Beyond the performativity of language
The linguistic turn and social constructivism in Leviathan and Air-Pump
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15848/hh.v18.2409Palavras-chave:
History of science, Linguistic turn, ConstructivismResumo
Forty years after the publication of Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer's book, Leviathan and the Air-Pump, this paper aims to examine the philosophical commitments that the authors assumed when they recognized themselves as part of the social constructivist perspective of Strong Programme. This vision, deeply rooted in Wittgensteinian philosophy, addressed the analysis of scientific knowledge in defense of the primacy of practice. However, constructivism has been naively interpreted as limiting itself to the performativity of language. The review of these commitments allows me to explore the affinities between language and materiality in the framework of their work. Finally, I examine the approach that the authors made to the philosopher's body as constitutive of the experimental form of life in seventeenth-century England. I seek to clarify where the conceptual effort and complexity of investigating scientific practices through Wittgenstein's notions of form of life and language-game lay.
Downloads
Referências
BIAGIOLI, Mario. Tacit Knowledge, Courtliness, and the Scientist’s Body. In: FOSTER, Susan Leigh (ed.). Choreographing History. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1995, pp. 69-81.
BARAD, Karen. Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Chicago, v. 28, n. 3, pp. 801-831, 2003. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/345321
BARNES, Barry. On the Conventional Character of Knowledge and Cognition. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Thousand Oaks, v. 11, n. 3, pp. 303-333, 1981. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/004839318101100303
BARNES, Barry. T. S. Kuhn and Social Science. Columbia: Columbia University Press. 1982a.
BARNES, Barry. On the Extensions of Concepts and the Growth of Knowledge. Sociological Review, Lancaster, v. 30, pp. 23-44, 1982b. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1982.tb00652.x
BARNES, Barry, BLOOR, David and HENRY, John. Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis. Athlone and Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996.
BLOOR, David. Wittgenstein: Rules and Institutions. London: Routledge, 1997.
BLOOR, David. Critical Notice. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Cambridge, v. 30, n. 4, pp. 597-608, 2000. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2000.10717545
BLOOR, David. Wittgenstein and the priority of practice. In: KNORR CETINA, Karin, SCHATZKI, Theodore R. & VON SAVIGNY, Eike (eds.). The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. New York: Routledge. 2001a, pp. 95-107.
BLOOR, David. What is a Social Construction? Facta Philosophica, Charlottesville, v. 3, n. 2, pp. 141-156, 2001b. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/factaphil20013211
HACKING, Ian. Artificial Phenomena. The British Journal for the History of Science, Cambridge, v. 24, n. 2, pp. 235-241, 1991. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087400027096
HACKING, Ian. Statistical language, statistical truth and statistical reason: The self-authentication of a style of scientific reasoning. In: MC MULLIN, Ernan (ed.). The Social Dimensions of Science. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1992a, pp. 130-157.
HACKING, Ian. The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences. In: PICKERING, Andrew (ed.). Science as Practice and Culture. Chicago: Chicago University, 1992b, pp. 29-64.
HACKING, Ian. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999.
HACKING, Ian. Véracité et raison. Cours au Collège de France. Paris: Collége de France, 2006. Available in: http ://www.ianhacking.com/collegedefrance.html. Accessed 10 July 2024.
HACKING, Ian. Scientific Reason. Taiwan: National Taiwan University, 2009.
HACKING, Ian. ‘Language, Truth and Reason’. Thirty years later. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Amsterdam, v. 43, n. 4, pp. 599- 609, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2012.07.002
KUSCH, Martin. Metaphysical deja vu: Hacking and Latour on science studies and metaphysics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Amsterdam, Part A, v. 33, n. 3, pp. 639-647, 2002a. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0039-3681(01)00037-1
KUSCH, Martin. Knowledge by Agreement: The Programme of Communitarian Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2002b. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/0199251223.003.0006
LATOUR, Bruno. Postmodern? No, Simply Amodern! Steps Towards an Anthropology of Science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Amsterdam, v. 21, n.1, pp. 145-171, 1990. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0039-3681(90)90018-4
LATOUR, Bruno. Nous n'avons jamais été modernes: essai d'anthropologie symétrique. Paris: Editions la Decouverte,1991.
LATOUR, Bruno. Review Essay: The Netz-Works of Greek Deductions. Social Studies of Science, Thousand Oaks, v. 38, n. 3, pp.441-459, 2008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312707087973
MARTÍNEZ RODRÍGUEZ, María Laura. Texture in the Work of Ian Hacking. Michel Foucault as the Guiding Thread of Hacking’s Thinking. Cham: Springer Verlag, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64785-8
MARTINI, María de los Ángeles. Ian Hacking’s rewriting of Leviathan and the Air-Pump. Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science, Belo Horizonte, n. 15, pp. 1-16, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24117/2526-2270.2023.i15.03
PENELAS, Federico. Wittgenstein. Buenos Aires: Galerna. 2020.
SCHAFFER, Simon. Self Evidence. Critical Inquiry, Chicago, v. 18, n. 2, pp. 327–62, 1992. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/448635
SCHAFFER, Simon. Opposition is True Friendship. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, London, v. 35 n. 3-4, pp. 277-90, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/030801810X12772143410124
SHAPIN, Steven. The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England. Isis, v.79, pp. 373-404, 1988. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/354773
SHAPIN, Steven. The Mind is Its Own Place: Science and Solitude in Seventeenth-Century England. Cambridge. Science in Context, v. 4, pp.191-218, 1991. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S026988970000020X
SHAPIN, Steven. Discipline and Bounding: The History and Sociology of Science as seen through the Externalism-Internalism Debate. History of Science, Thousand Oaks, v. 30, pp. 333-369. 1992. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/007327539203000401
SHAPIN, Steven. A Social History of Truth. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 1994.
SHAPIN, Steven. Placing the View from Nowhere: Historical and Sociological Problems in the Location of Science. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, n. 23, 1998a. p. 5-12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0020-2754.1998.00005.x
SHAPIN, Steven. The Philosopher and the Chicken: On the Dietetics of Disembodied Knowledge. In: SHAPIN, Steven and LAWRENCE, Christopher (eds.). Science Incarnate: Historical Embodiments of Natural Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998b. p. 21-50.
SHAPIN, Steven. Rarely pure and never simple: Talking about truth. Configurations, Baltimore, v. 7 n. 1, 1999. p. 1-14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/con.1999.0010
SHAPIN, Steven. Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.56021/9780801894206
SHAPIN, Steven and LAWRENCE, Christopher (eds.). Science Incarnate: Historical Embodiments of Natural Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
SHAPIN, Steven and SCHAFFER, Simon. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400838493
SISMONDO, Sergio. Some Social Constructions. Social Studies of Science, Thousand Oaks, v. 23, n.3, pp. 515-553, 1993. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312793023003004
Downloads
Publicado
Como Citar
Edição
Seção
Licença
Copyright (c) 2025 María de los Ángeles Martini

Este trabalho está licenciado sob uma licença Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
O envio de manuscrito para a revista garante aos seus autores a manutenção dos direitos autorais sobre o mesmo e autoriza que a revista realize a primeira publicação do texto. Os dados, conceitos e opiniões apresentados nos trabalhos, bem como a exatidão das referências documentais e bibliográficas, são de inteira responsabilidade dos autores.

Este obra está licenciada com uma Licença Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional.











