Latour - Social Studies of Science in France

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A Booming Discipline Short of Discipline: (Social) Studies of Science in FranceAuthor(s): Geof Bowker and Bruno LatourSource: Social Studies of Science, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Nov., 1987), pp. 715-748Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/285168

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COUNTRY COMMENTARY* ABSTRACT

This commentary surveys some of the work currently in train in France thatreflects on science - its history, its intellectual foundations and its impact.It attempts to impart some coherence to its map of this field, and to correctseveral Anglo-Saxon misunderstandings regarding the nature of thisintellectual activity. It ends with an analysis of the origins of the radicaldifferences in the approach to science in France and in the Anglo-Saxonworld, and a plea for more attention to the French work.

A Booming Discipline Short of Discipline:(Social) Studies of Science in France

Geof Bowkerand BrunoLatourOn the one hand, France gives the impressionof beinga boomingfieldas far as reflectionson science,on history, ts intellectual oundations ndits impactareconcerned.Manynew collectionson science andsocietyareappearingnbookstores,newgraduate rogrammes rebeingsetupinseveraluniversities,new researchgroupsarestartingup in engineeringschools, in universities, in government nstitutions, n museums of artor technology- all more or less concernedwith coming to grips withthe new technologyand thushelpingFranceadapt o the 'whiteheatoftechnology', or to the new buzz notion of 'culture echnique'('technicalculture'or 'technical iteracy').On theotherhand,if we look fora well-defined field of scholarship n some vague way akin to what Englishor American academics call 'social studies of science' or 'Science,TechnologyandSociety' (STS), the situation s entirelydifferent: hereare very few professionals, very few groups, few libraries, very fewjournals,1no curricula.We couldhave writtena countryreport hatwould have focusedonlyon whatAnglo-Saxons2choose to call STS. It would have been a sad,Social Studies of Science (SAGE, London, Newbury Park, Beverly Hillsand NewDelhi), Vol. 17 (1987), 715-48


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716 Social Studiesof Sciencebleakreport.In thispaperwe have chosento define the FrenchthroughFrenchcategoriesandnotions, and to help the Anglo-Saxonschart forthemselvesa few of the basicmisunderstandingshat seem to maketheChannel as vast as the Pacific. This applicationof the principle ofsymmetrywill not surprisereadersof Social Studiesof Science. We mustadmit, however, that we both found it immensely difficult to forceourselvesawayfrom our firstprejudicesandto present he Frenchsceneaccordingto its own categories. If Frenchor English readers feel thetext bearstracesof a struggleto overcomebias and that full objectivityhas not been achieved, they are absolutely right!

Two Definitions of Scholarly History of ScienceThe first misunderstandingwe will treat has to do with what the twosides of the Channelconsiderrespectableandproperhistoryof science.One example will be enough to indicate the extent of the difficulties.'C'est tout melange' ('It's all mixed up') said the editor of a leadingFrenchpublishinghouse. Picturea roguewordprocessingpackagethattakes two texts, one an internalhistoryof physics and the otheron thehistoryof the communityof physicists, andrandomlypastes sentencesfrom the one into paragraphsof the second. The resultant ext wouldbe not without nterest,butwould readverystrangely.The editor houghthe had such a text on his handswhen a translationof Daniel Kevles'sstudy ThePhysicists3was submitted or consideration.FromwithintheAnglo-Saxontradition hiswork is as neutralas canbe on debatesaboutthe social constructionof scientific thought:it chooses a languagefor,and unity in, its subject such that the issue does not really arise. YetwithintheFrenchcommunity n generaltheworkshocks because t doesnotpose a 'rupture' thiswordwill recur)betweencommunityandcon-tent, butdisplaysa continuitybetweenthetwo. If rationality s ignored,thena work of historyseems absurd o the French; f society is ignored,it seems absurdto the Anglo-Saxon.A second misunderstanding elates to the definitionof what it is todo critical work. For most readerswithin the Anglo-Saxontradition,the editor's sense of shock is hardto understand, ven paradoxical.Weare used to Frenchintellectualsappearing n the wings (when they doappear)as radical roublers f existingorder: romSartreandde BeauvoirthroughAlthusserandFoucault o DerridaandBaudrillard,hey engagein a moral and political discourse that denies the neutralityof themost harmless phrase and sees power plays in the slightest gesture.


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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour:FranceYet when science appears,these iconoclasticfigureheadsgatherbehindits banner.Inthe courseof thispaperwe will see the mostsociologizingof sociologists (PierreBourdieu)and themosthistoricizingof historicalschools (theAnnalists)definescience as somethingsomehowapart romsociety and history.Thus if we tried to producean article on the field of the social studyof science asdefinedby Anglo-Saxons,we wouldimmediately indmuchto surprise:it 'should' be booming, and attachedto critical sociologyand philosophy;it is languishing,and attachedto positivism.

History and Sociology Present on the One Side andAbsent from the OtherThe basic misunderstanding etweenthe two traditions s thatthe twomain disciplines which have contributedabroad to the boom in socialstudies of science are entirely absent in France.Thuswe canconsider thecase of one of France'sleadingsociologists- PierreBourdieu,a majorfigure withinthe world sociological com-munity and the author of a classic article on the 'scientific field'.4Bourdieu'sgreat contribution n this domain has been the concept of'symbolic capital', which he uses to analyzeknowledge productionasa special case of capitalistproduction.5Seen in this light, knowledgeproduction an be takenas subject o the sameplaybetweenthe domina-tors and the dominatedas permeates he productionanddistributionofother commodities. Thus we are well away from Merton's scientificcommunity: knowledge', whichmayor maynotbe rational, s wieldedas a weapon, hoarded like a treasure,or re-investedlike capital.Bourdieuhas developed this analysis, which throws into doubttheexistenceof anyrationaldisinterested ommunity, n variousways. Oneis thathe has turned t to classical questionsof linguisticsto attacktheSaussurean deal of an asocial language: all languageuse for him isintegrallyconcernedwith the play of power relations.6All statementsareto some extentperformatives;heydenotesocialclass andcommandsubmissionor recognize domination. It is impossible to abstractthisperformativelement romanalysisof syntax.Indeedhelaunchesa severecritiqueof the structuralistsn generalfor ignoringthe social dimensionof language. Where the idea of symbolic capital might include theproductionof chunks of neutral knowledge, this development seesBourdieuclearlymovingin a directionof the impossibilityof neutrality.Anotheraxis of his development,the studyof the academicfield as a

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Social Studiesof Sciencewhole, seems to confirm histrend.In HomoAcademicusBourdieupoursscornupona new kind of academicanimal,no longer fullylodgedwithinthe university, who belongs to clubs where 'the most intellectualofmanagersand the mostmanagerial f intellectuals xchange heirvisionsof the world', or to commissions where 'researchersof administrationand administrators f researchgathertogetherto decree the futureofscience... '.7 ThroughoutBourdieu'sbook academics are analyzedassuccessful or unsuccessfulpowerbrokers,and the formandcontent oftheir analysis is shown to be at the service of this quest for power.Bourdieu takes a neutral field like linguistics and discovers society,or a neutralsocial community ike academiaand discovers social deter-minationof the contentof workproduced.Whathappenswhen he takesan ideologically chargedfield like social science, or a community ikethat of sociologists? He discovers truth. To understand his paradoxthe Anglo-Saxonreadermust understand hat, for Bourdieu,the term'sociologyof social science' meansepistemology.Perhaps ociologywillnever be fully neutral,butby lookingatthe sociology of sociology, onecan get very close to escaping 'the historical circle' and 'patternsofdomination'.8This is his view today; its theoreticalunderpinnings anbe seen in a collection of texts publishedsome twenty-fiveyears ago,currently in its fourth (essentially unchanged)edition: Questions desociologie.9Thesociologyof knowledge s represented ya proliferationof textsfromBachelard ndCanguilhem, picedwithKoyreandDuhem;all of these figures, as we shall see, areultimatelymoreconcernedwiththe epistemologicalstatusof science thanwith its historical location.10Bourdieuis more likely to follow Canguilhemand give an externalistcritiqueof externalism('a weakened,or rather mpoverishedMarxismwhich is developed in rich societies')"l than to give an externalistcritiqueof knowledge.Indeed,his interest n the sociology of sociologyreflects this will for sociologists to achieve neutrality hroughreflexiveconsiderationof their own theories.

AlthoughBourdieu'sanalysisis extremelyuseful to the sociology ofscience in general, what lies immediatelybehindhis attitudes s a con-victionthatwhat he is doing is science. Thus whenone of us questionedhim aboutthe sociology of science, he hadthe distinctimpressionthathe was being answeredby remarksaboutthe science of sociology. Wewill see that his result s generalizable: oththesociologyandthehistoryof science are at the service of epistemology.'2At the last moment, an obscure twist in the fabric of his analysishaspreventedBourdieu romdoinga fully fledgedsociology of science.The next step is to survey the historicalscene, and to look to the most

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour: Francehistoricizingof historians:the Annalists. These scholars have revolu-tionized the craft of history, developing at the same time new objectsof analysis and new tools to study them with.The Annalists are not physically housed in a school, nor do theynecessarily consider themselves as developing a homogeneousset ofideas. Jacques Le Goff, one of their leading representatives oday,prefersto talkof the 'spirit'of the Annales,arguing hattheywere onlyreallyunified from 1929to 1939, whenexternalattacksforcedinternalcohesion. Since thedeathof FernandBraudel n 1985, he stresses,thereis no recognizableleader.13There is, however, a continuingstruggleagainst traditionalhistory, and a powerful review which furthersthecause. Two originatorsandleadinglights of the Annalists,MarcBlochand LucienFebvre, wroteaboutthe historyof science andtechnology.Bloch produceda historyof windmills which sparked he debateaboutthe 'first' industrial revolution.'4 Febvre wrote articles in which hemadea ferventappeal orwork inthefield;one such callringstruetoday:'Thehistoryof science is done, when it is done, eitherby philosophers,and this is not withoutcausing problems...; or by scientists:but theyare no more historiansthan the philosophers... 15Historiansof tech-nology whom we interviewed recalled Febvre's influence for startingthemontheirway, butsaidthat he Annalists hemselveshad neverreallycome good on theirpledge to be interested n this history. Le Goff, forthe Annalists, reversed the charge: the problemwas that historiansoftechnology did not do enough trainingin history.One way to characterize he Annales school is by its sensitivity toperceptions f time.Theirhistorians ave served n France o freehistoryfromtheimpatient adenceof politicalnarrative,whereevents are a dailyoccurrence.They prove willing to go to the other end of the spectrum,doing, for example, the history of a glacier when looking at the slowrhythmsof change in the relationshipbetween the communityand itsphysicalenvironment.Steppingup the rhythmslightly, they look at theslow, steady,continuouschangeof socialhistory.Finally, theyre-insertpoliticalhistoryinto these contexts. FromLe Goff to Furetto Le Roy-Ladurie'6 hey have producedfascinatingmeditationson the natureofhistoricaltime. The school hasbeen mostprolix in producingworks ofsocial history, and to this end they have pioneeredthe introductionofstatistical nalysis ntoqualitativehistory.Inrecentyears, sincetheearly1970s, theyhave donesomethingof anabout-face,becomingmuchmoreconcernedwiththe historicalstructureof the imagination.17acquesLeGoff's brilliant The Birth of Purgatorytypifies this trend;18 t doeseverything hatcould be askedof a socialhistoryof science butdoes it for

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Social Studiesof Sciencea chapter n the historyof Christianity.The Annalistshave historicizedmany things which never had a history before. Tears, odour, death,glaciers are all historicized. But not science. As was the case withBourdieu, our reader runsup against an impenetrablewall.There are a few points to make about the Annalists here. Firstly,their historical echniques ake a long time to assimilate.Le Goff, rathercoyly, says that 'they have not made history a science... and yet thatthey do use scientific methods'. Secondly, it follows that for them thestatusof science is not really open to question: for this would causethem to questiontheir own legitimacy. Thus Canguilhemappeared oLe Goff to be an ideal historianof science: he workedat the interfaceof epistemology, philosophy and history.19Again, we find this ideathat we found with Bourdieu: science being what it is, the history ofscience has a separatestatus. To historicize science would entaila riskof relativizingthe Annalists. Febvre, proponentof total history, letsslip this special status: 'Science is of its essence universal,independentof frontiersand nationalities.However, it would not be vain to followits development in a particularcountry.'20Nor, one would like toadd, to look athow sciencehas createda worldin which it is universallyvalid.

There is perhaps an overarching reason that makes the Annalistscoy in their dealings with science.21Althoughthe Annalist school ishauntedby the problematicof Marxism, they are never militantaboutit. They retainthroughout heir work a sort of 'wary Marxism': thusthey explainmostsuperstructuralppearancen termsof infrastructuresand 'longue duree' ('long duration').But what sort of superstructures?This is where they show their wariness. They work only in terms ofsoft superstructures s it were: mentalities,popularbeliefs, sometimesparasciences- or, at their most daring, medicine and hygiene. Werethey to studyscience they wouldhave to choose betweenone thingandthe other:theirMarxismor theirtimidity. By steeringwell clear of thehard sciences, they ensure that they will never have to make such aterriblechoice. Sincethepeoplewho in Francecall themselveshistoriansof science are mainly epistemologists, they never have to confronttheissue head one. They operate within a tacit division of labour withepistemology akingonthe hardsciencesandwaryMarxismdealingwiththe rest of society.22In France, then, both total sociology and total history leave sciencetotally alone. As we shall see below, however, both the AnnalistsandBourdieu, along with other workers in the field of social science, doofferhighly suggestivenew ways of lookingat society andat discourse.

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour: FranceShunting Anti-Empiricism Towards Societyor Towards TheoryTo locate the positive featuresof the field we will have to discuss awider field - one thatspanssocial studiesof technology, social history(particularly hose works concernedwith the history of 'mentalities'),the economicsof researchanddevelopment,andanthropology insofaras this approaches he anthropologyof science).Thepessimisticreadercouldsaythat we have hadto castournetwidein orderto find any social studiesof science in France. This is not thecase. The source of most misunderstandings etween the two traditionscomes from a socio-intellectual factor: there are no disciplines norprofessions as such in France. As Michael Pollack warnedus:

If you look for the discipline of social studies of science, or for that matter of anydisciplinedefinedalongprofessionalboundaries s theseare constitutedn Anglo-Saxoncountries,you will notfindit. This is not becausetheFrenchdo not do anyinterestingwork, but because they divide the world up differently.23

And, while being acutelyaware of the dangersof culturalism,24we areequallyawareof the institutional ndepistemological ifferencesbetweenthe academic scene in Franceand in, say, America.Most of thepositionsheldinacademia nFranceare moreorless securefrom evaluation(negativeor positive) of peers. Thus it is possible forFrench academics largely to ignore pressure from their peers. It ispossibleto make a career withoutreadinganyothercolleagues, withouthavingany students thismaysoundnegative,but it also entailsbeingable to escape others' researchprogrammesandagendasfor the field,which is a very positive feature. The resultof this uniquesituation sto offer complete, independent otalizingworks each of which is as anisland,a completereformulation f all possibleproblemsconnectedwiththesubject.Anglo-Saxons onsistently gnorethis basicfactbecausetheybelieve that France is highly centralized and that the Latin Quarterdominates hecountry.Theyalwaysmiss thedispersednatureof Frenchintellectuallife, and the unique opportunity herein of developing inrelative solationworksthatareincommensurable ne withanother.Thismakes the task of writinga countryreportstill moredifficult: the maincharacteristic f the Frenchscene is the richness of independentworks,which cannot be groupedinto schools or trends.Theproblem s notone of reviewingschoolsandresearchprogrammeswith students and graduates,but of presentingpersonalitieswho haveproducedautonomousworks. Reviewingall of the mainfigureswould

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722 Social Studiesof Sciencehave been an endless task and still would not have donejustice to theimportanceof the work produced.Following our Ariadne'sthread wehave chosen to review only the partsof those works that illustratebasicways in which we think that the French and the Anglo-Saxonsare atcross-purposes:how what we thinkthey do and whatthey thinkwe dohas little to do with what either does.Duhem is a good example of the two traditionstalking at cross-purposes.25Known in the English-speakingworld for being half of theQuine/Duhemhypothesis,PierreDuhem s taken n Franceas the founderof theanti-empiricistrgumenthatfacts are neverenough.From Duhem(early 1900s) on, we can take this argument o have won the day. Buta majordifference should be stressed here: in EnglandQuine/Duhemwas brandished n the 1970s as a proof that we must turn to society;26whereas in FranceDuhem's argumenthas been taken as a proof of theneed to turn to theory (or to philosophy, in Koyre's case). In general,though, Duhem has not had a very wide institutional nfluence. Hewas persecutedall his life for his right-wingCatholicviews; andstayedisolatedin Bordeaux whereasParis is arguably heonly possible powerbase for academics).27He concentratedon the history of science inthe Middle Ages; but his most importantcontributionwas surely hisforging of a link between the practiceof physics and the study of itshistory.Thewaythe two traditionsalkatcross-purposess stillbetter llustratedby what both have done with Alexandre Koyre.28 Koyre is, withCanguilhem,the person most associatedwith the study of science inFrance, and he is perhapsthe best-knownFrench historianof scienceabroad.The key to his work is the associationmade therein betweenphilosophy, heologyand heory.Thiscomestothefore n a work ikeFromthe Closed World o the InfiniteUniverse,29whereconflictingscientifictheoriesareseen asrepresentingoherent onflictingphilosophies.As wasthe casewithDuhem,Koyre totallyrejected he idea that acts havemuchto dowithscience,especiallyatthe timeof the scientificrevolution.Thus,as partof theunanimousFrenchcritiqueof empiricism,he puts 'theory'attheoriginof scientificity.Evenmore,in a move thatparticularlyndearshim to French academics, he shows that philosophyhas been a veryinfluentialactor,muchstrongerhanmaterial ulture.Thus,inananalysisseverelycriticizedby StillmanDrake,he uncoveredGalileo'sPlatonism:this analysiswas partlyinspiredby the desire to producea critiqueofMarxistattempts o link the Galileanrevolutionwith materialculture.Koyrevaccinated generation f Frenchhistorians gainst ocialexplana-tionsof science:by making hemacceptthe influenceof philosophyand


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Country Commentary: Bowker & Latour: Francetheologyon science,he preventednfection romthe influenceof society.If Koyreis seen in Englandas someonewho shows the influenceof extra-scientific factors on the innerworkingsof science, this is far from thecase in France. Hisdevastating ritiqueof anysocialexplanation emainsa commonreferencepoint. The influenceof philosophydoes not shunthis work towards anthropologybut towards a sort of transcendentalhistory. Koyrecannotbe used here to addany relativity o science, onlyto add a bit of historicityto rationalcategories.MorethanDuhemor Koyre,however, GastonBachelard s the fatherfigure for everythingthat is called historyor epistemology of sciencein France;30he remains the obligatory reference point, much likeWittgensteins in England.31 achelardwas a postmaster, hen a sciencesecondary choolteacher,thena universityprofessorof philosophy.ForFrench scientists he is the centralfigurein our field. They have all readsome of his works in the compulsoryphilosophycourse at the Lyc6es(in preparation or the baccalaureat).He providesthe wherewithal orthecuriousease andfluencywithwhich Frenchscientistsproduceworksof spontaneousepistemology- an ease particularlymarkedwhen seenin the light of the reticence of Anglo-Saxonscientiststo do the same.His works are difficult for the anglophone o read, and have been littletranslated.They develop a certainstyle of epistemologywhich situatesitself at the intersectionof philosophyand psychoanalysis:a desertedcrossroadsin Englandand America.In a sense, Bachelard's work is the very antipodes of the strongprogramme,being based as it is on a constantdissymmetrybetweenknowledgeandbelief. Revolution s thekeyword.Scienceis a revolutionwhich has no otheraim thanits own continuingrevolution.Of coursethis revolution occurs only at the level of theory; it is most clearlyexpressed by the idea of 'epistemologicalrupture'.Put anotherway,science is the process of the negationof its own past. This renders asymmetrichistoryof science impossible, for the story is alwaysone ofpresent knowledge escaping error through rupture. Here Bachelardsimultaneouslynegatesthe role of commonsense and social influencein scientific change by developing the idea of the 'epistemologicalobstacle' that is overcome in a kind of purificationrite. His work LaFormationde I'espritscientifiquedemonstrates learlyhow this idea ofpurificationrendersscience and magic utterly incommensurable.32Bachelard s concerned,too, with the slow purgingof metaphorsromscientific thought.In France he has always been extremely influentialthroughanother, symmetric, set of works: on poetry, on the psycho-analysis of fire and of the elements in ancientphysics.33In these, he

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Social Studiesof Sciencestruggles o makethegreatdividestillgreater:science is obtainedby theconstantpurification f thesocial, culturaland even scientificargumentsfrom its own past; as to poetry, it is also obtainedby purification-from any trace of contact with reality, common sense or scientificity.It is pure symbol, pure psychoanalyticalelement.Nevertheless, one cannot overestimate Bachelard's influence. Heconfirms the French in the notionof revolution;you are not a scientistif you do notengendera radicalrevolution hattotallysubverts he stateof science (this idea is deep in all young French scientists- includingthose in the social sciences). He confirmsthe importanceof theories:they are what organize facts, which are in themselves never enough.He confirmsthe esoteric natureof science, which is always in rupturewith what is known, and even with what has been taughtat school.Science is never pure enough - it shouldalways be furtherremovedfrom commonsense, further efinedof itsempirical races.It is a functionof thisgeneralizedrevolution hathis influencecanstretch rom Marxistphilosophy (see the discussion of Althusser below) to mathematicalcurriculain the secondaryschools.34Purity, ever more purity, is theBachelardiandictum.Duhem, Koyre, Bachelardall reinforcethe Frenchin their criticismof naiveempiricism.Thus, French writersall thinkthat once they havecriticizedempiricism n favourof theories,theyhave doneenoughcriticalwork. This is the key to the French misunderstanding f the Englishtraditionof social studiesof science. This lattertradition s engagedina never-endingstruggleagainstthe weight of empiricism.The Englishnever tire of showingthatthe facts are never enoughto convince, thatpreconceptions hapethe interpretation f data.However, viewed fromthis side of theChannel,Bloor's, Shapin'sandCollins's workis statingthe obvious.35They end wherethe Frenchwouldstart.For a bornanti-empiricist, the English literaturedoes not go beyondBachelard.Sincethe Frenchcan producethe same demotionof empiricismat little cost,the BathandEdinburghnsistenceon social factorsseems irrelevantoreven gross. This misunderstandinglearly showshow starting romthesame problemof underdetermination, ne side of the Channelshuntsits explanationsalong social lines, while the othershunts hemtowardsa still greaterinsistence on the significance of theories.

Two Entirely Different Ways of Being Anti-WhiggishIt is throughCanguilhem'sworkthatwe canmosteasilyexploreanother

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour:Francesource of misunderstanding. n Englandand America there are fewsupportersof a Whiggishhistoryof science: therearejust variationsonthe anti-Whiggish radition.In France, on the contrary,it has been forat leastfifty yearsoutof fashionto be anti-Whiggish.Canguilhem ouldbe defined as defendinga militantform of anti-anti-Whiggism,whichis by no means the same as simplybeing Whiggish.He is thephilospherof radical discontinuity. Insofar as his philosophy of science is dis-continuous it is not Whiggish; but insofar as it is radical, it is notanti-Whiggisheither - herein lies the origin of a hundredyears' warof misconceptions. In particular,Canguilhemdefines the history ofscience as: 'the explicit realization,put forwardas theory, of the factthat the sciences are critical and progressivediscourses for the deter-minationof what, in any given experiment,shouldbe taken as real'.36Thus any reconstructionof what actuallyhappened n the past (in thepast's own terms)would miss the abilityof science to escape fromandjudge its own past, would reducescience to the same level as the restof culture,and would muzzle its abilityto escape its social conditions.Frenchepistemologistsseek to ensurethat merehistoriansdo not waterdowntheradicalnewnessof science.Canguilhem'sask,in all hisbooks,has been to separate deologies from science, the immediateconfusingpast from sharpand revolutionaryconcepts. It is not that he does notknowaboutanti-Whiggish istory(onthecontrary,he is verywell awareof it) buthe simplythinks it does not dojustice to the radicalcharacterof rationality its abilityto breakhistoryin two. This is why his, andhis Frenchcolleagues', judgementon Kuhn s that 'he has notbeen ableto establishhimself firmlyon theterrainof rationality, o whichhis keyconcepts,those of paradigm nd of normalscience,pertain... You thinkyou are dealing with criticalphilosophicalconcepts, whereasyou findyourself at the level of social psychology',37- which is choosing tolodge in the basementwhen you could swan in the penthouse.Theironyof reviewing hemisunderstandingsetween hetwotraditionsis thatthe figurewho seems the closest to the Anglo-Saxonapproach sviewed hereas the furthest emoved romit - namely,MichelFoucault.He wrotebooksthatcouldbe called, in England,thesocial constructionof clinics, of penology and so on, althoughhe has had little influencehereor abroadon professionalhistoryof science. First, Foucaultneverstudies nor alludes to the possibility of studying the hard sciences(linguisticsandeconomicsarethe hardesthe tries).38He even says thathis approachcannot be used for the theoreticalsciences.39Second, inFoucault's schema science is not socially constructed n any sense ofthe word 'social' that an Anglo-Saxonwould be comfortablewith. The

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Social Studiesof Sciencemediator in Foucault's reconstructionof the scientific disciplines isnever hesocial; t is always heory.ThatFoucault's heoriesappear adicalto Anglo-Saxonscomes from the fact that he departsfrom the narrowrepertoireof whatthey call the philosophyof science (mainlylinguisticpositivism). Viewed fromthecontinent,the situation s ratherdifferent.Epistemologyhas a much richer repertoire.It includes lots of things(mentalities,epistemes,codesand,mostimportant,discourse).Foucaulthere would be seen more as someonewho epistemologicallyconstructseconomics, pedagogyand so on. The socialdisappears s such (see TheArchaeology f Knowledge)40ndthis is partof his success,since his workprovideda particularly trongweapon nthefight againstMarxism.41Weshould make anexceptionhereforDisciplineandPunish,42which couldeasily be read as a social historybecause there are institutions,micro-techniquesof power, inscriptions,drills and so on. We will discussbelowthe extent to which Foucaultcan be used to redefinesociety.The depths of the misunderstandingbetween the Anglo-Saxon andFrench traditionsabouthistoryand science have been fathomedwhenone realizes that the only importantFrench Marxist writer - that is,Althusser- insteadof pursuingsocial studiesof science insistedmorethan Bachelardon the necessary purity of science. His well-knownworks on Marx attemptto purge Capital of any trace of ideologicalimpurity.43Exactlyas in Bachelard'swork, the mainway definitelytopurge history is to define a 'coupure epistemologique' (rupture) hatcommits Marx's Hegelian past to obscurity. In his only work aboutscience, Althusser even offered physicists, chemistsandbiologists thesupportof Marxist science in their taskof purgingthe hard sciences ofany remaining raceof social determinism thatis, of ideology.44Hedefined the philosopher's task as that of establishingthe distinctionbetween pure science, on the one hand, and ideology on the other.

Shunting Analysis of Discourse Towards Theory orTowards SocietyThose adhering o the Anglo-Saxontraditionwill not make full use ofFrenchwork if they only considerthatthe Frenchdo not do the socialstudiesof science they 'should' be doing. At the very least, they haveto understandhatthe situation s entirely symmetrical,and thatviewedfrom Francethey give the impressionof not doing what they 'should'be doing. One generalcriticismthe Frenchcould makeof Anglo-Saxonworksin social studiesof scienceis thattheyarefrequentlyunderwritten

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Country Commentary:Bowker & Latour: Franceby a rathernaive view of the natureof society. Relativizingscience hastoo often been seen as the taskof findinga one-to-onecorrespondencebetween interestsandhypotheses:one has the image of scientistswithshopping-listsof interestssearchingthe shelves of the supermarket fsciencefortheproducts hatbestpromulgateheirprejudices.Wherethedebate has become involved, it has frequentlybeen along the lines ofexaminingmorecloselythe linksbetween cientists nd heir community',withoutlooking at what constitutes a communityor what relationshipthere is between a communityand a society. The Frenchstrengthsandweaknesses areprecisely complementary: he natureof society and therelationship etweensocietyand ntellectual iscoursehavebeenexaminedatgreat ength,but science itself (eventhesoft sciences)havenotenteredinto this reworking.Oneway of picturinghow each tradition omes to misunderstand hatthe other does it to picturea three-dimensional epresentation f theiranalyses,with 'science', 'society'and 'discourse'as thex, y, and z axes.Of course, this is our own way of picturingthe task at hand, and nota universaldefinitionof what social studiesof science areor should be.We do believe, however, that a reworkingof what constitutessociety,science and discourse is somehow inescapable. To place the Anglo-Saxons with respectto these variousreworkings,we find thatthey tendto workmostlyeitheron applyingsociety to science, or on workingoutthe links between languageand science.However, following throughon ourprincipleof symmetry, heAnglo-Saxon can reply that the Frenchcompletely fail to integratescience,societyanddiscourse, since scienceescapesfromtheproblematicof the'philosophiedu soupcon' (philosophyof suspicion)that has proved sofruitful in otherdomains.When, like Lacan,they deal with discourse,they show little interest for reworkingdefinitions of science and ofsociety.When,likeBourdieu, heydeal withsociety, it is withno interestfor science. When they deal with science, like Bachelard,they shownothingbut disdain for a reworkingof what society could mean.This criticism of the French traditionmay be just, but there is stillmuch for the Anglo-Saxonin the Frenchway of doing things. A steptakenoften in France andrarelyoutsideof it is to jettison whatpeoplesay aboutwhattheyaredoingor writingand look materiallyatthelogicor significanceof their actions.Thus theFrenchsuggestthatthe Anglo-Saxonsneedto throwoutthe idea of a 'rational'philosophical r scientificdiscourse, in a world where philosophyand science are clearly at theservice of powerrelationships.Havingtakenthis step, we haveenteredthe world of 'discourse', wherein instead of rationallyreconstructing

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Social Studiesof ScienceFIGURE 1

The Anglo-Saxon Tradition Viewed from France

Society 4 Radical cienceEdinburg

KuhnDiscourse4 AustinQuine MertonWitgenstein (I) Science

h School

Popper

(11) Science

(i) Reworking science and society but not discourse(ii) Reworking science and discourse but not society

FIGURE 2The French Tradition Viewed from Abroad

* Canguilhem(11) Science

(i) Reworking discourse and society but not science(ii) Reworking science but not discourse and society

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour: France'truth'we sociologically reconstruct ociety. As shown in our figures,the axis of discourseattachesto 'pure' philosophyin the Anglo-Saxontradition. n theFrenchworld of discoursewe can immediatelyperceivethe promiseof structuralismn generaland semiotics in particular: orthese offer ways of analyzingdiscoursesimultaneously ndependentofthe intentof the author,andopen to a rangeof socially-generated ignsystems- thusFoucault'santi-Whiggishccountof the birthof theclinic,and his antipsychiatricaccountof madness.Annoyingly for the Anglo-Saxon, and yet cogently, the French ingeneraldo not stop at this socio-logic, but frequently nvest it with thestatusof theory.ThusLevi-Strauss'smythanalysis s both socialanalysisand theory.45The particularvalue of analysis of discourse is that itcould revitalizethe Anglo-Saxontraditionof social analysis. Thus, forthehistorianof science, Foucault'sworkopensthewayto treating ormaldisciplines (he treatslinguisticsand economics, but there is no reasonnot to go muchfurther)as waysof disciplining,as agentsof socialorder.This is largely impossiblewithin theAnglo-Saxon ield, where theentryinto the world of discoursehas been blockedby the analysisof 'intent'and 'interest'.JacquesLacan,on the otherhand, falls into a not uncommonFrenchtrap: he radically rethoughtdiscourse, but left society and sciencealone.46He was basedlargely outsideof the universityfield. His workcontinuesto be a living influence: he did not publishmuchbefore hisdeath,andeditionsof notestakenathis seminarsare stillbeing published,each volume being something of a landmark. The best introductionto his work is in the second volume of Roudinesco's superb, thoughmassive, history of psychoanalysis in France.47At the risk (nay thecertainty)of caricature,we can say that for Lacanall was discourse.He rewrote Descartes' dictum as: 'I think: "Therefore I am",' thusstressing hat it is language hat ies at the originof consciousness.48 orour purposeswe can retain his conviction that there is an irreduciblelevel of coherent discoursethatgovernsbehaviour. Lacan can be seenas the origin of the trendin Franceto see all life as swimmingin a seaof textuality.This level cannotbe reduced o theindividual, orlanguageis social; nor to the social, for factors like economic interesthave nopart in his schema; nor to the philosophical, for 'irrationality' s oneof its features.

Because, for the French, the levels of discourse and of the social areradically inaccessible throughempirical study, they shunt their anti-empiricismtowardsmythical 'systems' thatpartakeof bothsociety andtheory. Anglo-Saxon anti-empiricismdoes not questionthe reality of

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Social Studiesof Sciencesociety or of discourse; thus it tends to get shuntedtowards socialdeterminism,where 'real' society determinesartefactual cience. Bothanti-empiricist endencies are anti-Whiggish,but, as we have shown,in entirelydifferentways. Ourfigures suffice to show how the FrenchandtheAnglo-Saxonsarecontinually hasingeach other'stails, andhowdifficult ife is for co-authors ike ourselves,who wantto have their cake(Englandor America) and to eat it too (France).

A Ferment of AuthorsThe readershouldnotforgetthatthe intellectualdifficultymappedaboveis compoundedby the institutional solationof thinkers n France. Theresultsareimportant ndidiosyncraticworks- theword'idiosyncratic'being positivethis side of the Channeland ratherderogatoryon theother(thusconstitutingyet another ource of misunderstanding!). nglishandAmericanreadersshould come to termswith the fact thatthere are noschools and no researchprogrammes n France, but independentandimportantworks each of which have to be judged on theirown terms.Having, in our previous sections, clearedup some of the misunder-standingshathavearisen, t is possible o give a rundown f lesser-knowncurrentworkswithout ayingthemon theProcustean edof 'social studiesof science'.

Michel Serres' Anthropologyof ScienceOf all the Frenchthinkers,Michel Serres is the only one to contributeto a rethinkingof science, of discourseand, in manyways, of society.However,hisworkis atriskof beinglost to theAnglo-Saxons.He writesbeautifully,but his style is extremelydifficult.His work hasbeenunder-translated,but some of it is availablein English. Hermesformsa goodintroductiono his corpus.49The multi-layering f his texts, whichoftenrevolve arounduntranslatablephilological resonances, renders themalmost opaqueto the Anglo-Saxon. A second qualitywhich is lost inthe transition is his physical presence and rhetorical skill. He is amarvellous tory-teller,and caneasilycommandandenchantanaudienceof several hundredstudentsat his course.50He is a sailor, engineer,philosopherand productof the Ecole Normale Superieure(as are alarge proportion of leading French academics). Leading influenceson his workhavebeen ReneGirardandGeorgesDumezil:the former s

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour:Francean anthropologistconcerned with the 'origin' of society in symbolicsacrifice, and the latter is a linguist and anthropologistwho producedthe first structuralanalyses of myth.Serres is more known in the English speaking world by literaturestudents. What he does that is so unusual is to develop the argumentthat there is no metalanguage: here is no superiorityof religion overscience, of science over literature.What he seeks to do is to find thestructure that articulatesa particularreligious, scientific or literarysystem, and to show how it works. The beautyof his texts is thatyounever know who is right. It mightbe Lucretius,or it mightbe theBible- not becausetheyareprescientificand thusequallywrong,but becausesuddenlythey are madeas accurate,as precise as results in biology ormathematics. This is an inversion we do not expect. It is assumedwithin the Anglo-Saxonworld that if science has rhetorical,religious?and ocial dimensions hen somehowits truth s debased:Serresdisplaysthe poetry and beauty of the truths that subtendreligion and science.In this rethinkingof discourse, there is mingling of styles: anecdote,allegory and rigorousdemonstrationare found side by side. Arguablyit is only througha willingness to open the doors to such new methodsof writingthat the field of social studiesof science will ever escapethearid debatebetween ExternalismandInternalism,or their latest avatars.Certainly, n Serres'case, theproduct s stunning... but nothistory(heprofoundlyprofesses to have discovered fifteen 'origins' for Greekgeometry, and is always on the lookout for more).51

Research Centres Inside EngineeringSchoolsAmong the original features of the French scene figures the creation,in the midstof scientificinstitutions,of researchcentresdevotedto fine-grainedanalysisof scienceandsociety- a combination f subjectsmuchrarer n the universities(withthe exceptionof Nantes). The firstplaceto mention s theConservatoireNationaledes Artset Metiers(CNAM),whichboasts the only chairin the field in France,and, unlike the othercentres,trainsa streamof graduate tudents. tis chairedby Jean-JacquesSalomon, who is the real instigatorof the field of science policy inFrance, first throughhis work at OECD andthen throughhis chairatCNAM. His thesis, Science etpolitique, remainsthe only overview inFrench of the social dimension of science viewed in a broad historicalperspective.52Throughhis work at the OECD he createdmany linksbetweenpoliticalscience,theeconomicsof researchanddevelopment nd

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Social Studiesof Scienceepistemology. CNAM is an odd institution: it had the first chair ofeconomics in France (held by J. B. Say), the first chair of nuclearphysics, and the first chair of STS.53Salomonchairs the only DEA54and doctorateprogramme xplicitlyon Science,TechnologyandSociety.Sinceit is tied to theCentrede Documentation 'Histoiredes Techniquescreatedby Daumas and now headedby J. Payen, and to the beautifulMusee d'Histoiredes Techniques,and since it is also integratedwithintheonly departmentoingthe economicsof R & D, it is clearthatCNAMhas a lot of potential.The Ecole des Pontset Chausseeshasdevelopeda researchandpeda-gogicalcentre(calledCERTES)which devotes itselfto the socialaspectsof technical choices. Gabriel Dupuy and his colleagues are mainlyconcernedwithurbanism,and thehistoryof technicaldecisions n publicworks.55The interest of their work is that it is very precise on thetechnicalside and thus easily understandable y the engineers. Theirsis not seen as social science divorced from technology, but as partofthe normaltrainingof engineers. It is one of the very positive featuresof theFrench field that t has been ableto integratesocial sciences muchmore with technology than would be possible in Englandor even inAmerica.56Anotherproof of this integration s given by the authors'own centre,the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, at the Ecole NationaleSuperieuredes Mines de Paris. In chargeof all the sociology teachingin the school, it also has a graduateprogramme or the engineersfromthe school, who canthusget theirengineeringdegree in sociology. Thecentrecoversanarrayof topics, fromscience indicators o the sociologyof work to thesociologyof music,passingby thesociologyof technology.The whole is unifiedby two analytical hreads:an interest n the instru-mentsof technical/culturalproductionas simultaneously ites of socialsolutions to scientific controversy and scientific solutions to socialcontroversy;and an analysis of the relationshipbetween cultural orscientific inscriptionmethodsandthe contentof the culturalartefactorscienceproduced.Explanations re couched n termsof networks,whichareseento knitthe socialandthescientifictogether.We findin theworkof Michel Callon three featuresthatare generally separateelsewhere:insertionin the industrialworld throughhis scientific trainingand hisstudiesof technical nnovations;nterest nquantitativeoolsfor thestudyof science policy; and, finally, commitmentto social and economictheory.His fusionof qualitative ndquantitativemethodshasculminatedin co-wordanalysis,whichis oneof theveryfew European ontributionsto scientometrics.57

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour:FranceThe Ecole des Hautes Etudes (EHESS)Not attached o theengineering chools,but stillnotpartof theuniversitysystem, is the interestingworkthat is done at the EHESS. Thus, SergeMoscovici's earlier work pertainsto social historyof science,58but itis Edgar Morin, at the same institution,who has done most towardsproducinga complete sociological theorythat ntegrates cience, societyandeverythingelse together n a single, vastsystems-theory epresenta-tion of reality.59Also attached o theEHESS is GerardLemaine'scentre,GERS.Thisis lodged above the inaccessible Auguste Comte Museum near theSorbonne.Lemaine himself (alongwith Jean-JacquesSalomonandhiswife Claire Salomon-Bayet,and many leaders in the field) followedCanguilhem'scourses. His centreconcentrateson research,havingnoundergraduate tudents and very few post-graduateones (again, thisis by no means untypical).The main body of work that has emergedfrom this group is an analysis of the emergence of disciplines - onsleep and brainphysiology, on quantumphysics and, more recently,on the IQ controversy.60t is sociologicalworkcommitted o followingscientists into the laboratory.They have been somewhatinfluencedbytheEdinburghchool,andtheirmaintheoretical reoccupationstpresentseem to centreroundproblemsof reflexivityandways of counteractingthe spreadof relativism.61ElizabethCrawfordis associated with thisgroup, but her work on the Nobel Prize winners does not need to bepresentedto English readers.62Butit is TerryShinn'swork, in the sameinstitution, hat s more akinto social and institutionalhistoryof science - althoughhe is leaningmore and more now towardsepistemology. Shinn's best-knownworkis hishistoryof theEcolePolytechnique,whichusedpainstaking nalysisof studentrecords, amongstotherthings, to questionthe hypothesisofthedeclineof sciencein France n thelatterhalf of thenineteenthentury.It also providesa refreshinganalysis of the social class of the studentintakeover an extendedperiod.63His morerecent nterests ncluderela-tionshipsbetween institutionsand epistemology, the popularizationofscience, and to some extentthe connectionbetweenmetaphorsandthecontentof scientific hought thoughheargues hatmetaphors eginwherehard science stops).64To this work that pertainsdirectly to social studies of science, theEHESS adds much work that should be related to it. It includes forinstance the only group of techno-logists (in Leroi-Gourhan's ense),withscholars ike FrancoisSigautandPierreLemonnier. talso includes

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Social Studiesof Sciencea very lively centre on the sociology and anthropologyof medicine.

A Boom in the History of Science?There seems to be a boom in the field of historyof science - most ofit within the Bachelardian radition.A recent directoryof the historyof science andtechnologyincludes 479 names and 150 organizations!65JeanDhombres, Presidentof the AssociationFrancaised'Histoire desSciences et Techniques,counts fifty-seven historiansof science withinthe CNRS alone,66and seven new DEAs in the history of science,mainlyin theprovinces:Nantes, Lyon, Lille, Strasbourg,Marseille. Agood third of these historians of science are scientists with more thanan amateur nterest n the historyof theirdiscipline. Reportsemanatingfrom theAcademiedes Sciences and theCollege de Francehave fuelledthis interestby recommendinghe sensitizationof teachers o thehistoryof science. ThusPrinciple6 of the particularlynfluential Propositionspour 'enseignementde l'avenir'by the teachersat theCollegede Francesuggests in part that:

To compensate or the effects of increasing pecialization,whichconsignsthemajorityof individualsto small pocketsof knowledge, and notablyto the ever more markedsplitbetween iteraryand scientificculture... it is necessary o developandpropagate,throughoutthe course of secondaryeducation, a culture integratingscientific andhistoricalculture, that is to say not only the history of literatureor even of the artsand of philosophybut also the history of science and technology...67

This newimpetusmakestheonlytwo traditional entres ook somewhatwan. Known colloquially as the 'rue du Four' and the 'rue Colbert',theformerpropagatesBachelard'sheritage, he latterAlexandreKoyre's(though it should be noted that the 1970s generationof studentsatrue Colberttrainedunder Rene Taton- andtendedto produceworksof eruditionnot tied to a problematicwithin either social history orthehistoryof ideas).Figuresassociatedwith the former ncludeFrancoisDagognet (who also holds a chair of philosophyat Lyon) andJacquesBouveresse. Francois Dagognet's works represent the best of theBachelardianradition: e producesworksof conceptualhistory;a unitingthreadof his diverse interestsas the representation f nature. Thus hehas written on the history of chemical classification, the history ofmedical representationsof the body, and the philosophyof museums.His incisive, global treatmentof these problemssuggests an arrayof

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Country Commentary:Bowker & Latour: Franceculturalconnectionsthat more technical histories could easily miss.68The centreat rue du Four is not particularlyactive at the moment,butit does boastone of the few DEAs in the historyof science: this allowsit to trainpost-graduatetudents.The centreat rue Colbert s responsiblefortheonly specialistmagazinenthefield: Revued'histoiredes sciences.It has, until the presenttime, paid scantattention o twentieth-centuryhistoryof science; futuredevelopmentsmay remedythis situation.Thecentre also hosts conferences in the history of science. In the samebuildingcan be foundthegroup'PourLaScience' underJacquesRogerand ErnestCoumet: this group producesthe review Revuede synthese,which is seeking ever more to set the historyof ideas and cultureintobroadercontexts. This active field is largely unknownabroad,partlybecause of the misunderstandingswe have outlined above, but alsobecause of sheer nationalisticbias: Frenchworks do not get properlyreviewed.Bernard-PierreLecuyers's work in the historyof the social sciences(especially of statistics)has been influentialin this respect.69He hasbeen,togetherwith GerardLemaine,oneof the maingo-betweens inkingAnglo-Saxonand Frenchsociologistsof science throughseminarseriesorganizedat the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme under the auspicesof Clemens Heller's and Roy MacLeod's - now defunct- PAREX(Paris-Sussex). However, it is notable that Lecuyer's work has beentypicalof the French interest n the sociology of the soft sciences. Likehim, manyother Frenchscholarsgrantthat a social historyof scienceis perfectly easible,on condition hatthescience concerned s not a hardone. Theoldergeneration f historians f science,withverylittle interestin anthropologyor sociology, is beingreplacedby a new one with muchbroader nterests.DominiquePestrehaswritten he first socialhistoryofa scientificprofessionwrittenby a Frenchpersonon Frenchscience,70and scholars like Redondi71or Bensaude-Vincent72manifest a keeninterest for social and culturalhistory of science, as well as for moretraditional ntellectualhistory.Proof of the intenseactivityof the field can be shown in the creationof several new researchgroups. One of them, headed by Rashed (ahistorianof Arabicscience) is rather ndifferent o the social aspectsofscience.73 This is not the case with anothercentre, located inside thenew showpiecemuseumof science andtechnology n easternParis,builton the site of anabandonedabattoir.The team of the historyof scienceand technology at the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie(CRHST)atLaVillettewas finallyconstituted n 1986. It hasthreefull-timemembersand a numberof temporary largelyforeign- researchers. t is led by

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Social Studiesof ScienceRobertFox, whohas done muchpioneeringwork n thehistoryof physicsin nineteenth-centuryranceand,morerecently, n thehistoryof scienceeducation in France (as partof a long-termstudy).74His team's twingoals are to developthe historyof the relationshipbetween science andtechnology (mainly in industry,but also in agricultureand medicine),and the history of the diffusion and the popularizationof science.Althoughthe futureof thehistoryof science is precarious n the contextof the museumat La Villette, where twenty-first-century topiasseemso muchmore real thannineteenth-centuryistory,thisgrouphasalreadymanaged o constitutea significantpole within the field of social studiesof science in France.This success restspartlyon thepromiseof the firstprofessional library in this field, and partly on the enthusiasm andinventivenessof its members.It will be noted from this overview of the centres of history andsociology of science in Paris thatmost of them are not locatedin univer-sities. The only notableexception (apart rom Nantes and ParisVII) isthe groupGERSULPheadedby BaudouinJurdantn Strasbourg.Thisgroupsharesan interest n STS studies,andin anthropologyof science,and pursuesthe trainingof scientific studentsin the social dimensionof science.75This absence from the universities is a source of somestrengthandgreatweaknessto the field. Strength,becauseeach centreboasts a numberof full-time researchersunencumberedby the need totrain students. There are frequentlymany more staff than students.Weakness,because t is difficultto see how the field candevelopwithouta studentbase - afortiori, because it is only with such a base thattextsin social studiesin science will be ableto find a wide enoughreadershipto justify translationand publication.The failureof Pandore,a groupwhich translatedBloor and collections from the Edinburghschool, isindicative:the readershipwas never more than 1000. What is more, afairpercentageof those we intervieweddid not see the lack of studentsas a problem:thereis, in France,a self-sustainingbodyof professionalresearcherswhose worksaddress,in order,eachother,thetechnocrats,and theintelligentpublic.Thusvalidationof a centredoesnot come fromthe numberof studentunits one can flourish in budgetbattles.

A Fast Developing History of TechnologyAnotherpartof the field which seems to be flourishing,althoughit isstill more scattered,is what could be called in England'social studiesof technology'. There are a few reasonsfor includingthese withinour

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour: Francepresent survey. Firstly, those who do the history and sociology oftechnology use the same conceptual tools, and frequentlythe samemethodological exts, as theirhomologuesstudyingscience;thusfollow-ing our desire to discover the field as it exists in Francerather hanassome a priori definition would have it, we should look at it briefly.Secondly, it is a commonplacethat withinFrancethe institutional inkbetween, say, engineeringand science has always been strongerthanelsewhere: some of the great French scientists have trained and beentrainedat the Ecole Polytechnique, he Ecole des Mines, the Ecole desPonts et Chaussees... ostensibly for a career in industry.Themost influential igure nthis field has been AndreLeroi-Gourhan,whose work, for reasons unknown, has never been translatedintoEnglish.76His works knit together palaeontology,historyof primitivearts, techno-logy- in theetymologicalsense of the studyof techniques- and the social studies of the evolutionof technicalsystems. He is asort of Lewis Mumford who was particularly nterested in the hardtechnicalaspectsof historyandin a morecomplete ntegration f cultural,artistic and technical history. His most general work, Le Geste et laparole,77 is a general palaeontology, prehistory and history of therelations between humanityand matter. The technology of writing,recordingand inscription ooms large in this superb historyof techno-political systems.Maurice Daumas compiled a comprehensivehistory of technologywhichcomes in a companioneditionto Taton'shistoryof science. Boththese overviews are somewhatunimaginative.78Reference should bemadeto BertrandGille, a colourful igurewhounfortunatelyiedyoung.He wrote almost single-handedly he only majorwork in the historyof technics (by the deft use of pseudonymshe made it appearmorecollective than it was).79His key notion is that of 'technicalsystems'.The book is still a long way from a social analysis of technology, butit does allow one to escape from the narrow notions of specializedhistoriesof technology,or fromthe idea of 'trajectories'.Gille includeswithinthe one system everythingthatis necessaryfor a piece of tech-nology to work. Thisallows himto group togetherbig units of change,andto producenew periodizationsorthehistoryof technics. His systemdoes not includemanysocial elements, but it does includeexplorationof economicfactors.Since he trainedvery few students,andthehistoryof technologyis generally ookeddownuponin France,he hashadlittlelasting influence.HistorianPaul Benoit pointedout to us, however, that the field hadancestorsbut no parents,forbothDaumasandGille epitomizethegreat

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Social Studiesof ScienceFrenchtraditionof not trainingany successors.80The result of this lackof historicalunity in the field is that there are several groups workingfrom within totally different perspectives. Once the dread name of'science' has been removedfromthe masthead,the field is much moreopen to innovativeness and fertile eclecticism. Thus Denis Woronoff,who wrote a history of siderurgyin France81 nd teaches at the EcoleNormale Superieure,is currentlydeveloping two types of analysis ofgreatpotentialinterest. He is looking at the local industrialsite as the'basis for technology' (this leads to a stresson the regional, and on the'bricolage',elementof technologicaldevelopment).Thus fromsiderurgyhe has turned o themanagement f forests(whichprovided henecessaryfuel). He finds in this emphasison the local an inextricablemarryingof the social, the economic and the technical. His secondtypeof analysisaccords with a currentpreoccupationof the French intellectual scene:nationaldifference. Inparticular,Woronoff is looking for the existenceof a 'French mode of industrialization'.82The group centred aroundPaulBenoit,which is concernedwith industrial istory/archaeologyfromthe physicalexaminationof medieval sites to iconographicanalysis ofthe artefactsuncovered andtheir comparisonwith writtenrecords), isalso indicativeof the vigour of the field.If our brief rundownof STS was centredon institutions,andthatofsocial studies of technology on approaches,this is a reflection of thedifferences between the fields. Put bluntly, everyone feels safe doingthehistoryof technologyandtakingriskswith it, so that t is flourishingeverywhere. And yet it is flourishingnowhere: for being a very newdiscipline, it has not got even the institutionalbase accordedSTS.

InterdisciplinaryCollagesThis rundownof the field would be sadly inaccurate f it concentratedonly on the scatteredsigns of scholarlywork. There is also a mass offascinating interdisciplinarymultimedia non-scholarly work whichtouches,oftenbrilliantly,on all issuesraised n social studiesof science.Firston the list mustcome the works sponsoredby the CentreCulturelPompidou(betterknownas Beaubourg).One exampleof theirwork isa collectionof illustrated ssays on cartography:rommapsof thebrainto mentalmapsto worldmaps.83As withmanyinterdisciplinary orks,this collection has a superb use of illustrations,and an effervescentcollectionof occasionallybrilliant horttexts.ThemagazineMilieuxalsoproducesheterogeneous ssays on thatpartof the STSfield whichcould

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour:Francebe defined as the interfacebetween the historyof work and workers-the ecology of industrialregions and industrialarchaeology. Anotherrelated field is urban studies. This has fallen, in a sense, to the Frenchdisease of reconstitutingany empirical subject in terms of universaltheory,butthe way that this hasbeen done is interesting or us becausethereis muchtalkof the social creationof spaceandtime, a themewhichcan be appliedto the sociology of science. In this context, the work ofPaul Virilio comes to mind.84It is impossible o describeto anEnglishprofessional,usedto clearcutdisciplinary boundaries, the profusion of work done in the Frenchorganization.So whatwe see, in general, in this interdisciplinaryworkis a promising,butnon-rigorous,breakingdown of the barriersbetweenscience, representation nd reality;and from within the field of socialstudies of science we have a reservoirof researchersfrequentlywellaware of this work.

A Hypothesis 'a la Ben-David'To conclude, let us look at the social origins of the peculiaritiesof theFrenchfield - afterall, we are bothsociologistsof science. OnecurrentmythaboutFrance s that tseducation ystem s enormously entralized.Everyoneknows a version of the tale of the administratorookingathiswatchandbeing able to tell whichpage of whichtextbook s thenbeingstudiedthroughout he Frenchempire. In our field, however, we havealreadypointedout thatresearchers n Francearewidely scattered,andare often not in regularcontact with one another.Theremaybe a lot of researchers probablymanymoreperheadofpopulation hancould be foundin England,America or Australia.Thedispersionfactormeans, however, thatwhen researchersare evaluated(alreadya rare occurrence), they are not evaluatedby others of theirown specialty. The mainbody of work in andaroundthe field is doneby researchersfundedby the CNRS. Yet immediatelyhere we comeback to Bachelard. The traditionalproblem within the CNRS is thatresearchdone by sociologists andhistoriansof science is not evaluatedby others of their own specialty, but by those with a general trainingin philosophy.And these people know theirBachelardbetter thantheirBernal.

Furthermore,urning his time to a truermyth,the variousMinistriesexercise considerablecontrolover the research hatis done in the field.Therehasreallybeen no independentourceof interest nFrance.Thus n

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Social Studiesof ScienceEnglandor America, say, muchof the creativeinputin the historyandsociology of science (Bob Young and the Radical Science Collective,Hilary and StephenRose, CarolynMerchantand feministcritiquesofscience, and so on) has come from wider social movementsthat arecriticalof Big Science. Yet Franceremains heonlyWesterndemocracywithout a vocal anti-nuclearmovement (all the political parties haveachievedconsensuson the issue), and withouta strongenvironmentalistmovement.Muchof thepracticalworkin STS is doneunder heauspicesof ministries, and appearsalways as grey (government) iterature,notin professionaljournals.Whenwe rattleoff a list of factorslike this, the temptation s alwaysto give a Gallic moue and mutter 'c'est la France'. For a unifyingexplanation hatmakesBachelard or somebody ike him) inevitable,wecan turn to Ben-David's idea of a contractbetween the state and thescientists in France.85His formulationwas that the state says to thescientists: 'You have the power, but you must stay clear of politics'.The hybrid form that mediatesbetween scientist and politician is thetechnocrat.The technocratswho wield enormouspower are a hybridbreed, half administrator nd half scientist. Following the termsof thiscontract,scientistsareneverto be consideredby politicians,journalistsor the generalpublicas lobbyists, nor as constitutingseparatepressuregroups.The thingthatmakesthis contractappearreal (forcertainly,fromthelateeighteenthcenturyon, theonly thinglackingis aparchment ersionof it) is the way that the statein Franceultimately oundsits legitimacy.It never claims to mediateinterestsor to negotiatewithina frameworkof checks and balances like the Americanstate: it claims to representrationality not in the Weberiansense but in a higher, theoreticalsense- as anaccessto universality).Universalitys thekey:the stateoperatesa transcendenceover history. The clear consequence is that talkingof power and/in/of science is simply unthinkable.For an attack on(universal) science is an attackon the state: and not just the currentpolitical configuration,but the very idea of statehood.Even if this hypothesis 'a la Ben-David' seems thin, the massiveproblem s this: Franceis the countrywherethe link betweenscientistsandthemanagerial,political, intellectual stablishmentss the strongest,butit is of all countries heonewhichhasleastdevelopeda fieldof socialstudiesof science that links the establishmentand science. This couldin itself offer us a clue: epistemologyin Franceis the only real way oftalkingpolitics, of defining what holds all of us together- that is tosay, theconcept.Sincepoliticsis so rationalanduniversalanyway,why

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour:Francenot use the languageof rationalityand universalityto talk aboutbothscience and politics?86In particular,when epistemology talks about'rupturesrom commonsense' it offers a nicepoliticalmodel forbreakingaway from special interests. This hypothesis would explain why foreveryone in Franceepistemologyis placed at the top of the hierarchy,and would also explainwhy the ideaof politicizingscience seems morethanjust absurd,totally vain.Thisdoes not meanthat he Frenchare thusmore able to understandhesocialshapingof science- quitethecontrary.Whatshapes hefacts,therawdata, is not for themsociety or culture,but somethingelse: theory.Thetheory-ladennessf facts s thestapleof Frenchphilosophyof science.Thismeans hatsincethey easilydefeatempiricism heybelievetheycan,without furtherado, embrace theory. Society is thus short-circuited.CanguilhemandBachelardarethe two giantsof Frenchsocial studiesofscience: oparaphrase ewton,Frenchworkersnthe fieldcouldseemuchfurtherwithout those two giants standingon their shoulders.87Moreperversely, he Frenchusetheargument gainstempiricism odiscourageinadvanceanyfieldresearchn social studiesof science,sinceit is alwaysnecessaryto havea theoryto informyourdata.Nothingwill be learnedfrom the empirical study of the way science is producedsince everyscientific argumentis theory-ladenanyway. Thus it is better to doepistemology (for this at least deals with theory) than sociology.The dei ex machina, however, have the final word. This surveyhasbeen perhapsratherambiguous:everythingis booming except socialstudies of science. What we can hope for fromthis andsimilar articlesis thatanglophoneworkers in the field of social studies of science willperhapstake more time to read Frenchwork in the field.88We haveunderlined he fact that work in English gets translated ittle and lateinto French (the French have only recently discovered Merton): thechargecan be reversed. BachelardandCanguilhemhave only recentlybeentranslatedntoEnglish;Serres,Simondon,Leroi-Gourhan, ourdieuand many others are either under-translated r not translatedat all.Further,anglophoneresearcherscontinueto treatlightly what seem tous one of the greatmessagesto come outof the social studiesof sciencein France: a detailed study of scientific discourse can help us recastthe way that we think about science. Anglo-Saxonscan criticize theFrench for being lost in fruitless epistemological games that can beanalyzed with their sociology; equally we should be aware that theFrenchcancriticizetheAnglo-Saxons ortheirfruitlessdebatesbetween'Externalism'and 'Internalism' ortheirlatestincarnations) a debatelong transcended n France by the defeat of empiricism.

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Social Studiesof Science* NOTES

The authors would like to thankthe following for having agreed to be interviewed orquestioned(thoughof course they should not in the slightestbe held responsiblefor thevagariesof ourtext): P. Bourdieu,J. Le Goff, T. Shinn,R. Fox, G. Lemaineandgroup,J. Dhombres,D. Pestres,D. Woronoff,F. Russo, P. Benoit,M. Gauchetand M. Pollack.B. Bensaude-Vincent ndI. Stengersmadevaluablecommentson the penultimatedraft.1. One of us hascompileda bibliographyof the secondary iteraturedealingwith allsciences andtechnology:B. LatourandX. Polanco, Le Regimefrancais des sciences etdes techniques:bibliographieraisonnee de la litteraturesecondairede langue anglaiseet francaise sur I'histoiredes sciences et des techniques rancaises de 1666 a nos jours(Paris:CSI, 1987). Peoplewho want more extensivereferencesshould refer to this work.There are a variety of useful reviews, but most of them are tangentialto the field:FundamentaScientiae for experimentalwork, Revue d'histoire des sciences for internal

historyof scienceand Revuede synthese or thehistoryof ideas,Les Annales or mainstreamhistory rarelycovering the history of science. La Recherche and Science et avenir arerespectively he 'serious'and the 'popular' cientificmagazines.La Recherche arriessomehistory of science thanks to the popularizingwork of Pierre Thuilier.To this shouldbeadded many journalsand bulletins with special interests, like Revoltes logiques for thehistoryof labour andindustry,Milieux for technology, Sciences sociales et sante for thesocialhistoryof medicine,Histoire,economieet societe for industrialhistory,Les CahiersSTS(publishedby the defunct STS programmeat the CNRS) for epistemology, Culturetechniqueorthelink betweenprofessional ngineersandhistorians f technology,Techniqueet culture or theanthropologyf technology,Prospective t santepubliqueor the economicsof medicine, and so on.2. We use the phrase 'Anglo-Saxon' throughout his paper as it is current Frenchshorthand or English/American/Australian/Canadian/Newealandculture. The coupleAnglo-Saxon/French s used to define a series of dubious culturaldifferences, often tothe advantageof the French.3. Daniel Kevles, ThePhysicists: TheHistoryof a ScientificCommunityn ModernAmerica New York:Knopf,1979);LesPhysiciens,histoirede cetteprofessionquia changele monde (Paris: Economica, 1987).4. For an English version, see P. Bourdieu, 'The Specificity of the Scientific Fieldand the SocialConditionsof theProgressof Reason', Social ScienceInformation,Vol. 14(1975), 19-47.5. See also P. Bourdieu,'La productionde la croyance:contribution une 6conomiedes biens symboliques',Actesde la rechercheen sciences sociales. No. 13 (1976), 3-43.6. PierreBourdieu,Ce que parler veut dire: I'e'conomiedes echanges linguistiques(Paris: Fayard, 1982).7 P. Bourdieu,Homo Academicus(Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1984).8. Interview, P. Bourdieu(Paris, 13 November 1986).9. P. Bourdieu, Questionsde sociologie (Paris: Editionsde Minuit, 1984).10. See also P. Bourdieu, J.-C. Passeron and J.-C. Chamboredon,Le Metier desociologue (Paris: Mouton, 1983), which is almost exclusively epistemological. In hiscommenton the present paper, Bourdieu nsistedthat he aimed in this book at no morethangivingthe basics of epistemology,and wasnot concernedwiththesociologyof science.11. GeorgesCanguilhem,Etudesd 'histoireet dephilosophiedes sciences (Paris:Vrin,1983), 15.

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour: France12. It wouldbe interestingo trace hecontinuity etweenComte,Durkheim ndBourdieuon the sociology of scientific content. Attached to Comte is the unfortunate abel of'positivist', but he and Bourdieusharemany parallelsin termsof arguments or naturallimits to science and in terms of totalizing social determinism.13. Interview,J. Le Goff (Paris, 25 November 1986).14. Republished ecently n English n D. MacKenzieandJ. Wacjman eds), TheSocial

Shaping of Technology MiltonKeynes, Bucks.: OpenUniversityPress, 1985), as MarcBloch, 'The Watermill and FeudalAuthority', 75-78.15. Lucien Febvre, Pour une histoire i part entiere (Paris: EHESS, 1962), 680.16. For Le Goff, see his famousessay in Les Annales: J. Le Goff, 'Au Moyen Age:tempsde l'egliseet tempsdumarchand',Annales:economies, ocigets,civilizations,Vol. 15(1960), 417-63, and also Le Goff, Pour un autre MoyenAge: temps, travail et cultureen Occident Paris:Gallimard,1977);forFuret,see F. Furet,Penser a revolutionfrancaise(Paris:Gallimard, 1978) - Interpreting he French Revolution Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1981); for Le Roy Ladurie,see his Histoire du climatdepuisI'an mil(Paris: Flammarion,1967).17. Thanks to Marcel Gauchet,historian of history, for pointingthis out.18. J. Le Goff, La Naissance du purgatoire(Paris:Gallimard,1985) - TheBirthofPurgatory(Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1986).19. Interview, Le Goff, note 13.20. Febvre, op. cit. note 15, 679.21. The analysis developedin this paragraphwas suggestedto us by Marcel Gauchet.22. DominiquePestre adds anotherpoint. The younger French historians have beenable to free themselves fromendless quantitative tudieson the price of wheatto deal atlastwith soft things:death, fears, love, taste,private ife andso on. Forthem,going backto science would be a retreat,not an advance.23. Interview, M. Pollack (Paris, 4 December 1986).24. See the final section, when we criticize culturalism while giving a culturalistexplanation.25. For a recentpresentation,see S. L. Jaki, Uneasy Genius: TheLife and WorkofPierre Duhem (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1984).26. See the references in the work of David Bloor, Steven Shapin, Mary Douglas.Interestingly,as I. Stengerspointsout, Duhemhas beenreintroducedntoFrance hroughEnglish and Americanintermediaries.27. For a caveat to this idea of isolation, see Mary Jo Nye's recent Science in theProvinces: Scientific Communitiesand Provincial Leadership in France, 1860-1930(Berkeley,CA: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1986), particularlyhe sectionon Duhem.28. For an overview of his problemswith French academia and a collection of hiswritings, see P. Redondi (ed.), AlexandreKoyrt: de la mystiquea la science: cours,conferences et documents,1922-1962 (Paris: EHESS, 1986).29. A. Koyre, From the Closed World o the InfiniteUniverse(Baltimore,MD: JohnsHopkinsUniversity Press, 1957).30. Fora good presentation f his worksensitive to theproblems t presents or Anglo-Saxon historians and philosophersof science, see M. Tiles, Bachelard: Science andObjectivity Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1984).31. Everyone nterviewedorthissurveymentionedBachelard ndCanguilhemspositivemodels for the historyandphilosophyof science. This is one of the things that made itdifficult for the authorsto stay symmetric.32. Gaston Bachelard, La Formation de l'esprit scientifique: contributiona une

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Social Studiesof Sciencepsychanalysede la connaissanceobjective(Paris:Vrin, 1980) - The New ScientificSpirit(New York: Beacon Press, 1985).33. See, for example, G. Bachelard,L'Eau et les reves: essai sur l'imaginationde lamatiere (Paris: J. Corti, 1980) - Water and Dreams: An Essay on the ImaginationofMatter Dallas,TX: Dallas InstitutePublications,1983). It shouldbe noted hatBachelard'spsychoanalysisis somewhatidiosyncratic.34. Witnessthe mathematics eform mposedby Bourbaki-influencedrofessorsacrossthe educationsystem throughoutFrance within a few years, with complete compulsoryretrainingof all secondaryteachers - with a view to freeing the discipline from uglyempirical stuff like geometry.35. Witness theonly two reviews of Englishwork in the field made available n France- by B. P. Lecuyer, 'Bilan et perspectivesde la sociologie de la science dans les paysoccidentaux',Archiveseuropeennesde sociologie, Vol. 19 (1978), 257-336, andFranqois-Andre Isambert's 'Un "programme ort" en sociologie de la science', Revue rancaisede sociologie, Vol. 26 (1985), 509-27.36. Georges Canguilhem,Etudesd'histoire et dephilosophiedes sciences (Paris:Vrin,1983), 17.37. G. Canguilhem, deologieet rationalitedans I 'histoiredes sciences de la vie (Paris:Vrin, 1977), 23. The notion of 'paradigm',so dear to Kuhnianhistorians,is seen as anobvious and unproblematicrewordingof the word 'theory'.38. Michel Foucault,Les Mots et les choses: une archeologie des sciences humaines(Paris:Gallimard,1966) - The Orderof Things:AnArcheologyof the HumanSciences(New York: RandomHouse, 1983).39. Interviewin L'Arc, Vol. 70 (1970), 23.40. MichelFoucault,L'Archeologiedu savoir(Paris:Gallimard,1967). See particularlythe introduction o the English edition, The Archaeology of Knowledge(Buffalo, NY:Pantheon, 1972).41. Itwouldbe instructiveo makea list of all themisunderstandingsetween heopposingarmiesof academicson the two sidesof theChannel.Foucault's elation o Marxism houldfigureon the list. Tied to Marxismabroad,he is seen here as having produceda powerfulcritiqueof it. Epistemologicaldeterminismherebecomes, through hemediumof Sealink,transmuted nto social determinism. Will the Chunnelchange this?

42. M. Foucault, Surveilleret punir: naissance de la prison (Paris: PUF, 1975) -Discipline and Punish:The Birth of the Prison (New York: RandomHouse, 1979).43. L. AlthusserandE. Balibar,Lire le Capital Paris:Maspero,1968), andAlthusser,Pour Marx(Paris:Masp6ro, 1970), both translated nto English in the New Left Booksseries. This series furthercomplicatedmattersby publishingAlthusser's disciple's -DominiqueLecourt's panegyricof praiseforBachelard,Canguilhem ndFoucault classposition notwithstanding).44. L. Althusser,Philosophieet philosophie spontaneedes savants (Paris: Masp6ro,1977). As is often the case for 'great figures' in France,Althusserhad few followers -the only Marxiststudyof science is DominiqueLecourt's. It should be pointedout thatthere is no equivalentin France of the RadicalScience Collective (which has publisheda variety of works), apartfrom two or three short-livedexperimentspublishedas partof the Seuil collection 'Science Ouverte'.

45. See, for example, C. Levi-Strauss,L'Hommenu (Paris:Plon, 1970), Conclusion- The Naked Man (New York: Harper& Row, 1981).46. See J. Lacan,Ecrits(Paris:Seuil, 1966)- Ecrits:A Selection New York:Norton,1982). See particularly he enormouslyinfluentialarticle on the 'PurloinedLetter'.

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CountryCommentary:Bowker & Latour: France47. E. Roudinesco,La Bataillede centans:histoirede lapsychanalyse nFrance(Paris:Seuil, 1986), Vol. 2. Roudinesco s careful to distinguishLacan'sconstantrewritingsofthe past of Frenchpsychoanalysis(and hence his own past) from an explorationof theactual developmentof the field.48. J. Lacan, 'La science et la v6rite', Ecrits 2 (Paris: Points, 1971), 230.49. See MichelSerres, Hermes;Literature,Science, Philosophy,ed. J. H. HarariandD. F. Bell (Baltimore,MD: JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress, 1982). For the sociologist,see Serres, TheParasite, trans.L. R. Schehr(Baltimore,MD: JohnsHopkins UniversityPress, 1986).50. Paradoxically,Serres holds one of the four or five chairs in Historyof Science inFrance,buthe does little recognizablehistoryof science; his colleague at the Sorbonne,

JacquesRoger,does do historyof science, butholds the chair n thePhilosophyof Science.51. For an introduction o Serre's oeuvre, see B. Latour, 'EnlightenmentwithoutaCritique',in J. Griffith(ed.), Contemporary renchPhilosophy (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, forthcoming).52. J.-J. Salomon, Science et politique (Paris: Seuil, 1970) - Science and Politics:An Essay on the ScientificSituation n the Modem World Cambridge,MA: MIT Press,1973). See also Salomon,'SciencePolicy StudiesandtheDevelopmentof SciencePolicy',in Ina Spiegel-Rosingand Derek de Solla Price (eds), Science, Technologyand Society(London:Sage, 1977),43-70. Morerecently,see Salomon, Science n the PoliticalArena',in Roy MacLeod (ed.), Technologyand the HumanProspect (London:FrancesPinter,1986), 101-18.

53. This is partly a feature of the French university system: both sociology andpsychoanalysis,despitea strongintellectualheritage n France,have foundit difficulttobreak in. This point is covered in Roudinesco,op. cit. note 47. Michel Pollack (authorof anOECD-sponsored urveyof the stateof sociology in France)and BrunoLatour co-authorof this paper),both worked at CNAM. This interest n surveyingthe institutionalscene is not, be it noted, peculiarto CNAM.54. The Dipl6med'EtudeApprofondie DEA) is what allows a student o certify thathe/she is qualifiedto write his/her dissertation.55. See, forexample,GabrielDupuy, Urbanisme t technique: hroniqued'unmariagede raison (Paris: CRU, 1978).

56. Witness, for instance, the work of Jean-PierreDupuy, translatorand presenterof Ivan Illich. His group (called CREA) is partof the network of Ecole Polytechniqueresearch entres,anddeals withpoliticalphilosophy s well as witheconomicsandcognitivesciences.57. This centre does not need to be described n such detail to readersof Social Studies

of Science,sinceit publishesmainly n English.For two recentcontributions,ee M. Callon,J. Law and A. Rip (eds), Mappingthe Dynamicsof Science and Technology(London:Macmillan, 1986), and BrunoLatour,Science in Action(MiltonKeynes, Bucks.: OpenUniversity Press, 1987).58. See, for example, S. Moscovici, Essai sur l'histoirehumainede la nature(Paris:Flammarion,1967), andMoscovici, L'Experiencedu mouvement: . B. Baliani, discipleet critiquede Galilee (Paris: Hermann, 1968).59. EdgarMorin, La Methode:Vol. 1, La Nature de la nature;Vol. 2, La Viede lavie (Paris: Seuil, 1977, 1980).60. See, for example, GerardLemaine,Psychologiesociale et experimentationParis:Mouton,1969);Lemaine, SocialDifferentiationntheScientificCommunity',n H. Tajfel(ed.), TheSocial Dimension(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1984), Vol. 1,

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Social Studiesof Science338-59; Lemaine,G. Darmonet S. El Nemer(eds),Noopolis: es laboratoires e recherchefondamentale,de l 'atelier I'usine(Paris:CNRS, 1982); LemaineandB. Matalon eds),Hommessuperieurs,hommes nferieurs(Paris:ArmandColin, 1985); G. Ramunni,LesConceptionsquantiquesde 1911 a 1927 (Paris: Vrin, 1981).61. See, for example,GerardDarmon,'TheAsymmetryof Symmetry',Social ScienceInformation,Vol. 25 (1986), 743-55, and B. Matalon, 'Sociologie de la science etrelativisme', Revuede synthese, IVeme S6rie (1986), 3, 7-9.62. ElizabethCrawford, TheBeginningsof the Nobel Institution:The SciencePrizes,1901-1915 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1984).63. T. Shinn,Savoirscientifiqueetpouvoir social: I EcolePolytechnique 1794-1914)(Paris: FNSP, 1980).64. Interview,T. Shinn(Paris, 27 October 1986). See, for example, T. Shinn andR.Whitley (eds), ExpositoryScience: Forms and Functionsof Popularisationin Science(Dordrecht:D. Reidel, 1985).65. ChristineBlondel (ed.), Guide de 1'histoiredes sciences et des techniques(Paris:Belin et Soci6et Franqaised'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques, 1987).66. CNRS is theCentreNationalde RechercheScientifique:t fundsmuchof the researchin the social and physical sciences that is carriedout in France.67. 'Propositions our 'Enseignement e 1'Avenir',elabor6esala demandede Monsieurle Pr6sidentde la R6publiqueparles Professeursdu College de France(Paris, 1985), 22.Theverystatement f Principle1suggests hat he resultwill notradically istoricize cience:'A harmonious ducationmustendeavouro conciliate he universalismnherento scientificthoughtand the relativismthat is taughtby the human sciences. ..' (5).68. F. Dagognet, Tableauxet langages de la chimie(Paris:Seuil, 1969); Philosophiede l'image (Paris:CNRS, 1985); Le Musee sansfin (Paris: ChampsVallon, 1984). Hehas also written a book about Bachelard.

69. B. P. Lecuyer, 'L'hygiene en France avantPasteur', in C. Salomon-Bayet ed.),Pasteuret la revolutionpastorienne(Paris:Payot, 1985), 65-139. See also, P. Besnard(ed.), TheSociologicalDomain:TheDurkheimians nd theFoundingof FrenchSociology(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1983); A. Desrosieres, 'Histoiresdes formes:statistiques t sciencessocialesavant1940', Revue rancaisede sociologie, Vol. 26 (1984),277-310.

70. DominiquePestre, Physiqueet physiciensen France, 1918-1940 (Paris:Editionsdes Archives Contemporaines,1985). See also Pestre, 'Y-a-t-il eu une physique "a lafranqaise"entreles deux guerres?',La Recherche,Vol. 69 (1985), 999-1005. For somerecent, excellent work by Pestre see: D. Pestre, 'La naissance du CERN, le commentet le pourquoi', Relations internationales,No. 46 (1986), 209-26.71. P. Redondi,L 'Accueildes idees de Sadi Carnotet la technologie rancaise de 1820a 1860: de la legende a 1'histoire(Paris: Vrin, 1980).72. See, for example, BernadetteBensaude-Vincent,Les Pieges de 1'elementaire:contributiona 'histoirede 'elementchimique(thesede Doctorat,Universit6de ParisI,1981); see also her 'Une mythologie r6volutionnairedans la chimie franqaise',Annalesde science, Vol. 40 (1983), 189-96.73. For an articleby Rashed, see R. Rashed, 'La Notion de science occidentale', inE. G. Farbes (ed.), HumanImplicationsof ScientificAdvance(Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversity Press, 1978), 45-54.74. Forsome recentworkby RobertFox, see his 'Science, theUniversityand the Statein 19thCenturyFrance',in G. Geison(ed.), Professionsand the FrenchState, 1700-1900(Philadelphia,PA: Universityof PennsylvaniaPress, 1984), 66-147; 'Science, Industry

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Country Commentary: Bowker & Latour: FranceandtheSocialOrder n Mulhouse,1789-1871', BritishJournalfor theHistoryof Science,Vol. 17 (1984) 127-68; and 'L'attitudedes professeursdes facult6sdes sciences face al'industrialisationn Francede 1850a 1914', inC. CharleandM. Ferr6 eds),LePersonnelde I'enseignementuperieuren Franceau 19emeet au 20emesiecles (Paris:CNRS, 1985),135-49. In the same group is ChristineBlondel, who wrote Ampereet la creation deI'elec

Latour - Social Studies of Science in France

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