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399 Vera Keller What Is the Best Mark of Certainty for Scientific book reviews Early Science and Medicine 21 (2016) 399-401 399 Vera Keller Knowledge in the Public Interest, 1575–1725 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 350, $99.99 (cloth), ISBN 978 1 1071 1013 7. What is the best mark of certainty for scientific knowledge? Can knowledge be certain only when it is “pure,” unconnected with practical application and di- vorced from any individual’s interest or profit? Or does knowledge have greater certainty when it is operative, useful, and capable of expanding mankind’s do- minion over nature? Vera Keller’s fascinating book aims to trace a pivotal shift in the understanding of scientific knowledge in early modern Europe, in the ways such knowledge was (and ought to be) pursued, and in the principal jus- tifications for pursuing it. Supported by her admirably thorough research, she connects the rise of modern, collaborative scientific endeavor with the con- ception of a “public interest” in mastering nature, and uses as the central tool of her investigation the development of desiderata, lists of desired knowledge in need of (re)discovery. While desiderata were initially considered radical, controversial, even dangerous, they gradually found their way into the acade- my where they became thoroughly domesticated and even commonplace. They remain such a staple of academic research that we take little notice of them today. In a study spanning most of the period traditionally associated with the “Scientific Revolution,” Keller argues that new forms of reasoning emerged in both politics and the study of nature, each of which reinforced the other. Their development was roughly simultaneous, so that neither can be said to have given rise to the other, but they share important similarities. In both politics and science, there was a pronounced shift away from traditional notions of certainty and stability, in favor of knowledge rooted in contingency, probabili- ty, innovation, action, material progress, and interest. Her study begins with Giovanni Botero’s reconception of the reason of state, from a Machivaellian emphasis on the militaristic expansion of empire toward a more materialist, market-inspired expansion of trade and overall prosperity. This idea was re- ceived with considerable skepticism, as many doubted whether useful, “mar- ketable” knowledge could ever have philosophical certainty, while others smelled the unsavory odor of projectors and charlatans with all their fruitless promises and risky innovations. Yet Botero’s new vision of the reason of state was prescient, and fell onto fer- tile soil both in England and in the German-speaking parts of central Europe. Jakob Bornitz saw great potential in Botero’s ideas, but believed that the new reason of state ought to be thoroughly systematized in order to make the most efficient progress. This would be achieved by elevating the status of artisans, ISSN 1383-7427 (print version) ISSN 1573-3823 (online version) ESM 4 ©Early koninklijke Science brill and nv,Medicine leiden, 2016 | doi21 (2016) 399-401 10.1163/15733823-00214p20 A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period 400 book reviews who were the masters of operative natural knowledge, and by harnessing the human desire for profit, credit, and glory toward the betterment of all man- kind. No discovery was to be dismissed as impossible a priori, so that Bornitz’s state was capable of potentially endless improvement through innovation. Even more influential was Francis Bacon, who argued that the expansion of a territorial empire was far less important than the growth of an epistemic em- pire through the exploration and mastery of nature. Bacon, like Bornitz, saw that human beings’ less admirable traits – such as the love of profit and the quest for personal glory – might be harnessed to yield profitable innovations that would benefit the entire polity. Bacon’s great innovation, Keller argues, was the creation of desiderata, lists of useful things to be discovered (or redis- covered) that were desirable because they would lead to material benefits. Ba- con’s desiderata included many items that were mythical, illusory, or downright impossible, and in other contexts he himself dismissed such “inventions” as merely the pretenses of imposters and charlatans. Bacon, however, never claimed to have discovered all of his desiderata; rather, he put them forward as lofty goals toward which all explorers of nature might aspire, a noble quest for all who sought glory and honor in the pursuit of natural knowledge. Bacon may have failed to develop a complete method for producing philosophically certain scientific knowledge, but through his desiderata lists he succeeded in forging a new model for pursuing collaborative scientific research, and produc- ing operative natural knowledge in the name of the public interest. The second half of Keller’s study traces the consolidation and evolution of the desiderata list as a key tool of scientific research in England and Germany through the rest of the long seventeenth century. In England, she examines the Hartlib Circle’s quest for material and spiritual “improvement” during the 1650s, and the Royal Society’s early efforts to create a truly coherent, collabora- tive research program in the public interest on the model proposed by Bacon. She shows that desiderata were useful in setting collective goals for the Society as a whole, and in coordinating the particular research efforts of individual fellows. She challenges Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer’s theory that the Royal Society aimed to create a disinterested science as a model for a stable commonwealth, arguing instead that it was the collective pursuit and fulfill- ment of shared desires, rather than sterile disinterest, that would knit the frac- tured polity back together. Returning to the German context, she examines the various desiderata published by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Georg Hieronymus Welsch, and Johann Fürstenau, one of the earliest professors of œconomics. Along the way, Keller examines the problem of proliferating desiderata lists – there was far more glory and credit at stake, it seemed, in developing one’s own program for future collaborative research than in diligently pursuing Early Science and Medicine 21 (2016) 399-401.
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