Thing Knowledge: A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments

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Thing Knowledge by Davis Baird - Hardcover - University of California Press

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Thing Knowledge: A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments

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Finally he examines a class of instruments that are hybrids of the first two, measuring instruments. Baird also invokes different kinds of arguments to make his case for these different types of instruments. He argues by analogy, he appeals to the "cognitive autonomy" of instruments, and, finally, he employs substantial appeal to history.

These materials, the delineation of different types of instruments and the use of different forms of arguments, plus the historical account of how we have come to see that instruments embody knowledge, take up the first five chapters of the book and the material here is very convincing. In my opinion the historical argument is the strongest and opens the door to profitable research. Chapter Six is more theoretical. Here Baird gives us his epistemology of instruments.

Briefly put, having made the case for the knowledge producing functions of models, measuring devices, and working knowledge, Baird attempts to extend his account of material epistemology in such a way as to take us from the instruments of science to the epistemological importance of things in general.

This third world of objective knowledge is the world of theory and various epistemological claims about the world. It is a public world, not restricted to the inner thoughts of individuals. I am not convinced yet by this move, for it seems to solve the problem by fiat.

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Here is my concern: Baird wants to argue that instruments belong in the third world because they produce knowledge. Models produce representations, working knowledge instruments produce reliable data, and measuring instrument produce measurements. Hence, just like theories, they produce knowledge. However, I would argue, it takes human beings to recognize the model-produced representations as representations, measurements produced by measuring instruments as measurements, etc.

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In short, instruments, like disembodied theories do not speak for themselves. What turns theoretical knowledge and thing knowledge into knowledge , I propose, is what people do with it.

All that said, I am not yet convinced that Baird and I are at odds, since he is up front about the pragmatic slant to his epistemology. Suffice it to say here, limitations of space and time at fault, much more needs to be done to unravel these intricacies. He is adept at showing how, in historical context, instruments emerge from living room entertainment to essential components of the scientific mission.

Nowhere does he do this better than in his account of the development of the direct-reading spectrometer. For historians and philosophers of chemistry this episode can be viewed as canonical when making the case for the special place of chemistry in the world of contemporary science. It is important and it raises profound questions about the nature of knowledge that cannot be dismissed. For, in a world increasingly marked by the things we have made, it is time we pay attention to what they contribute to that world in more than a practical fashion.

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