Im Gegensatz zu landläufigen Vorstellungen sind wissenschaftliche Wissensbestände häufig prekäre Ressourcen. Sie können in bestimmten Situationen aus epistemischen Gründen schwach sein, weil Begründungen oder empirische Evidenz problematisch sind. In anderen Situationen fehlt die kulturelle und soziale Anerkennung oder das fragliche Wissen bleibt schwach, weil es nicht gelingt, es praktisch nutzbar zu machen. Der Band versammelt Beiträge aus allen historischen Epochen und aus einem breiten Spektrum von Wissensgebieten - von der Medizin bis zur Klimatologie.

Moritz Epple ist Professor für Wissenschaftsgeschichte an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. Annette Imhausen ist Professorin für Wissenschaftsgeschichte der vormodernen Welt am Historischen Seminar der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. Falk Müller ist Privatdozent für Wissenschaftsgeschichte am Historischen Seminar der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.

Contents Preface .............................................................................................................................. 9 Moritz Epple, Annette Imhausen, and Falk Müller Schwaches Wissen ........................................................................................................ 13 Hans-Jörg Rheinberger General Perspectives The Theaetetus Problem: Some Remarks Concerning a History of Weak Knowledge ................................................................................... 19 Moritz Epple Science Research Regimes: From Strength to Weakness Polycentric Regimes ..................................................................................................... 41 Anne Marcovich and Terry Shinn Poiesis in Action: Doing without Knowledge ......................................................... 61 Andrew Pickering Historical Cases On Certain Uncertainties in Ancient Astrology ...................................................... 85 Daryn Lehoux A Little Old Lady Told Me: Appropriation of Weak Actors’ Knowledge in Graeco-Roman Pharmacology ....................................................... 109 Laurence Totelin Metaphysics and the Principles of the Demonstrative Sciences: Weak and Strong Knowledge in the Late Antique Commentary Tradition .............................................................................................. 125 Orna Harari Comment: Weak Knowledge in the History and Philosophy of Ancient Science: Trajectories of Further Studies ............................................. 143 Annette Imhausen Failure and Imperfections of Artisanal Knowledge in the Early Modern Period .................................................................................................. 163 Sven Dupré On Literary Knowledge: The Conceptual, the Figurative and the Performative .................................................................................................. 179 Rivka Feldhay Economy as if: On the Role of Fictions in Economics in the 1920s .................................................................................................................. 211 Monika Wulz Weak and Strong Knowledge in Industrial Research: The Rise of the “Third” Physicist ............................................................................ 231 Falk Müller Weak Knowledge and the Epic Theatre of Science: Materials of the Pre-Conference Workshop .......................................................... 263 Nitzana Ben David; Corinna Dziudzia, Martin Herrnstadt; Lukas Jäger; Natalie Levy, Linda Richter, and Sebastian Riebold Climate and Environment A Weaker Form of Knowledge? The Case of Environmental Knowledge and Regulation ........................................................... 295 Dominique Pestre Knowledge Production with Climate Models: On the Power of a “Weak” Type of Knowledge .................................................. 321 Matthias Heymann Partisanal Knowledge: On Hayek and Heretics in Climate Science and Discourse ............................................................................ 351 Richard Staley Medical Knowledge The Weak and the Strong: Medical Knowledge and Abolitionist Debates in the Late Eighteenth Century .......................................... 379 Suman Seth Inflamed Spines and Anarchical Minds: Dynamics of Medical Testimony on Nervous Shock in the Late Nineteenth Century England .............................................................. 399 José Brunner The Power of Weak Knowledge: Modernist Dissonances in American Medicine ................................................................................................ 419 John Harley Warner Negotiating Epistemic Hierarchies in Biomedicine: The Rise of Evidence-Based Medicine ................................................................... 449 Cornelius Borck Comment: Weak Medical Knowledge ..................................................................... 483 Mitchell G. Ash Authors ......................................................................................................................... 489 Index ............................................................................................................................. 493