Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact - A Review

Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact
Ludwig Fleck, 1935 (Switzerland)
Edited by Thaddeus J. Trenn and Robert K. Merton
Translated by Fred Bradley and Thaddeus J. Trenn
Foreword by Thomas S. Kuhn
Published by University of Chicago, 1979

I'm sure lots of things were said, since this work did reach a crescendo in the 60's - 70's along with Kuhn's Revolutions. Nonetheless, that was almost 50 years ago, and so many passages of this text conjure visions of contemporary phenomena.

I'll start with a basic overview, then a glimpse at a critical component of his theory called the Thought Collective, and some technical and editorial details. Successive posts will present a kind of functional analysis, and a good look at how Fleck's theory manifests in sociological phenomena like the Greta Garbo effect and of course, perennial favorite at Network Address, viral memetics.

But first...

On the Development of Syphilis as an Idea
This entire book is about Fleck following the "facts" of Syphilis as they evolved, starting with the most fanciful explanations, sometimes outright astrological, and ending with a test for the disease that couldn't have been developed without massive changes in the collective understanding of how the disease works in the body.

"Theoretical and practical elements, the a priori and the purely empirical, mingled with one another according to the rules not of logic but of psychology." (p5) (!!) 

If you are familiar with Kuhn's Revolutions, then you have an idea of what Fleck is talking about. Kuhn "serendipitously" found this book, which he later credited for much of his thinking. This book got no mention beyond its initial and limited reviews in the 1930's, and wasn't discovered until the 1960's, and by Kuhn, who sent it (and Fleck's idea of thought collectives) into the general public by the 70's.

-image source: Michael K Richardson 1998 embryo drawings 

The Life Cycle of a Fact

Fleck has provided a theory of knowledge whereby tentative pre-ideas can develop into scientific facts by means of a  process of collectivization. Fleck analyzes the development of syphilis from the Middle Ages to the Wasserman Reaction in the early 20th century. The fact has a life-cycle:

1. Vague visual perception and inadequate initial observation.
2. An irrational, concept-forming and style-converting state of experience.
3. Developed, reproducible and stylized visual perception of form. (p94)

Notes On Translation

• Thought Style - (from the German Denkstil, this word invented by Karl Manheim 1925)
• Thought Collective - (from German Denkkollektiv, and much consternation over the choice of collective vs community and their difference in meaning, especially at that time in history, i.e., Communism) 

Fleck describes or makes the exception for certain people who have a strong personal thought style, within themselves, he participates in several thought collectives, a "marginal man"

Fleck mentions the words collective imagination and thought collective but never the word Noosphere. ~p83

"Thought style is the readiness for directed perception." (p143 and elsewhere)

Science itself is a specialized thought style: "Good work done according to style, instantly awakens a corresponding mood of solidarity in the reader." (p145)

-image source: George Romane 1892 embryo drawings attr to Ernst Haeckel

Notes On the Thought Collective

"The conceptual creations of science, like other works of the mind, become acccepted as fact through a complex process of social consolidation." (Trenn, preface, p xiii)

"Without social conditioning no cognition is even possible." (p43)

"Knowledge exists in the collective, and it is always being revised." (p95)

In other words: Knowledge is a social creation. 

Thinking is a social activity. It does not exist apart from the thought collective that guides it. The way a thought collective thinks is called a thought style, and these are its features:

• related to problems of interest to a thought collective
• evolved by what the thought collective considers evident
• tested by methods which the thought collective applies as a means of cognition (p99)

"Thought style is the readiness for directed perception." (p143 and elsewhere)

Science itself is a specialized thought style: "Good work done according to style, instantly awakens a corresponding mood of solidarity in the reader." (p145)

Thought collectives are referred to as a "harmony of illusions" (ch2 sec3) which sound a lot like filter bubbles or echo chambers.

Post Script - The Duck Rabbit Illusion

When looking at the Duck/Rabbit, we see the duck or the rabbit, but not the lines on the page ... the lines are not the facts that make the duck or the rabbit. (Kuhn, Foreword)