
example to highlight a further feature of technoscientiªc sciences, namely
the striking similarity between the processes performed in high-tech pro-
duction and in the laboratories of such hybrid sciences. It is often difªcult
to tell the difference between these processes. When observing only the
technical procedure of cell cloning, for instance, one cannot know whether
it is being carried out in a science lab or as a step in the production chain
of a high-tech agricultural enterprise. Infatti, without knowledge about
the different contexts in which the procedure is actually performed in the
two cases, it must be regarded as essentially the same operation. But it is
obviously an artifact that we cannot distinguish the procedure performed
at the one place from the other. Our inability to distinguish is a result of
our abstraction from the contexts and, in particular, from the functions
the operation has in each case.17
Not only single operations appear undistinguishable when their actual
function is left out of consideration, but this abstraction seems to fuse the
production processes of entire technosciences with those of high-tech in-
dustries. Tuttavia, the processes, as similar as they may be in terms of
their physical nature, serve different ends in the two cases. Even if run as
part of a company, departments for research and development are clearly
17. This is an example of the well-known limits of the ethnologic approach in science
studies.
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Perspectives on Science
203
distinguishable from those for production proper by their function. They
neither produce commercial goods nor parts or components of goods that
must be ªnished in other departments of the company. It is their aim and
task to improve and enrich the knowledge preconditions of the economic
production process.18 And it is exactly this purpose which generally differ-
entiates scientiªc production from economic production in the social pro-
duction process as a whole. Whether or not its results are temporarily kept
secret or restricted in their application by patents, scientiªc production
contributes to and enlarges the common stock of knowledge that eventu-
ally can be applied by a society in the material production process. Questo
common character of the stock of applicable knowledge to which science
contributes was probably the reason why Marx called science “universal la-
bor.”19 Contributing to this common stock is the speciªc function of sci-
ence in the social labor process, which renders it a branch of this process
that is distinguishable from other branches.
Science is not only a distinguishable part and factor of the advanced
system of social labor processes, but must also be considered a sub-system
thereof with a life of its own within certain limits. This relative autonomy
becomes apparent indirectly through a rather paradoxical phenomenon
that still demands better understanding. Though mainly funded, sup-
ported, institutionally entertained and controlled, stimulated, and driven
by the expectation of its needed contributions to the stock of applicable
knowledge,20 science seems to a considerable extent successful in dodging
all attempts to govern its development from the outside. Only by and
large, and apparently by chance rather than by design, does the develop-
ment of science fulªll the expectations and desires of the society. The con-
cept of a “ªnalization of science,” that is, the idea that science has achieved
a developmental stage that allows it to adjust its development to the needs
18. A commercial company exclusively dedicated to the production of practically em-
ployable and patentable knowledge would be an interesting border-line case between eco-
nomic and scientiªc production. Another such case would be a scientiªc laboratory that
produces material objects not only to subject them to investigation but for sale as well, for
instance, to other laboratories. Many of the laboratories of early modern times were of such
a hybrid nature: they were at the same time workshops, as we will see below in the case of
Galileo’s Padua laboratory.
19. “Universal labor is all scientiªc labor, all discovery and all invention. This labor de-
pends partly on the co-operation of the living, and partly on the utilization of the labors of
those who have gone before” (MECW 37:105). By stressing that science is accomplished
partly in co-operation among contemporaries and partly by building on results of the past,
Marx highlights by implication as one dimension of its “universality” that it can be ap-
plied in completely different contexts at different times and places.
20. There are also social interests in science as a pure spiritual enterprise. In the context
of a discussion on technoscience, Tuttavia, the omission of these interests may be excusable.
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Science as Labor
of the society as a whole,21 is almost forgotten and today must seem like
some kind of bureaucratic dream.
It has not the appearance that the recalcitrance that the development of
science brings to bear against attempts at steering it is due above all to the
relative institutional autonomy granted to parts of the publicly funded
science sector in order to protect them from direct subjugation to private
interests. In a socialistic society, attempts at planning science would prob-
ably face exactly the same problems that concern the boards, committees,
and councils of governments or public and private funding organizations
in the West. These boards have to distribute huge and at the same time
limited means to a spectrum of research ªelds with seemingly promising
and desirable prospects, with no guarantee that those prospects will be
realized. Speciªc aspects of research policy, such as strategies of evaluating
the potencies of research ªelds or of setting priorities, are not at issue
here.22 Rather, it is the essential unpredictability of science, Quale, to all
appearances, can be lessened but not eliminated, that is of interest in our
context. Science cannot tell in advance which insights, least of all which
useful ones, can be gained through a certain research device or setting, Ma
must discover this. To let science ªnd this out, society must take the risk
of providing the equipment in question without any security. Having cho-
sen among different seemingly promising research perspectives according
to a society’s priorities and to what it can afford, research policy can im-
prove the chances of its choice only by granting to the sciences unre-
stricted use of the research means provided.23 In the long run, the unpre-
dictable outcome of this unrestricted use may be much more decisive for
the development of the sciences than the trial-and-error strategies of
which the bulk of science policy apparently consists.
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2. Science as a Social Labor Process
So far we have discussed science in its relations to the sphere of economic
production and, in particular, in its present state as an integral part of the
social labor process. Tuttavia, science is not only part of a socially per-
formed process, but is itself a social production process. Science is essen-
tially a collective enterprise whatever its particular social forms. Private
science, taken strictu sensu, seems to be a contradiction in terms. The cer-
tainty of observations, the generality of experiences, the likelihood of con-
21. The most important contributions to the debate on the ªnalization of science are
selected in (Schäfer 1983).
22. For a discussion of such strategies with respect to basic research, Vedere, for instance,
(Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 2002), particularly parts 4 E 6.
23. The third part of this article will come back to this unrestricted use of the material
of research means as an essential characteristic of science.
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Perspectives on Science
205
jectures, the convincing power of conclusions, the truth of conceptions
and theories—none of those items can be established privately. Scientiªc
methods and insights are not only engendered as results of co-operation
among contemporaries, but build on the efforts of preceding generations
and must be transmitted to the subsequent ones. The forms of co-operation
between scientists vary from mere reception and communication all the
way to direct collaboration in the laboratory. They also vary with the
forms of division of labor that have developed in the course of the history
of science.
These observations are hardly controversial. Today, the social character
of science is not only generally acknowledged, but considered a trivial
fatto. Arguments arise only when it comes to the consequences of this fact
E, particularly, to the claim that science is shaped by social relations not
only externally, but also in its essential structures, the epistemic ones in-
cluded. In such disputes, almost all parties involved usually share an un-
derstanding of social relations that conceives of them as interactions, Quello
È, pure human-human relations that engender a self-referential social
mondo. The popular references to scientists’ “negotiations” about observa-
zioni, conjectures, conclusions, or concepts are indicative of this under-
standing of the social relations among scientists. Tuttavia, is it really
plausible to take the relations of tradesmen on the market place as stan-
dard for the social relations of scientists? If we applied this model exclu-
sively, science could no longer be considered as labor. For, as I will argue,
the social relations that humans enter in labor processes are those of co-
operation according to the given division of labor. Because the forms of di-
vision of labor and co-operation are shaped not by human-human relations
alone, they thus cannot be reduced to pure interaction.
We encounter here a principal aspect of the conception of science as la-
bor. Upon ªrst glance, it seems of little relevance whether one considers
science to be a social practice or a labor. After further contemplation of
this distinction, the latter view may even seem disadvantageous. Labor is a
kind of practice. Così, an understanding of science as a practice rather
than labor seems to promise a less narrow perspective. But is this really
VERO? As indicated, an understanding of science as social practice can easily
entail a reduction of the social process of scientiªc production to pure in-
teraction. It is the contention of this article that an understanding of sci-
ence as labor allows a conceptualization of its social nature that avoids
such a reduction. Tuttavia, it may be not at all self-evident that the no-
tion of labor stands for this irreducibility. An excursion to Marx might
therefore be helpful to further clarify the assumption that the social nature
of science can most adequately be understood when conceiving of science
as labor.
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Science as Labor
2.1 Excursus on Marx, S- and N-terms, and Technological
Determinism
In the Preface to his Critique of Political Economy from 1859, Karl Marx
wrote:
“The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once
reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be sum-
marized as follows. In the social production of their existence, men
inevitably enter into deªnite relations, which are independent of
their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given
stage in the development of their material forces of production. IL
totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic
structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and
political superstructure and to which correspond deªnite forms of
social consciousness. The mode of production of material life condi-
tions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.
[. . .] At a certain stage of development, the material productive
forces of society come into conºict with the existing relations of
production [. . .]. Then begins an era of social revolution. [. . .] In
studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish
between the material transformation of the economic conditions of
production, which can be determined with the precision of natural
science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic—
in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this
conºict and ªght it out” (MECW 24:262F).
Marx’s large-scale theory of society is not our topic here. Therefore, Piuttosto
than spelling out the theory indicated with these words by its author, COME-
pects of a particular bearing on the argument of this article will be
discussed.
A suitable start is provided by a sentence that probably sounds strange
in the ears of many sociologists: “In the social production of their exis-
tence, men inevitably enter into deªnite relations, which are independent
of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage
in the development of their material forces of production.” One of the
many problems involved in this statement concerns the very question of
whether social relations constitute a whole that is self-referential; questo è, UN
whole, the structures of which result solely from the mutual interactions
between humans without being conditioned by non-social factors.
Marx took the very mundane position that no society can exist without
entertaining a relation to nature that warrants the physical survival of its
members or, almeno, of a number of them sufªcient for reproduction. Essere-
ing themselves natural beings, a certain species of animals, as it were, hu-
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Perspectives on Science
207
mans cannot subsist on interaction alone but must acquire natural entities
necessary for their life—matter and energy, to put it most abstractly. To a
considerable part, the “production of their existence” is therefore an activ-
ity that can legitimately be described in terms provided by the life sci-
ences and other natural sciences. But it is at the same time a social activity,
a “social production of their existence,” which engenders social relations
among the individuals, “relations of production,” which Marx regarded as
the bedrock of a society’s system of social relationships. These basic social
relations are taken to be not only “inevitable” but also “independent of the
will” of the individuals which enter into them.
Insofar as interaction among humans and, così, their social relations,
are conceived of ªrst and foremost as an expression of humans’ capacity for
judgment, decision, and free action, social relations “independent of the
will” might sound like a contradiction in terms. Marx had in mind not
only the fact that a new generation enters into already established social
relationships that are independent of the newcomers’ will. Such estab-
lished relations might prove, in a ªnal analysis, to originate in free inter-
action. Piuttosto, the point Marx wanted to make is that the core structure of
a society’s social relations cannot be reduced to free will and interaction. In
Marx’s view, the basic structure of these social relations, namely the rela-
tions of production, consists of human-human relations that are condi-
tioned by human-nature relations, which are a matter of choice or will to
only a very limited degree.
It is important to see that Marx did not replace the self-determination
of interaction and social relations with a determination by nature. Infatti,
the usual distinction and opposition of the social and the natural does not
work here. Production, human labor, though not at all preternatural, È
not a natural event but the activity of a human society. This activity is,
Tuttavia, shaped not only by the human actors but also by the materials
worked upon and, above all, by the material means worked with. È
therefore a process that deªes the familiar opposition between social and
natural, self-determined and determined by nature, and appears as a true
hybrid of the two spheres.24 Thus, Marx questioned, on a basic level, UN
conception of the social as a merely self-referential sphere.
The disagreement that can be expected at this point might have to do
with the situation that the study of sociology is usually divorced from that
of economy. As a basis and a result of this disciplinary separation, often
24. It is probably superºuous to remark that this hybrid of the social and the natural
has nothing to do with Bruno Latour’s assumption of an initial stage of not yet developed
discriminations between the social and the natural from which more stable and reªned dis-
tinctions gradually emerged; Vedere (Latour 1992).
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Science as Labor
only those relations or institutions are taken to be of a genuine social na-
ture which are engendered and sustained by pure interaction and thus can
be considered self-referential. An example may be helpful to clarify this
point.
Take any concrete division of labor, for instance, that between the sexes
in a pastoral tribe of the stone age, and let us assume for the time being
that all work in connection with the ºock and stock is the task of the male
part, and things like gardening, pottery and so on a female affair. Questo
form of division of labor would be due primarily to the half-nomadic form
of life of such tribes, and one can focus on the concrete material conditions
of this form of life in a given case to obtain an understanding of the con-
crete division of labor. But it is also possible to take this material side of
the social phenomenon for granted and to focus on how this division is re-
alized morally by ascribing tasks, duties, obligations as well as merits,
honors and so on to the members of the tribe which enforce the fulªllment
of their respective social roles. This choice of a focus is absolutely legiti-
mate. It would, Tuttavia, become a source of error if anybody contended
that it was this social distribution of roles that created the division of
labor at hand.
No question, it would be equally wrong if anybody believed that moral
institutions like an obligation or a merit could be taken as a mere outcome
of the material conditions underlying the division of labor in question.
These institutions must also be established by means of interaction. Così,
we have two sides to any division of labor: on the one hand, its material
shape and structure, which is not a result of, but an adaptation to the ma-
terial conditions of labor, and on the other, its moral enforcement which
cannot be derived from these conditions. But is this moral side really self-
referential? Or does it only appear so because of its separation from the
material side, O, to put it more generally, because this side is abstracted
from the economic dimension, as is the rule rather than the exception in
today’s sociological studies?
Linguistic approaches to social phenomena, questo è, approaches that
conceive of social entities as grounded in speech-acts, seem to be a fortiori
threatened by the danger of misconceptions of the social because of a
neglect of its material conditions. Terms with reference to social entities,
questo è, S-terms as opposed to N-terms with reference to physical enti-
ties,25 appear to these approaches as self-referential in an ultimate analysis.
25. It is probably superºuous to state that the use of the abbreviations “S-terms” and
“N-terms” refers to theories of the Edinburgh school of SSK. For the abbreviations, Vedere
(Barnes 1983, pag. 525f.). These theories are reminiscent of the conception of social institu-
tions that Mary Douglas developed in the course of her anthropological work—see
(Douglas 1975), particularly the introduction to part II; see also (Douglas 1995).
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Perspectives on Science
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E, consequently, so do the social entities themselves. True, the meaning
of S-terms is created linguistically; but this holds for all kinds of terms,
N-terms no less than S-terms. Tuttavia, whether the referent of a S-term
is created linguistically as well seems to be a question that cannot be de-
cided a priori by a linguistic theory; Piuttosto, it should be subjected to em-
pirical sociological investigations in each particular case. To give an exam-
ple: Contrary to Marx’s assumption,26 money was taken to be such a
linguistically engendered social object to which, così, a self-referential
character could be ascribed.27 This understanding may seem plausible.
But would it also seem plausible to conceive of social labor processes as
such linguistic creations? It appears that one would have to strip these
processes of all their material components to attain such a view. As a con-
sequence, the seeming self-referentiality of its remaining social form
would probably boil down to an analytical artifact as a result of this priva-
zione.
The hybrid character of the production process observed above com-
prises an aspect of particular interest in our context. The blending of the
social and the natural, of what is man-made and what is determined by na-
ture, is especially characteristic of the means of production, the “material
forces of production,” as Marx put it.28 In what sense are the natural and
the social blended in the material means of the labor process? It is the hu-
man actor who renders a stone a tool; but this does not rob the stone of its
natural properties. Its effective role in the labor process is determined by
its natural properties as well as by the human actor. As long as they are
used as instruments or preserved for future use, instruments of labor have
both social and natural characteristics and maintain this double-faced na-
ture until they are cast out of the realm of labor instruments. Inoltre,
the material means of production not only act upon the object in question,
but also react back on the human laborers and their actions, the social
organization of these actions included.
To give a well-known example from the Industrial Revolution for the
26. The most elaborated exposition of Marx’s theory of money can be found in his Cri-
tique of Political Economy of 1859.
27. Vedere (Bloor 1999, pag. 108f.); see also (Bloor 1997, pag. 29ff.).
28. Marx considered not only tools, instruments and other technical equipment of the
labor process “material forces of production” but also all kinds of material conditions of the
production process—available materials, agriculturally usable soils, plants, and animals,
access to the sea, and so on—and, Inoltre, the personal productive forces of humans,
from physical strength over skill to mental abilities. No question, these personal forces, al-
though in some basic features endowments bestowed by nature, were created and devel-
oped culturally in the course of history. But it seems equally clear that this historical devel-
opment was narrowly tied to that of the instruments of the labor process. This issue will be
discussed in more detail in the third part in connection with the scientiªc labor process.
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Science as Labor
connection between the material means applied in production and the so-
cial organization of the production process: The invention and introduc-
tion of new machinery for the textile industries in the decades before and
after 1800—in particular spinning machines like the water-frame and the
mule—marked not only technological advancements but triggered a revo-
lution in the social organization of labor.29 Needless to say, none of the his-
torical actors could anticipate, let alone plan, the social consequences of
these inventions. Inoltre, as is evident in the empathetically under-
standable but by and large not terribly effective revolts of the workforce
against such machinery which accompanied the Industrial Revolution,
one cannot combine à la carte means of production of a certain kind, per esempio.,
machinery like the self-acting mule, with favored social relations of pro-
duction, for instance, with a workshop of the traditional crafts or with do-
mestic production. Infatti, introducing machinery of this kind in any case
meant introducing social forms of the labor process that are as incompati-
ble with the traditional ones as the modern factory system which ulti-
mately emerged under the concrete historical circumstances.
This last sentence was phrased very deliberately. I do not understand
Marx30 as saying that machines such as Arkwright’s water-frame or Rob-
erts’ mule brought about the factory system. Piuttosto, he claimed that their
application was incompatible with the social organization of labor devel-
oped in Western Europe up to that time. To stick with their application
therefore meant developing new, suitable forms of the organization of la-
bor. The form eventually found, the factory system of the early nineteenth
century with all its brutality, was not a compulsive and inevitable conse-
quence of the machines applied. Equally instrumental for the emergence
of this system was the fact that capitalists applied these machines for the
exploitation of laborers. But these capitalists could not impose a labor or-
ganization at odds with this machinery; and the same would have held for
the “association of free producers” Marx dreamed of. This seems to me the
background of his statement that the “relations of production [are] appro-
priate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of pro-
duction” and, furthermore, Quello, “at a certain stage of development, IL
material productive forces of society come into conºict with the existing
relations of production [. . .] Then begins an era of social revolution.”
Against this background, these statements should not be taken as indica-
29. For the invention of these machines, Vedere (Usher 1954, pag. 295ff.), and for their so-
cial consequences, (Berg 1985, pag. 254ff.).
30. Marx’s most elaborate discussion of the Industrial Revolution can be found in
chap. 13 of the ªrst volume of his Capital.
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Perspectives on Science
211
tions of a crude technological determinism.31 Rather, they indicate a social
theory which conceives of the material means of labor given and used in a
certain age as essential conditions of the social production process that
provide a horizon of possible social relations of production, questo è,
material conditions that make such relations possible and at the same time
set limits to them.
2.2 Historical Development as a Labor Process
When conceiving of the scientiªc production as labor strictu sensu, one
should expect that its social form and organization depends by and large
on the material means, just as they do in other branches of the social labor
processi. And this is indeed the case. This becomes particularly clear when
we look at experimental research.
The sites of experimentation in early modern times resemble strikingly
the workshops of the age. Galileo’s laboratory in Padua is a good case in
point.32 This laboratory not only served scientiªc research but was actually
a workshop in which an appointed smith, Messer Marcantonio Mazzeloni,
fabricated mostly military and surveying compasses under Galileo’s direc-
zione. It also was used for private lectures on fortiªcation and related me-
chanical and mathematical topics.33 The fact that Galileo actually ran his
laboratory as a real workshop for the production of instruments is telling
but not the decisive point in our context. Piuttosto, this laboratory could be
run like a workshop with its ºat hierarchy and low degree of division of la-
bor, since this form of organization ªt the instruments in question, Quale
were ordinary craftsmen’s tools. For the same reason, such laboratories
could be set up and entertained by private persons with some fortune or, COME
the case of Galileo proves, only some cleverness with respect to business.
In early modern times, così, we encounter a situation where all ex-
31. In their introductory essay, MacKenzie and Wajcman (1999) distinguish two kinds
of technological determinism: one that is a theory of society and one that is a theory of
technology. The latter, which regards the development of technology as autonomous,
clearly contradicts Marx’s views. The former, which stresses the social effects of technolo-
gies, conforms with his views, however not in their “hard” form as a “simple cause-and-
effect technological determinism” (P. 4). For an elaborate discussion of Marx’s stance in
this respect, Vedere (MacKenzie 1984). For the debate on technological determinism, see also
(Rosenberg 1981) E (Staudenmaier 1985, chap. 4). For a comprehensive conception of
the development of technology, Vedere (Basalla 1988).
32. See above all the bookkeeping accounts regarding “L’ofªcina di strumenti
mathematici in Padova” in (Galilei 1890–1909, 19:131–149). See also (Valleriani 2001,
pag. 284ff.).
33. On the similarity between eighteenth-century chemical laboratories and work-
shops, see Ursula Klein’s contribution in this volume.
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Science as Labor
change, communication, and co-operation between scientists was essen-
tially colored by the basic fact that the proper research process was per-
formed by separated and, to a certain degree, even autonomous scientiªc
actors. The complex process of transforming individual assumptions, hy-
pothesis, and so on, into shared opinions and convictions of smaller or
larger groups of scientists therefore rested essentially on communication
rather than co-operation proper. Accordingly, the social infrastructure and
resources of communication—travel, the exchange of materials, personal
letters, the gradually emerging periodicals of scientiªc communities—
played an outstanding role in the formation process of scientiªc knowl-
edge.
Notwithstanding earlier attempts to initiate and entertain more direct
forms of co-operation among scientists at courts, mercantilist enterprises,
and in particular at the newly founded academies of all kinds,34 this situa-
tion did not begin to change substantially until the emergence of large
laboratories in the course of the nineteenth century. The development of
the laboratories of experimental physiology in nineteenth-century Ger-
many is a good case in point.35 These laboratories were situated in major
cities like Leipzig and Berlin where the technical infrastructure changed
dramatically in the course of the century, in particular through the instal-
lation of extensively branched networks of underground pipelines for wa-
ter and gas supply. Against the background of this infrastructure, new
technical laboratory equipment could be employed. Of special signiªcance
in this respect proved to be a gas-motor, the Otto motor, which had been
developed to serve smaller workshops as a substitute for the large and
costly steam engine. The introduction of this machine into the laboratory
allowed the development of experimental apparatus with unprecedented
effects, in terms of both technical performance and consequences for the
labor process in the laboratory. The latter began to resemble labor pro-
cesses in factories. Now, mechanical devices performed the traditional
operations of the experimenter who, for his part, had to operate those
devices. Traditional skills and competences were replaced by new ones.
As result of this development, which was not restricted to experimental
physiology but gradually expanded over the whole range of experimental
sciences,36 one encounters a type of research laboratory that resembles a
34. Practical
institutions such as military academies, mining academies (Berg-
Akademien) or construction academies (Bau-Akademien) were not of less signiªcance in this
respect than famous savant academies such as the Royal Academy in London or the
Académie des Sciences in Paris.
35. For the following, Vedere (Dierig 2003).
36. For this development, Vedere, for instance, (James 1989) E (Fox and Guagnini
1999).
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Perspectives on Science
213
factory more than the workshop of a craftsman. Gaston Bachelard plainly
called this entity the “factory laboratory” (l’usine-laboratoire) (Bachelard
1953, P. 78). Its size and equipment were no longer designed to serve just
one single scientist. Piuttosto, it could be used by an indeªnite number of
scientists in a variety of modes—successively or alternately, with or with-
out a staff of assistants, and even co-operatively at the same time. It thus
allowed teams of scientists to evolve with a variety of hierarchical struc-
tures.37 Needless to say, such laboratories, whatever their origin, could not
be entertained over time by individual scientists but required a broader
social fundament, be it provided by scientiªc societies, by the framework
of a state’s educational or research support system, under the roof of large
commercial companies or behind the fences and walls of military sites.
This holds a fortiori for today’s large science laboratories like the CERN in
Geneva, which is used by research teams from all over Europe on the basis
of leasing contracts.38 The characteristic experimental instruments in
these laboratories are of course no longer the craftsmen’s tools or engine-
driven apparatuses of nineteenth-century laboratories (some of which are
still used), but modern machine systems. These laboratories therefore
strikingly resemble modern high-tech factories with their speciªc forms of
the division of labor.39
There is no doubt that, even in the age of big science, the social process
of forming scientiªc knowledge and convictions is still essentially a mat-
ter of communication and, così, highly susceptible to the dramatic
changes and developments in the means of communication today. But in
modern experimental science, communication no longer primarily links
individual scientists, but for the most part teams of scientists who discuss
and develop assumptions and interpretations collectively as part of re-
search performed collaboratively. Inoltre, based on the new means of
communication, research co-operation has become possible for teams
working at different sites all over the world.40
The forms of co-operation and communication among scientists and,
along with this, the relations between experimental research and the for-
mation of shared understandings, thus prove to be highly dependent on
37. For the relation of instrumentation and division of labor in modern laboratories, Vedere
(Shinn 1998).
38. For details, Vedere (Hermann and Krige 1987–1996).
39. On the development of large science laboratories in the second half of the twentieth
century, Vedere (Westfall 2001).
40. A impressive instance of such a worldwide collaboration among teams of scientists
is the European South Observatory (ESO), the organization that joins European astronomi-
cal and astrophysical research institutes and observatories strategically placed in South
America and connected by modern communication technology.
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214
Science as Labor
the instruments used in the research process. Equally important is the role
of the material means of scientiªc production in the development of large-
scale divisions of labor within science—from the processes of dividing or
uniting ªelds of research up to the emergence, formation or decay of disci-
plines. It is not possible to go into this here, and I can therefore merely
contend the following: just as the instruments used engender the object of
scientiªc research—without the Leyden jar, no eighteenth-century science
of electricity, without the cyclotron, no particle physics—scientiªc ªelds
develop around promising research strategies which are, for their part,
essentially dependent on the instruments available.
3. Instruments of Labor and Knowledge
The assertion that the instruments used in the scientiªc labor process en-
gender objects and even entire realms of research objects certainly requires
further clariªcation. Such a clariªcation seems particularly necessary in the
context of this article since, provided it holds for science in general, Questo
assertion suggests a further dimension of the technoscientiªc nature of
modern sciences. Infatti, it seems possible to claim such general validity if
one distinguishes between a strong and a weak sense in which research ob-
jects are engendered by the material means used in the research process.
Electricity and particle physics are instances of research ªelds with objects
that are engendered in a strong sense, namely literally produced by the
laboratory machinery. But it also makes sense to speak of such engender-
ing in cases where the employed equipment grants access to and allows
the investigation of given objects. In this weak sense, one can state that
Galileo’s telescope “engendered” the Jupiter moons.
The technoscientiªc dimension of science that becomes visible in this
way could be characterized as that of a technologic transcendentalism of
scientiªc cognition, albeit an historical one. According to this transcen-
dentalism, scientiªc objects would appear as always being given and, così,
mediated by the material means employed at a certain point of time; ob-
jects independent of such mediation would have to be considered as unrec-
ognizable as Kant’s “things in themselves.” Even the cognitive dimension
of the scientiªc process would prove to be fundamentally shaped by the
technologic nature of the research process and, more precisely, by the ma-
terial means used in this process. A closer look at the relationship between
material means and knowledge in general, and scientiªc knowledge in
particular, seems to be necessary.
3.1 Knowledge: Precondition and Result of Labor
Nothing deserves the name of a means that is not used or intended to be
used to fulªll an end. It is the end that renders something a means. One
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Perspectives on Science
215
can, così, state that means are determined by ends. Tuttavia, whether or
not something is a suitable means for a purpose depends not only on the
end but also on its physical properties, which are determined by the end
only in part, even in the case of fabricated means. Being determined by an
end only in part, questo è, due to their irreducibly material nature, Sopra
time, means can be used in the social labor process for ends different from
the original one.41 Taking into account that these new ends were uncov-
ered in the process of handling the means under different circumstances,
these ends turn out to be conditioned by the means. Ends not only deter-
mine means, but prove to be determined by them in turn. Apart from
wishes that are mere negations of existing states, it is questionable that
humans can even envision ends other than those that anticipate possibili-
ties presumed in or actually given with extant means.
How does this relate to knowledge? Knowledge42 is always a precondi-
tion for the application of a means in a given way—knowledge of the
means’ make-up or of the way it functions when employed to achieve the
end in question. Tuttavia, by applying a material means in the labor pro-
cess, its material nature can reveal new ways of application and employ-
ment, which were not given along with the original ends. Così, in the
practical use of material means, new experiences may occur and new pur-
poses can emerge. Such new experiences and purposes, in turn, stimulate
improvements of the original means. E, in a renewed process of applica-
zione, these altered means may again lead to new experiences and purposes,
and occasionally to the invention of new means. Some of the latter can
open up a new horizon of unforeseen possibilities for the physical and
mental activities of humans. We have, così, a co-evolution of material
means and knowledge of which a surplus of knowledge is characteristic.
This surplus is due to the simple but rarely sufªciently acknowledged fact
that humans can gain more knowledge from the use of a means than was
needed to invent it in the ªrst place.43
Among the material means of the labor process, one can distinguish be-
tween means of production properly so called, questo è, means that act
41. It is probably superºuous to stress that the social nature of the labor process is al-
ways presupposed, regardless whether or not it is explicitly stated. True, this very principal
discussion about the interrelation between knowledge and labor instruments abstracts
from all speciªc social forms of the labor process. But it does not abstract from this form
itself.
42. For the following, Vedere (Damerow and Lefèvre 1996).
43. From these observations, some philosophical conclusions could be drawn with re-
spect to the notion of experience and in particular with respect to its reduction to sensory
perception. True, there is no experience without sensory perception; but equally true, NO
experience, not even sensory perception, without acting and, except for pure interaction,
without the means of acting.
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216
Science as Labor
physically on the object in question, and means of anticipating or plan-
ning. The latter may be called material “means of thinking.” Maps, draw-
ing, geometrical constructions, means of counting, writing systems, eccetera.,
come immediately to mind. What is true of material means in general is
also true of these material means of thinking. They, pure, develop along
with knowledge in a co-evolution that characteristically engenders a sur-
plus of knowledge. Tuttavia, it should be added that it is these means of
thinking in particular that set up a horizon of what can be accomplished
by thought and what cannot. Presupposing social conditions favorable to
realizing the spectrum of possibilities inherent in a material means of la-
bor at a certain stage of development, it depends speciªcally on the mate-
rial means of thinking to what extent and in what way the experiences
made through acting with the means of labor can be transformed into es-
tablished knowledge; E, furthermore, what systems of knowledge, Quello
È, what deep structures of inference, can be built.
3.2 Material Means of Scientiªc Thinking
So far, we have regarded the interrelation of knowledge and acting with
material instruments only in economic labor processes. Is such an interre-
lation also characteristic of the scientiªc labor process? Can we suppose
that scientiªc ªndings, insights, propositions, and theories emerge in such
a co-evolution of material means and knowledge? As I will argue, Questo
supposition can, Infatti, be justiªed, provided that a comprehensive no-
tion is formed of what belongs to the material means of scientiªc
thinking.
It is probably not at all contentious to call observational instruments or
experimental devices “material means of the sciences.” And probably no-
body will question the dependency of certain scientiªc concepts and theo-
ries on such instruments and devices. Tuttavia, it may seem less obvious
to also denote languages, symbolic systems, or diagrammatic representa-
tions “material means.” Such means of representation are usually taken to
be mere externalizations of thoughts, the materiality of which does not
really matter. And even when they are acknowledged as indispensable
means of memorizing and communicating, their function as material
means of thinking is often missed, questo è, their function as means that
decide what can be achieved by thinking.
Numerical notations are a good case in point. In a culture like ancient
Egypt with a system of numerical notation that does not include a place
value system, we do not ªnd algorithms for multiplication and division
that are in any sense comparable to ours. With regard to these elementary
arithmetical operations, the most gifted and accomplished mathemati-
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Perspectives on Science
217
cians of such a culture would not be able to keep up with average people of
our culture. The “superiority” of the latter rests solely on the employed
notation system, which allows these algorithms. Another instructive ex-
ample is provided by chemical formulas.44 Their function as a kind of
shorthand is hardly the extent of their usefulness. Piuttosto, they serve
chemists as means of reconstructing complex chemical reactions and as
building blocks of formula models, without which modern organic chem-
istry would not have developed. Così, they were rightly called “paper
tools,” that is, graphic means, the materiality of which matters no less
than that of ordinary tools. It therefore makes sense to call also seemingly
non-physical things like syntactical ordered systems of signs, chemical
formulas, tables, diagrams, eccetera. “material means of thinking.” Like other
material means of thinking, they delineate a horizon of what results
scientists can achieve and even what results are conceivable or probable.
It therefore seems quite reasonable to assume that the co-evolution of
knowledge and material means of production discussed above for the labor
process in general, including its characteristic surplus of knowledge
yielded, holds for the process of scientiªc production as well. This conclu-
sion is suggested when the material character of such “paper tools” is ac-
knowledged and, on this basis, the cognitive performances of scientists as
well are, realistically, considered to rest essentially on the spectrum of ma-
terial means of thinking available in a given society in a certain age.
The material means of thinking used in science are not entirely differ-
ent from those used outside science. The kinds of instruments applied are
not the primary means by which scientiªc labor distinguishes itself from
other sorts of labor.45 Many of the material means of scientiªc thinking
were invented neither by scientists nor for scientiªc purposes, Ma
emerged and developed in practical contexts. This holds not only for in-
struments like the telescope or the centrifuge, but also for less tangible
means such as a society’s system of numerical notation which was in-
vented, developed and used in various domains of planning, administra-
zione, eccetera., long before science came into being. Even in contemporary sci-
ence, the material means taken over from the outside world, with or
without adaptations, probably outnumber those invented and developed
speciªcally for science. Inoltre, the ºow of materials and instrumen-
tation occurs not only from the sphere of economic production into sci-
ence, but also the other way around. Materials and apparatuses produced
and developed in laboratories turned out to be of relevance for economic
44. For the following, Vedere (Klein 2003).
45. For the following, Vedere (Joerges and Shinn 2001).
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Science as Labor
production and triggered the development of analogous instruments and
techniques on a scale suitable for their employment in the sphere of the
economic labor process. Così, it is not the nature of the means themselves
but their use for purposes of cognition that renders them scientiªc means.
To give an example:46 The inventors of Greek geometry did not invent the
compass and ruler on which this geometry essentially rests. Living in a so-
ciety that used these instruments in several practical domains, they ren-
dered them scientiªc instruments by making a speciªc use of them. They
employed them not to design the ground plan of a temple or for another
practical goal, but to gain insight in the regularities of constructions that
can be accomplished by compass and ruler.
There is another signiªcant difference with respect to the use of such
means in scientiªc and practical contexts. In the latter case, the purposes
aimed at and economical considerations of all kind impose narrow limits
on the use that can be made of the employed means. Handling these
means in an unrestricted manner is out of the question as is, così, free ex-
ploration of the possibilities they present. Tuttavia, such free exploration
constitutes the core of science. The purpose pursued in science is this very
exploration of what knowledge can be gained using such means. Of
course, in the scientiªc labor process as well, care must be taken not to
waste materials or abuse instruments. And scientiªc research cannot be
taken as a playful way of trying out what can be achieved with the given
equipment. In contrast to tendencies to depict the laboratory as the site of
heroic activities or of a fancy as well as brilliant playing around, IL
greater part of laboratory work consists, like ordinary labor, of exhausting
and boring routine operations that apply materials and instruments as ef-
fectively and economically as possible. But this down-to-earth view of lab-
oratory work by no means denies that successful research needs to have the
freedom to pursue unforeseen results and traces, to shift the focus of atten-
tion to unexpected by-products of the process under investigation, In
other words, to yield to the drive of promising digressions that emerge in
the course of the work. It is for this openness of science, on which its fer-
tility rests, that unrestricted use of the research means is absolutely essen-
tial. With science, the realization of potential knowledge inherent in
given means is transformed into a systematically performed social
enterprise.
3.3 Nature in the Light of Technology
In the light of the arguments put forward so far, the technologic character
of science may have become more tangible. A conception of science that
46. For the following, Vedere (Netz 1999).
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Perspectives on Science
219
focused chieºy on observation and induction without allowing for the ma-
terial means that enable perception and cognition would seem to overlook
the reality of science. And even if one added negotiation to observation
and induction, only a small improvement would be achieved. Scientiªc
production is a labor process that employs, like all other kinds of labor,
material means. It is based on such means not only occasionally or in some
exceptional cases, but generally. Accordingly, the results achieved are al-
ways the outcome of an equipped production process and, così, shaped by
the equipment actually employed. In other words, these results are medi-
ated by material means which function as “conditions of the possibility”
of such results, like the “pure forms of intuition” and the “pure concepts
Di
IL
the understanding” in Kant’s epistemology—”conditions of
possibility,” however, that are genuinely historical.
A part of the material means that shape science supports the natural
faculties of the scientists. Observatory instruments enable the senses of the
scientiªc laborers to discern and discriminate details that lie far beyond
the limits of their natural perception capacity. Algorithms and calculating
devices allow extrapolations of attained data, which cannot be performed
by the unequipped mind. But such supporting means are hardly neutral.
Even mathematical algorithms always yield only representations that are
as selective as all other kinds of representations and models. As is well-
known, observatory instruments are not pure media that merely magnify
or amplify phenomena. Piuttosto, they transform them and thus necessitate
an appropriate understanding of how they work as precondition for inter-
preting their productions. Instruments of observation such as radio tele-
scopes or machinery for scanning tunneling microscopy, ªnally, cannot be
conceived of as aids for our senses but must be understood as devices that
produce, through interaction with the objects in question, traces and data
that are transformed into representations perceptible to us.
Observatory instruments of this kind constitute the bridge to the mate-
rial means of the scientiªc production process which render it techno-
scientiªc strictu sensu, namely to instruments such as a chemical distilla-
tion apparatus that acts physically upon natural objects. Such means
ultimately cease to comply with the view of science as observation plus in-
duction, which permits activity on part of the scientist only on the mental
level and prescribes purely receptive passivity towards the object. Piuttosto,
these intervening means show the physical interaction between employed
means and natural objects as the foundation of the scientiªc labor process.
Its object is not the untouched natural things but their behavior in such
interactions. Inoltre, because of their materiality, the behavior of the
instruments employed in such interactions is, in principle, just as genuine
an object of investigation and source of insights as the behavior of the ob-
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Science as Labor
jects acted upon. Actually, understanding the way the instrument works
was and still is a favored access to the understanding of nature.
It is therefore not by chance that, in the beginning, science developed
by studying instruments from the sphere of economic production. For in-
stance, up to the eighteenth century, mechanics was essentially the science
of mechanical instruments. Statics was originally a science of the balance
and was called very adequately “science of weights” in the Middle Ages.
Optics originally dealt with the properties of lenses and mirrors. Early
modern dynamics rested essentially on the investigations of machine parts
like the pendulum and of ballistics. The same could be shown for chemis-
try and other natural sciences. The reason why insight into nature can be
gained by studying the operation of certain instruments of labor lies prin-
cipally in the fact that such instruments draw in and make use of “forces of
nature” for the labor process. One can thus study nature in these instru-
ments as in a mirror: “Art has always been a highly selective mirror of na-
ture” (White 1966, P. 110).47
Later on, such intervening instruments with signiªcance for science
came into being and were developed in the sphere of scientiªc production
itself. The air-pump and certain chemical reagents may serve as examples.
Inoltre, in this sphere, a new type of material means of the scientiªc
labor process emerged; means that are more than just intervening instru-
ments but rather technoscientiªc ones of a particular kind, namely instru-
ments that ªrst generate the object of investigation. The sequence from
the Leyden jar up to the cyclotron could be adduced once more. Tuttavia,
even natural history, usually considered purely descriptive, proves upon
closer inspection to be such a technoscience. In botany and zoology, for in-
stance, the stabilization of plant and animal specimens includes not only
collecting, ordering, and preserving but also producing in a literal sense.
For the reduction of varieties to species, an essential precondition of
classiªcation, cannot be performed mentally but requires growing and
breeding.48 Against the background of the observed role that material
means of the ordinary labor process played and play for science, the em-
ployment of production instruments in sciences may no longer appear as
exceptional as before. They form one extreme pole in a spectrum of mate-
rial means of scientiªc labor extending all the way down to simple
observation instruments like magnifying glasses.
47.
In a paper
from 1978 (Ruben 1978), Peter Ruben suggested that
IL
epistemological theory of mirroring, notorious in Lenin’s version, might be quite reason-
able if separated from a sensualistic understanding of perception as well as from a mentalist
understanding of cognition and taken instead literally to be a process mediated by material
entities.
48. (Müller-Wille 1997) discusses this practice in the case of Linnaeus’ botany.
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At least since the early modern period, the technologic character of sci-
ence has left traces in the understanding of what science does, Anche se
most of these traces are indirect. The gradual dismissal of the traditional
opposition of nature and art is one such trace. This opposition was instru-
mental for Aristotle’s distinction between mechanics and physics,49 Quale
separated technologic knowledge from knowledge of nature as such. As is
well known, this separation was not only a matter of classifying ªelds of
knowledge but had institutional consequences: in the Middle Ages and
the early modern period, physics, a sub-discipline of philosophy, era
taught at the universities whereas mechanics developed outside of this
sphere of higher education.50 Still an unsettled issue in the sixteenth cen-
tury, the demarcation between physics and mechanics began to vanish
with Galileo and the seventeenth-century natural philosophers who fol-
lowed his example. The new understanding of technology and science
manifested itself when Newton conceptualized the paths of the planets as
ballistic trajectories, and no less, Quando, at the same time, chemists began
to treat vitriols synthesized in the laboratory in the same way as natural
vitriols. Along with the development of the early modern sciences, a clear
understanding emerged that humans’ technology is neither unnatural nor
outwits nature but makes use of her laws and powers. As Francis Bacon
put it classically: natura non nisi parendo vincitur (Novum Organum I,
aphorism 3).
This paradigm change was not conªned to considering devices and ma-
chines as acting in conformity to nature. Piuttosto, such artifacts even be-
came models of nature—the mechanistic conception of the universe as a
clock is probably the most prominent instance of modeling nature after
technical devices. Although the principal inadequacy of such models is
generally acknowledged, science seems to be unable to refrain from mak-
ing use of them—taking the sun as a fusion reactor or a H-bomb, IL
DNA as a code, the brain as a computer, and so on. This modeling should
not be dismissed as a matter of popularizing and illustrating scientiªc
conceptions that has nothing to do with science proper. Piuttosto, it deserves
attention as an indicator of a deep structure of scientiªc reasoning. It indi-
cates an essentially technologic character of scientiªc explanations. On a
basic level, explaining a phenomenon means deriving it from an actual or
imaginable process that would produce it. The “logic” of explanation is
that of production. It thus has the appearance that our modern sciences are
technosciences even at their very epistemic core.
49. For this distinction, Vedere (Hoykaas 1963).
50. Jordanus Nemorarius’ science of weights must be considered an exception that
conªrms the rule.
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