ABSTRACT
Hero or villain, maniac or rationalist, savior or fool, the figure of the scientist much preoccupied the imaginative landscape of the twentieth century. As part of this preoccupation, efforts were made to forge an account of the sciences’ essence. In the oddly desiccated version of American English which displaced Latin or German as the shared tongue of international scientific communication, the term ‘science’ was often used in the singular for the organized methodical investigation of nature’s capacities. There seemed to be but one common form of such inquiry and a common language for its communication. It was also supposed that the same form of science could and should be pursued worldwide. Yet such images of scientific unity and universality were difficult to sustain. Most scientists were in the position of lay spectators with respect to other specialists’ work. Their labors were entangled with major technological and social enterprizes. The globalization of the sciences by no means effaced local differences of style and content. New groups began to demand their part in the making and distribution of scientific knowledge. So one puzzle was to locate the sciences and define their practitioners’ role. This chapter sketches some ways in which such location and definition worked.
