Laboratory Epistemologies

Jenny BoulboullÉ is Lecturer in the Art and Culture Department at the University of Amsterdam.

"Jenny BoulboullÉ brilliantly revises superficial clichÉs about Descartes: as foundational to French rationality, as opposed to British practicality, and to the dualism of subject versus object; as conceiving of cogito as purely in the mind; and as invested in skepticism as his primary method. An experimentalist and vivisectionist, Descartes was prouder of his experiments than his philosophy, and, with his correspondents, helped devise the ‘literary technology’ that led to the scientific method of the Royal Society. BoulboullÉ argues that Laboratory Epistemologies begin in touch and the sensory followed by cogito-mathematical consolidations that often erase their empirical origins, and for Descartes required a theological overlay." - Michael M. J. Fischer, author of (Probing Arts and Emergent Forms of Life) “Jenny BoulboullÉ calls her study a ‘multisited historioethnographical investigation,’ thus condensing its spirit in one combined expression. The book brings together an impressively wide reading in contemporary historical and ethnographical science studies, a longue dureÉe philosophical perspective, and hands-on participatory experiences both in molecular biology and in the aesthetic practices of contemporary bio-artists. A highly original study of scientific practice that makes for fascinating reading.” - Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, author of (Split and Splice: A Phenomenology of Experimentation)

• Note on Descartes’s Texts and Their Translation  ixIntroduction: A Feeling for the Life Sciences  11. Knowing by Experience  332. Descartes’s Manual Meditations  813. Making Modern Epistemology  1124. Revisiting Laboratory Cultures  1435. In Touch with Life  189Epilogue  235Acknowledgments  257Notes  261Bibliography  313Index