An Epistemology of the Concrete

“[H]istorians of twentieth century biology will find much of value in this volume. Further afield, those who are already aficionados of Rheinberger’s unique melding of rationalist historical epistemology and phenomenology with Derridean literary theory will also find this a handy epitome of his disparate work.” - Nicolas Rasmussen, Metascience

“Hans-Jörg Rheinberger has played a prominent role in bringing those strands of thinking together, thus pioneering an integrated approach to the history and the philosophy of science and, most importantly, illuminating several long-standing philosophical debates with profound, creative and scientifically informed insights on the nature of experimental work. Within this wonderful volume, Rheinberger uses his understanding of the history of biology and his experience as a practising experimenter to build a sophisticated epistemology of scientific practice.” - Sabina Leonelli, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science

“Part I, by far my favorite and the reason I would recommend the book to many, is a thoughtful and engaging exploration of recent trends in historiography and epistemology which pay specific attention to the relationships among epistemological theory, scientific objects, and experimental practices. . . . The theoretical and methodological insights articulated in Rheinberger’s text are, without a doubt, the high point of the book.” - S. Scott Graham, S. Scott Graham's Blog

“The reader will learn a great deal from Rheinberger’s essays on the scholars whom he sees as crucial in order to conceive of scientific knowledge as inherently historical, social, and ‘concrete’. The reader will also find an answer to what is historical epistemology today, or at least one version of it, both in theoretical terms and through case studies that show how a historical epistemological perspective enables the epistemologist, historian, and sociologist to read scientific activity.” - Christina Chimisso, Radical Philosophy

Rheinberger’s book is an invitation to study a world full of
epistemic things: they constitute its fabric. . . . It offers a detailed exegesis of a host of problems in the history of molecular biology and a fascinating overview of biological sciences as they were practiced in the twentieth century: they show what it meant (and maybe still means) to be working under the ‘lab’s knowledge regime,’ with technical devices but also pencils, notebooks, and animal models, together with many other things that are yearning to be studied by epistemologists and philosophers of science.” - Thierry Hoquet, HOPOS

“An Epistemology of the Concrete offers a methodological framework and a set of research exemplars that will shape science studies for years to come.” - Tim Lenoir, from the foreword

“In this empirical and conceptual tour de force, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger provides an examination of the work of key twentieth-century epistemologists, rigorous historical vignettes of model-organism research, a materialist epistemology of experimental biology, and, consequently, a carefully precise yet broadly illuminating theorization of modes of knowledge production. An Epistemology of the Concrete is a major contribution not only to the history of science but also to fields such as anthropology, which are turning to epistemological analyses of the life sciences as a key site of inquiry.” - Kaushik Sunder Rajan, author of Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life

“Readers will find that the overarching theme of the text is that scientific knowledge is not simply the result of a series of advances in which one pays forward into the next like a row of falling dominos. It is an emergent property of a nonlinear process involving a complex interplay of history, culture, and the scientific process. Rheinberger’s case studies present science as a productive enterprise with measurable outcomes such as conceptual models, experimental organisms, and instrumentation. . . . Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” - J. A. Hewlett, Choice