Instruments of Knowledge

Download or read book Instruments of Knowledge written by Jean-François Gauvin and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-06-19 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a bid to claim ‘scientific objects’ as requiring a significant amount of conceptual labor, this book looks sequentially at instruments, habits, and museums. The goal is to uncover how, together, these material and immaterial activities, rules, and commitments form one meaningful and credible blueprint revealing the building blocks of knowledge production. They serve to conceptualize and examine the entire life of an instrument: from its ideation and craft to its use, reuse, circulation, recycling, and (if not obliterated) its final entry into a museum. It is such an epistemological triptych that guides this investigation.