Suchergebnisse

This paper explores the links between scientific practice and precision both in expert networks and popular literature in the second half 18th century Spain. It will be argued that scientific instruments were used and understood in different ways in these two networks, which required opposing strategies for visualizing the degree and goodness of users' dexterities, thereby fostering the emergence of different collective and individual (epistemic) subjects. I will also argue that these subjects' differences and affinities were constructed around three themes: firstly, the degree of precision needed to establish a correlation between data and the world, or, in other words, the degree of fluidity admitted in connecting material and cultural worlds; secondly, the relevance attributed to body and bod(il)y knowledge in producing reliable data and stabilizing expertise; and thirdly, the weight attributed to opinion in leaning towards ephemeral or lasting data. The first part of the paper looks at the epistemological and political confluences which in late 18th century Spain nurtured the emergence of both a culture of precision and a sphere of public opinion, and to the strained relationship that existed between them. The other three sections explore how Spanish people used different sets of practices to construct different images of themselves as supporters of a moral of precision. ; En este artículo se analiza la relación entre el ejercicio científico y la precisión científica tanto en las redes de expertos como en la literatura popular en la España de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII. Se mostrará que los instrumentos científicos fueron utilizados y comprendidos de diferentes maneras en estas dos redes, lo cual requirió aplicar unas estrategias opuestas para visualizar el grado y la eficacia de las destrezas de los usuarios, y por lo tanto impulsó la emergencia de diferentes sujetos colectivos e individuales (epistémicos). También demostraré cómo estas diferencias y afinidades de sujetos se construyeron alrededor de ...

Our aim is to show how the discussion about the most suitable scale for imperial scientific policies conditioned the type of botany that was to spread throughout the colonies. Thus we want to explore the shift between two conflicting types of biopolitics: the botanical policy of the Metropolis and the political botany in the colonies. This is a distinction that refers to the shift from an organizational model based on the production of data towards one that assigns and redistributes values. They both emanate from the plant world. The first biopolicy seeks to take advantage of the domain through its floristic resources; the second, in contrast, tries to ensure that the qualities of the plants, by digestion, should improve the moral stature of the community. The Empire demands a policy to organize plants, while in the colonies they need a type of botany to create the polis. ; Peer reviewed

Governing is not the same as commanding. It is not sufficient to give orders from above, because the success of any action is linked to the level of personal involvement of the person carrying it out. Hence the importance of giving justification to an action. But we know this is not enough. Or rather, justification is only effective if it is based on identifiable activities and objective facts. This is easy to say, but increasingly difficult to understand. For the Moderns, however it was (and perhaps still is) quite clear. According to them it was sufficient to make sure that our information fulfilled certain conditions: among other things, it was crucial that it be obtained by means of specialized machines, which would avoid, as far as possible, the subjectivity and disarray of our senses. It was necessary to convert the greater or lesser intensity with which we detect phenomena into numbers and calculations. ; Peer reviewed

El artículo explora la forma en que la ciencia se convirtió en una herramienta para la racionalización de la monarquía, es decir, del gobierno de la gente y de sus territorios. Analizaremos cómo la tierra fue transformada en un artefacto geodésico medible, cómo fue tratada una planta para ser considerada un medicamente confiable, y cómo la noción de frontera entre países se desplegó en un sistema algebraico de contabilidad. Nadie como los científicos había soñado tanto con disciplinas, instrumentos y fórmulas. Y tampoco nadie había mostrado una pasión tan incontenible por traducir todos los problemas a síntomas, signos y números. Y así fue como el estado se convirtió en una cuestión científica y la ciencia en un problema de estado. This paper explores how science became a toolbox for the rationalisation of the monarchy: that is, of the government of the people and of its territories. We will analize how the Earth was transformed in a mensurable, geodesic artefact; how a plant was managed in order to be considered a reliable medicament; and how the notion of patriotic bound was deployed into an algebraic system for accountancy. Nobody like the scientists had dreamt so much of disciplines, instruments and formulas. Nor had anybody shown such an overwhelming passion for translating all problems into symptoms, signs and numbers. And so it was that the state became a scientific question, and science became a matter of state.