Assistant Professor OKAZAWA, Yasuhiro
Assistant Professor OKAZAWA, Yasuhiro
- Academic Degree
- Ph.D. in History, University of Cambridge
- Expertise
- History of Science and Technology, Media Studies
- Research Theme
- The History of Collective Knowledge Making
The History of Collective Knowledge Making
My project investigates the ways scientists create and maintain a collaborative, although often disrupted, network for collective knowledge making. Specifically, I study the history of observational sciences in modern Britain and Japan. Scientists work collectively to cater to both practical and epistemic needs. They cooperate with each other to conduct large-scale observations that no individual can carry out independently. They also collectively scrutinize new discoveries before accepting them as genuine findings and incorporate them into the communal assets of science. The history of collective knowledge making can reveal how scientists' apparently mundane actions, such as calibrating scientific instruments and editing scientific journals, are at the same time epistemic practices that are essential to the production of scientific knowledge.