The scenes of inquiry : on the reality of questions in the sciences /

In this sequel to his Fortunes of Inquiry (CH, Apr'88) Jardine evokes diverse historical exemplars to illustrate his proposal for a pragmatic realism. To Jardine it is the context of science ("scenes of inquiry") and its historical transformations (evolution) that constrains the allowable legitimate truth-claims, via "methodological commitments" requiring "calibration" of novel methods against successful or traditional practice (of diverse aspects: aesthetic, consensual, rhetorical, and believable). Erudite and topical, Jardine stakes out a strong position and defends it fairly against hypothetical objections from hermeneutic or logico-empirical extremes of current discourse. Introductory students may miss many scholarly witticisms, and this volume is best appreciated by readers of the earlier work or of the current epistemological litigants (less Anglo-American "Rorty-Kuhn" than Anglo-European "Lacan-Gadamer"). The introductory study of Oken's Naturphilosophie is a treat for historians of Romanticism, but does not actually buttress the argument as well as the more cryptic historical referents elsewhere. Highly recommended for libraries of history and philosophy of science and undergraduate collections of intellectual history.-P. D. Skiff, Bard College