Lukas Rathjen, Jonas Stähelin
MDPI, Basel: Histories, 2 (S 2), pp. 146-156, 2022
Excerpt
2, Tackling the Unknown
At first glance, it seems obvious to identify the unknown with the opposite of knowledge.3 This may lead us to assume that what we do not know is necessarily located outside of the established scientific order. From an epistemological perspective, however, such an assumption is problematic because it obscures the ways in which the unknown has been and continues to be part of scientific knowledge production — rhetorically as well as practically.
For example, in Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum, the unknown figured as the frontier that knowledge was to conquer — famously visualized in the original frontispiece where a ship sets out to the great sea (Shapin 1996, p. 20). The colonial underpinnings of such a view of scientific advance are quite striking, and Bacon’s imbrications with colonialism have been the subject of some research (Zeitlin 2021). The historian of science Carolyn Merchant developed this point into a feminist and ecological critique of Bacon’s “new science” (Merchant 1980, 2008). As she argues, Bacon’s new experimental method that aimed to extract the “secrets of nature” was closely tied to the desire of extracting the “secrets of women” (Merchant 2008, p. 151).
Such a territorial understanding of the unknown as a terra incognita yet to be explored and conquered leads back to the history of early modern cartography and the problem of empty spaces (Relaño 2002; Laboulais-Lesage 2004; Hiatt 2008). However, according to Cornel Zwierlein, the unknown was not only limited to the empty spaces on maps that cartographers had to designate and visualize, but the period in general was characterized by a new and evolving drive to “define the unknown across the four fields of politics and economics, religion, general knowledge and history, and science” (Zwierlein 2016b, p. 2). Zwierlein’s approach thus shows how orders of knowledge, such as enlightened empires, were built on the processing of the unknown in different epistemic fields (Zwierlein 2016a).
While the frontier suggested a potentially limitless expansion of scientific knowledge, 19th century scientists increasingly underscored the epistemological limits of their practice. In 1872, the German physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond famously proclaimed that certain “riddles” of the universe — the nature of matter and the relation of the brain to consciousness — would never be solved (du Bois-Reymond 1874). To ensure science’s continued progress, he further argued scientific practice had to be restricted to controlled measurement and calculation. This in turn entailed recognizing an absolute limit of knowledge, which science would never be able to surpass (Finkelstein 2013; Anacker and Moro 2016).4
With respect to 20th century scientific practice, the historian of science Hans-Jörg Rheinberger argues that the unknown is not just an external point of reference, but lies at the very heart of what he calls “experimental systems” (Knorr-Cetina 1991; Rheinberger 2005, 2010a, 2010b, 2021). Studying the historical emergence of the concept of the gene as an “epistemic object”, Rheinberger has shown that the productivity of this concept resulted from the fact that it organized experimental access to the organism and thus allowed acting in and through the unknown. Experimenting with the gene presupposed not knowing what it was. Once it became known, it was no longer an epistemic object but a technical one (Rheinberger 2000). To drive the main point home, experimental practice precedes knowledge. Rather than starting from the basis of the known to then build up ever more knowledge, experimental systems instead integrate the unknown “in such a way that it becomes the source of knowledge” (Rheinberger 2005, p. 81). For Rheinberger, therefore, the whole material practice of experimenting is centered around generating and increasing the possibility of unforeseen events rather than eliminating the unknown (Rheinberger 2010a, p. 149; Rheinberger 2021, p. 200).
By underlining the epistemic functions of the unknown, however, we should not fail to recognize that scientists may also engage in covering up its existence. Such an observation can be made concerning a well-known topic in the history of science, namely gene mapping. Genetic researchers — not least in order to gain financial resources — had to present genetic maps by arguing for their completeness, while, in truth, their mapping method always left gaps open. Consequently, the unknown was rejected or transformed into an empty formula that suggested knowledge where knowledge was actually missing. As the historian of technology David Gugerli noted, “[m]aps ask to be completed” (Gugerli 2004, p. 215).
Whether understood as a frontier, an absolute limit, or as an experimental tool for the production of scientific knowledge, scientists continuously relate to the unknown in different ways. In the examples we portrayed, the unknown did not figure as a threat or an obstacle to knowledge but rather served as the condition for science’s continued existence and historical development. By forming an epistemic horizon, the unknown gives science its direction. This mobilization of the unknown can have rhetorical dimensions, as in the case of Francis Bacon, as well as practical ones, as in the case of Rheinberger’s conceptualization of experimental systems. There is much to be gained, therefore, by taking a closer look at the ways in which the unknown forms the substructure of epistemic orders.
How to develop an argument
Developing an argument depends on your discipline: each research community has its own specific expectations. However, across the disciplines, argumentation tends to have three steps (or components):
Step 1: Selecting and using relevant information from sources. This means: identifying which sources are relevant and evaluating which/how evidence or ideas can be used.
Step 2: Establishing your own position, which involves the comparison or contrast of evidence and ideas from sources. It also includes finding support for your position.
Step 3: Presenting your position in a coherent manner. This is about formal elements such as structure, signposting, style and register, and referencing.
"Establishing your own position" (step 2) is the core step in the overall goal of developing your argument.
Based on F. Macgilchrist 2014
Pitfalls of establishing a position
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