Call for papers

Re-assessing Canguilhem
Pathological measurement in science, technology, and medicine

Workshop at the 84th Annual Meeting of the German Society for the History
of Medicine, Science and Technology, September 28 to October 1, 2001, in
Hamburg, Germany.


The differentiation between "normal" and "pathological" is one of the
guiding categorical distinctions around which the modern life sciences
emerged. While the "normality" of an object of investigation remained
typically hidden among the presuppositions of  laboratory practices in
physiology and psychology, other discursive practices like those of
anthropology, clinical medicine, psychiatry, applied psychology,
engineering sciences etc. centered around established norms, normal
measures, standards, deviations and the like. Here, the mean, the average,
the typical operated as landmarks for the discrimination of the
pathological, the deviation, or the "a-normal".
Over half a century ago, Georges Canguilhem emphasized the central role of
this distinction in the life sciences, but he insisted that life itself was
the actor which established the normality of any particular form of
biological interaction with an environment. According to Canguilhem,
physiology, for example, was not the science of the laws of normal life but
the science of "stabilized modes of life" under the conditions of
particular laboratory settings, regardless of their "normality".
Canguilhem's critique points to the discursive construction of biological
norms and of normality in the life sciences. Now, and due to the turn of
science studies toward material cultures and practices, the materiality of
such constructions and accordant processes of stabilization call into
question his philosophical analysis. In many fields of science, technology,
and medicine, measuring plays a central and decisive role in scientific
practice. Scales, clocks, thermometers, graphs, meters etc. produce the
numbers which erect, materialize, and police the normal/pathological
boundary on their ways from the laboratory and research departments across
lecture theaters, clinics, offices, regulatory authorities into the public.
Addressing the problem of pathological measurement involves two modes of
questioning: The first deals with the specific practices by means of which
territories of the "pathological" were surveyed, mapped, and registered.
The second looks at the pathology of measuring as practice, i.e. it
questions the strategies designed to produce "normal" results. From this
dual perspective, the following four thematic areas are suggested for the
workshop:

Canguilhem and recent studies of science and technology
Beyond Canguilhem's impact on the history of science as a field of study,
the relation should be explored between his conceptual framework and more
recent work in science and technology studies. If Canguilhem indeed
attributed the development of the sciences "more to conceptual changes than
to their historical circumstances", as Karl E. Rothschuh once stated, his
conclusions might conflict with the new experimentalism of Galison, Latour,
or Rheinberger. But as one of the main authors of a historical epistemology
of the life sciences, his work still has much to offer for ongoing work in
this area. What exactly is the current position of his work? And where have
his studies obscured alternative paths of historical investigation?

Measuring the pathological
One of the main characteristics of the many forms of measuring in the life
sciences is the artificiality of the circumstances. Laboratory conditions
imply a strict separation from the outside world and the subjection of the
objects of investigation to very specific conditions (like experimental
lesions, standardized environments, social segregation etc.). The
mechanisms of selection by which individuals and groups in clinical
practice, social psychology, or psychiatry are identified as scientifically
relevant are similarly artificial. How can the "pathological" be determined
under these "pathological" circumstances/conditions? How are, for example,
"useful" strains of rats selected for experimental practices? How do
scientists and the "pathological" (object/individual/group) interact?

The pathology of measuring
Determining numerical relationships, and not simply single parameters, i.e.
the deviation from the mean, the optimum or the typical, is the aim of
measuring in the life sciences. But how are such systems of reference
created in the midst of the "pathological"? How are "deviations" defined
and how are they identified? Which strategies are employed to legitimize
the measurement of deviations? How are such measurements stabilized as
"orderly" and "successful"? Where do they take place? How are sources of
error determined and how do they interfere with measurement? What is the
role of scientific and technological instruments in this process? What
sources of error are implicit in scientific theory and technology and how
are they dealt with? What are the procedures for negotiating artificial vs.
pathological deviations? Where do inconsistency and discrepancy creep in?
And how are the regimes of measuring the pathological maintained against
such disturbances?

The normalization of measurement
Means and averages end in norms, routines, rules, and guidelines. Whereas
such norms count as socio-historical constructs in sociology, economics,
technology, or law, in the life sciences the conventionality of norms
becomes hidden under their "normality". But how exactly are averages turned
into parameters of the natural and thereby into norms? What are the
intermediate processes and what forms of transformation are necessary? What
are the material cultures in which particular measurements prevail as
norms? What are the mechanisms of acceptance, legitimation, and
maintenance? Is the categorical differentiation between normal and
pathological a consequence of the experimental practice itself? Or can
forms of "pure" and unbiased experimentalization be distinguished? How do
actors' interests guide the process of taking measurements and must they do
so? Is measuring in itself pathological?



Abstracts (max. 400 words) of presentations within the suggested framework
should be sent by May 18, 2001, to one of the organizers:

Cornelius Borck, Center for Humanities and Health Sciences, Institute for
the History of Medicine, Klingsorstrasse 119, D - 12203 Berlin, Germany,
[log in to unmask]

Volker Hess, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science,
Wilhelmstrasse 44, D - 10117 Berlin, Germany, [log in to unmask]

Henning Schmidgen, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science,
Wilhelmstrasse 44, D - 10117 Berlin, Germany, [log in to unmask]