How do we come to trust our knowledge of the world? What are the means
by which we distinguish true from false accounts? Why do we credit one
observational statement over another?
In "A Social History of Truth," Shapin engages these universal questions
through an elegant recreation of a crucial period in the history of
early modern science: the social world of gentlemen-philosophers in
seventeenth-century England. Steven Shapin paints a vivid picture of the
relations between gentlemanly culture and scientific practice. He argues
that problems of credibility in science were practically solved through
the codes and conventions of genteel conduct: trust, civility, honor,
and integrity. These codes formed, and arguably still form, an important
basis for securing reliable knowledge about the natural world.
Shapin uses detailed historical narrative to argue about the
establishment of factual knowledge both in science and in everyday
practice. Accounts of the mores and manners of gentlemen-philosophers
are used to illustrate Shapin's broad claim that trust is imperative for
constituting every kind of knowledge. Knowledge-making is always a
collective enterprise: people have to know whom to trust in order to
know something about the natural world.