[Applause]
we’ll think that the history of science
is about who who did it first and I must
this value of this notion the history
and philosophy of science is not about
who did it first the history and the
philosophy of science basically seeks to
identify patterns laws patterns and the
mechanisms of the growth of scientific
knowledge and the philosophy of science
basically tries to unpack the
presuppositions the philosophical
cultural metaphysical and other
presuppositions that shape the growth of
scientific knowledge now having said
that the past twenty years has been a
particularly exciting period for those
who do research in the history and
philosophy of science for a variety of
reasons and I’m not going to inventory
all the reasons that are cause for much
as excitement in the field but identify
one of the problems around which I shall
speak for maybe the next ten to fifteen
minutes otherwise one can go on much
longer as as we begin to see that the
world is more and more connected what is
becoming evident is that the connections
that underlie the world of knowledge
production themselves have become the
subject of deep investigation from
historians and philosophers of science
and connections that goes so deep you
know I mean we tend to think that well
the world was globalized over the last
it has been globalized over the last 40
years no the words been globalized for
centuries it’s just the rate at which
knowledge is transmitted and circulated
at today is almost well instantaneous at
the click of a mouse all right if you
went back to ancient Greece or ancient
India ancient Rome I mean people were
still trading in ideas goods materials
artifacts but these processes took a
long period it much much longer period
but not as long as we expected and so I
mean
awful eight historians and philosophers
are all talking about global histories
connected histories entangled histories
hybrid knowledge
what are these categories and concepts
about these categories and concepts are
basically invented by historians and
philosophers of science to get a handle
and not every concept gets a good handle
as we know with concepts some concepts
provide us an analytical perspective
which allows us to access one part but
not access to another which enables us
to acquire an insight into one angle one
perspective one dimension but not in so
what we have then is a is a family an
entire range of concepts to deal with
this connected these connected histories
so I was about two years ago at a
workshop in in Beijing and one of my
colleagues who’s working going to a site
called carrying Shimla from the
University of Paris was asked by a
Chinese you know I mean you are a French
mathematician so what is the identity
how will you define the identity of a
French mathematician and carrying Shimla
said very very knowledgeably well the
mathematics I do has roots which I can
trace back to ancient Greece ancient
China ancient India the ancient Arab
world my citizenship is French all right
but my knowledge has roots like a tree
like a rhizome you know under the ground
which go back to several connected
knowledge –is all right
and so I mean what we begin to see them
as that it’s very difficult then to
ascribe a very unique label to a kind of
knowledge because if the world was
connected these roots of knowledge has
also been connected all right and I
myself of us for some time have been
interested in this this guy you all know
of him anybody living in Delhi you know
who visits cannot place has seen the
gentleman Thor anybody who’s been to
Jaipur you’ve all heard of Jai Singh and
I try to understand his observatory now
what we see is that there are many sites
of knowledge what is the site of
knowledge and Observatory the site of
knowledge all right a library is a site
of knowledge a University is the site of
knowledge and what we as historians of
science have began to realize is that
the sites of knowledge are far more
distributed and dispersed within society
that than we had ever thought before all
right we seem to think and that’s
because of the history of the last 200
years that all the knowledge we produced
is produced within in institutes and in
universities and in research
laboratories no knowledge is produced in
different sectors of society and in all
these sectors in in some cases the
integration between the sector’s is very
strong and in some cases the integration
is not so strong so in the next seven to
eight minutes let me just now
instantiate some of the things I’ve been
trying to say through the work of this
man and in order to understand the work
of this man I mean I tried I tried to
develop a concept which I called
cosmopolitan science and you say what is
cosmopolitan the work of course it
derives from the ancient Greeks who said
well well cosmopolitan is a kind of
citizen of the world a cosmopolitan
individual is one who has an openness to
other cultures other people’s other
societies and other ways of knowing now
in sociological theory people seem to
think that cosmopolitanism the ideology
of being cosmopolitan is something which
emerges in Europe in the 18th century
and I’ve been part of a program with
scholars from the Arab world from India
and all that and saying no we were
always cosmopolitan but in a way we are
not yet the world of knowledge
production has always been cosmopolitan
in a certain way so how do I instantiate
it so I go to this ruler called Jason
and the astronomical observatory as we
know it as we know it today where people
make a fixed site where people make
observations where there are texts
from different languages with which pass
through that contains tables of
astronomical observations where people
who are trained to do astronomy teach
and they’re people who translate
observations and principles from one
language into another this is something
which was an invention of a 9th century
Baghdad and it travels in two directions
it travels into the to the west which
goes on to become the modern at
observatory with the telescope and it
travels eastward and it influences the
design of the observatory of Jason the
gentleman third and four Jai Singh this
man was the greatest astronomer ever his
name is will look big and in summer come
this is the observatory of look big and
based on this Jai Singh says that well
would look brake system is not perfect
and I shall perfect it just like the
knowledge we possess today is not
perfect and the next generation will
perfect it all right so that is the
destiny of knowledge all right that is
how knowledge and advances something
goes out and something new comes in and
so he goes to the work of Willick big
and then in trying to deal with all it
makes calculations he says I cannot
resolve the problem so what do I do
so he has an observatory the sight of
knowledge in which he has nine
astronomers Joe tisha working alongside
nine new Jimmy nine astronomers trained
in Islamic astronomy and they working
together all right
so astronomers like juggernaut Samrat
and cable drama are working along with
Abdul higher Mohandas trying to perfect
their tables off of all red bag the
problem still is not going the way and
what does this man do then he writes to
the governor of Goa a Portuguese
official and says send me some European
astronomers I want to see what they are
doing and this then becomes the route
for the entry of modern astronomy to
India and he employs then two
astronomers from Bavaria in Germany to
work in his laboratory now if I look at
this a stir
nominal site and say what is it what
label can I put on it what is its
identity there is over here the mixing
of both people and things the people are
coming from different traditions all
right from different ways of doing
astronomy Joe tisha the Nezumi and or
the in my hair and those who are doing
Western astronomy alright there’s also a
cosmopolitanism of things of objects of
instruments there are objects there are
instruments which are being used and
these are instruments which some of
which Jai Singh had developed himself
and some of which came back from a
tradition which went back at least two
or three centuries but which were going
through a process of evolution and
change so there are these astronomical
instruments he sends a delegation to
Portugal who come back with a modern
telescope with the vernier calipers and
ways of doing astronomy which date back
to the 17th century to the Europe of the
17th century
alright so what do we see here and then
there are the tables across five
different traditions and so there are
works which are being translated from
several languages the Almagest is
translated into sanskrit by a pundit of
his called Jagannath Samrat and I think
some rot is this the Kalos his title
alright it’s a title given to him for
having translated the the Alma guests
into into Sanskrit so there are texts
which have been translated from Latin
into Sanskrit from Persian in to
Sanskrit across different languages so
there are different kinds of objects the
observatory becomes a site where people
from different cultures from different
nations from different ways of doing
things takes which are in different
languages things which come from
different traditions all these are
passing through are passing through that
observatory
all right the observatory itself is a
site of a cosmopolitan knowledge all
right and if that be the case
how do I label it is this Jyoti sure is
this Elmen higher is this modern science
all right and this kind of engagement
within the sciences this kind of
pragmatism within the sciences is what
has been responsible for the rapid
growth of modern science
all right so now however let me come to
my last problem and I think I’ll begin
winding up is what have historians of
science seen over the past two decades
and what they’ve seen over the past two
decades is that the term science itself
is too narrow a term to encompass this
diversity this diversity of knowledge
producers because the moment you talk
about science you talk about an
institution like the University
departments and disciplines physics
chemistry mathematics biochemistry
biophysics you talk about all these
departments and actually know the niche
the nature of these interactions has
taken place across several kinds of
institutional contexts which is not
limited just to the university and so
now people like me say no I am NOT a
historian of science I am a historian of
knowledge all right because the term
knowledge itself gives you a greater
latitude to explore domains of knowledge
which are not limited by the term
science itself it’s not that science is
any less important it is equally
important but science itself is
networked with other ways of knowing and
acting upon the world I think I’ll stop here thank you
we’ll think that the history of science
is about who who did it first and I must
this value of this notion the history
and philosophy of science is not about
who did it first the history and the
philosophy of science basically seeks to
identify patterns laws patterns and the
mechanisms of the growth of scientific
knowledge and the philosophy of science
basically tries to unpack the
presuppositions the philosophical
cultural metaphysical and other
presuppositions that shape the growth of
scientific knowledge now having said
that the past twenty years has been a
particularly exciting period for those
who do research in the history and
philosophy of science for a variety of
reasons and I’m not going to inventory
all the reasons that are cause for much
as excitement in the field but identify
one of the problems around which I shall
speak for maybe the next ten to fifteen
minutes otherwise one can go on much
longer as as we begin to see that the
world is more and more connected what is
becoming evident is that the connections
that underlie the world of knowledge
production themselves have become the
subject of deep investigation from
historians and philosophers of science
and connections that goes so deep you
know I mean we tend to think that well
the world was globalized over the last
it has been globalized over the last 40
years no the words been globalized for
centuries it’s just the rate at which
knowledge is transmitted and circulated
at today is almost well instantaneous at
the click of a mouse all right if you
went back to ancient Greece or ancient
India ancient Rome I mean people were
still trading in ideas goods materials
artifacts but these processes took a
long period it much much longer period
but not as long as we expected and so I
mean
awful eight historians and philosophers
are all talking about global histories
connected histories entangled histories
hybrid knowledge
what are these categories and concepts
about these categories and concepts are
basically invented by historians and
philosophers of science to get a handle
and not every concept gets a good handle
as we know with concepts some concepts
provide us an analytical perspective
which allows us to access one part but
not access to another which enables us
to acquire an insight into one angle one
perspective one dimension but not in so
what we have then is a is a family an
entire range of concepts to deal with
this connected these connected histories
so I was about two years ago at a
workshop in in Beijing and one of my
colleagues who’s working going to a site
called carrying Shimla from the
University of Paris was asked by a
Chinese you know I mean you are a French
mathematician so what is the identity
how will you define the identity of a
French mathematician and carrying Shimla
said very very knowledgeably well the
mathematics I do has roots which I can
trace back to ancient Greece ancient
China ancient India the ancient Arab
world my citizenship is French all right
but my knowledge has roots like a tree
like a rhizome you know under the ground
which go back to several connected
knowledge –is all right
and so I mean what we begin to see them
as that it’s very difficult then to
ascribe a very unique label to a kind of
knowledge because if the world was
connected these roots of knowledge has
also been connected all right and I
myself of us for some time have been
interested in this this guy you all know
of him anybody living in Delhi you know
who visits cannot place has seen the
gentleman Thor anybody who’s been to
Jaipur you’ve all heard of Jai Singh and
I try to understand his observatory now
what we see is that there are many sites
of knowledge what is the site of
knowledge and Observatory the site of
knowledge all right a library is a site
of knowledge a University is the site of
knowledge and what we as historians of
science have began to realize is that
the sites of knowledge are far more
distributed and dispersed within society
that than we had ever thought before all
right we seem to think and that’s
because of the history of the last 200
years that all the knowledge we produced
is produced within in institutes and in
universities and in research
laboratories no knowledge is produced in
different sectors of society and in all
these sectors in in some cases the
integration between the sector’s is very
strong and in some cases the integration
is not so strong so in the next seven to
eight minutes let me just now
instantiate some of the things I’ve been
trying to say through the work of this
man and in order to understand the work
of this man I mean I tried I tried to
develop a concept which I called
cosmopolitan science and you say what is
cosmopolitan the work of course it
derives from the ancient Greeks who said
well well cosmopolitan is a kind of
citizen of the world a cosmopolitan
individual is one who has an openness to
other cultures other people’s other
societies and other ways of knowing now
in sociological theory people seem to
think that cosmopolitanism the ideology
of being cosmopolitan is something which
emerges in Europe in the 18th century
and I’ve been part of a program with
scholars from the Arab world from India
and all that and saying no we were
always cosmopolitan but in a way we are
not yet the world of knowledge
production has always been cosmopolitan
in a certain way so how do I instantiate
it so I go to this ruler called Jason
and the astronomical observatory as we
know it as we know it today where people
make a fixed site where people make
observations where there are texts
from different languages with which pass
through that contains tables of
astronomical observations where people
who are trained to do astronomy teach
and they’re people who translate
observations and principles from one
language into another this is something
which was an invention of a 9th century
Baghdad and it travels in two directions
it travels into the to the west which
goes on to become the modern at
observatory with the telescope and it
travels eastward and it influences the
design of the observatory of Jason the
gentleman third and four Jai Singh this
man was the greatest astronomer ever his
name is will look big and in summer come
this is the observatory of look big and
based on this Jai Singh says that well
would look brake system is not perfect
and I shall perfect it just like the
knowledge we possess today is not
perfect and the next generation will
perfect it all right so that is the
destiny of knowledge all right that is
how knowledge and advances something
goes out and something new comes in and
so he goes to the work of Willick big
and then in trying to deal with all it
makes calculations he says I cannot
resolve the problem so what do I do
so he has an observatory the sight of
knowledge in which he has nine
astronomers Joe tisha working alongside
nine new Jimmy nine astronomers trained
in Islamic astronomy and they working
together all right
so astronomers like juggernaut Samrat
and cable drama are working along with
Abdul higher Mohandas trying to perfect
their tables off of all red bag the
problem still is not going the way and
what does this man do then he writes to
the governor of Goa a Portuguese
official and says send me some European
astronomers I want to see what they are
doing and this then becomes the route
for the entry of modern astronomy to
India and he employs then two
astronomers from Bavaria in Germany to
work in his laboratory now if I look at
this a stir
nominal site and say what is it what
label can I put on it what is its
identity there is over here the mixing
of both people and things the people are
coming from different traditions all
right from different ways of doing
astronomy Joe tisha the Nezumi and or
the in my hair and those who are doing
Western astronomy alright there’s also a
cosmopolitanism of things of objects of
instruments there are objects there are
instruments which are being used and
these are instruments which some of
which Jai Singh had developed himself
and some of which came back from a
tradition which went back at least two
or three centuries but which were going
through a process of evolution and
change so there are these astronomical
instruments he sends a delegation to
Portugal who come back with a modern
telescope with the vernier calipers and
ways of doing astronomy which date back
to the 17th century to the Europe of the
17th century
alright so what do we see here and then
there are the tables across five
different traditions and so there are
works which are being translated from
several languages the Almagest is
translated into sanskrit by a pundit of
his called Jagannath Samrat and I think
some rot is this the Kalos his title
alright it’s a title given to him for
having translated the the Alma guests
into into Sanskrit so there are texts
which have been translated from Latin
into Sanskrit from Persian in to
Sanskrit across different languages so
there are different kinds of objects the
observatory becomes a site where people
from different cultures from different
nations from different ways of doing
things takes which are in different
languages things which come from
different traditions all these are
passing through are passing through that
observatory
all right the observatory itself is a
site of a cosmopolitan knowledge all
right and if that be the case
how do I label it is this Jyoti sure is
this Elmen higher is this modern science
all right and this kind of engagement
within the sciences this kind of
pragmatism within the sciences is what
has been responsible for the rapid
growth of modern science
all right so now however let me come to
my last problem and I think I’ll begin
winding up is what have historians of
science seen over the past two decades
and what they’ve seen over the past two
decades is that the term science itself
is too narrow a term to encompass this
diversity this diversity of knowledge
producers because the moment you talk
about science you talk about an
institution like the University
departments and disciplines physics
chemistry mathematics biochemistry
biophysics you talk about all these
departments and actually know the niche
the nature of these interactions has
taken place across several kinds of
institutional contexts which is not
limited just to the university and so
now people like me say no I am NOT a
historian of science I am a historian of
knowledge all right because the term
knowledge itself gives you a greater
latitude to explore domains of knowledge
which are not limited by the term
science itself it’s not that science is
any less important it is equally
important but science itself is
networked with other ways of knowing and
acting upon the world I think I’ll stop here thank you
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