History of Science Society and University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis. http://www.jstor.org Review Author(s): Gary Hatfield Review by: Gary Hatfield Source: Isis, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 664-665 Published by: on behalf of University of Chicago Press History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/235427 Accessed: 25-11-2015 22:39 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 165.123.34.86 on Wed, 25 Nov 2015 22:39:09 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 86: 4 (1995) draw comparisons to contempor veys, particularly those of New whose survey rivaled Pennsylvani; size and geological importance) (where Henry's brother, William E was also struggling with Appalac as well as a difficult legislature). American science will be frustrai the fact that Gerstner does not pu detail Rogers's opposition to Ale Bache's elitist plans for the Amer tion for the Advancement of Scie sional organization Rogers helped Historians of geology will app ner's lucid explanations of many theoretical debates of the first ha] teenth century. Gerstner, unfortu her discussion of these issues to involvement in them. A broade would better situate Rogers's ide important, give some sense of his to the development of geology. Ro both catastrophism and organic preferred structural delineations tc ical evidence, and he rejected the lying solely on fossils in correlatii While these positions put Rogers mainstream American and Britis Gerstner rightly points out, somi ideas were influential. His theori and flexures and his emphasis on adopted by American geologists s Lesley. Similarly, Rogers and the ogist Adam Sedgwick had much subject that deserved further dise cially given James Secord's fine a Cambrian-Silurian dispute. According to Gerstner, Rogers work was largely dismissed by British geologists. Rogers seems r gued forcefully for his theories, they were rejected, which occurred ing regularity at scientific meetinj understandably depressed. Even R est accomplishment, the final repo: sylvania survey, was apparently conclusion gives the reader an ode appointment, since a great deal c devoted to the survey. We are 1l what, in the end, was the signific ers's work? R. Steven Turner. In the Eye's and the Helmholtz-Hering Contr 338 pp., frontis., illus., figs., table ary state surYork (a state 'c in term.e of Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. $49.50, ?37.50. and Virginiat In the 1860s a scientific controversy arose beVirginia tween Hermann Helmholtz and Ewald Hering, ]arton Rogers, hian structure important experimentalists and theoreticians Historians of whose work dominated the study of vision into ted further by the early decades of the twentieth century. The irsue in much controversy concerned two central areas of vixander Dallas sual theory, color vision and spatial perception. ican Associa Several things were in dispute: the role of innate nce, a profesversus acquired factors in spatial vision, the theto create. pory of stereopsis and double vision, the proper [reciate Gerst-understanding of the color primaries in relation rof the major to the physiology and psychology of color vif of the ninesion, and the comparative roles of purely physinately , limits iological and psychological factors in both color Rogers's own and spatial perception. r perspective ofR. Steven Turer provides an excellent study as and,r more of this controversy in its own right and as an ,contributions exemplar of the role controversy plays in scigers embraced entific change. On the basis of his analysis of the evolution He Helmholtz-Hering controversy, with its backpaleiontolog ground and continuation, from the 1850s to practice of reabout 1920, he holds that controversy is consting formations. tutive of scientific change, actively shaping the at odds with development of scientific theories through a proh thought, as cess of "negotiation." After filling in background of Roge'rs's (Ch. 2), Turner provides a clear and detailed acies of folding count of the positions taken by Helmholtz and structure were Hering themselves (Chs. 3-7), followed by an uch as J. Peter equally clear, though of necessity less detailed, English geolrecounting of the wider controversy in German in common, a sensory physiology and psychology (Chs. 8-11). cussion, espeThese chapters reveal Turner's masterful grasp inalysis of the of the scientific literature on spatial and color vision in the latter half of the nineteenth century s's theoretical and beyond; they are nicely illustrated with more American and than two dozen line drawings. There follow anaot to have aralytical discussions of the implications of this and whenever case for Thomas Kuhn's "incommensurability" I with distressnotion and for the development of disciplinary gs, he became structure (Chs. 12-13). In a concluding chapter, Wogers's greatTurner constructs several possible twentiethrt of the Penncentury endings to the story. ignored. This Beyond the intrinsic interest of the Helmholtzi sense of disHering exchanges themselves, the book deserves f the book is attention for its methodology. To track the eft wondering course of the controversy, Turner uses a table ance of Rorg that divides the literature in "physiological optics " from 1840 to 1894 into nearly one hundred PAUL LUCIER categories and displays each five-years' worth of production within each category as a percentage of the whole. A second table gathers the literature into six "problem-complexes," tracked over Mind: Vision the same period. The tables are useful and sugoversy . xiv + gestive, but their reliability is conditioned by the s, bibl., index. fact that they are derived from Arthur K6nig's 664 This content downloaded from 165.123.34.86 on Wed, 25 Nov 2015 22:39:09 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 86: 4 (1995) bibliography in Helmholtz's Handbuch der physiologischen Optik (2nd ed.; Voss, 1896), a bibliography constructed by a Helmholtz partisan and one that did not claim to be exhaustive in all categories. In analyzing the controversy itself, Turner uses effectively the "core set" approach associated with Harry Collins and Martin Rudwick , arguing convincingly that, in the German context, the controversy was carried out between two sharply polarized schools, with a smaller group of nonaligned participants. He evaluates the success of each school on social and institutional criteria, applying Gerald Geison's version of J. B. Morrell's list of such criteria. Hering 's school was organized around the theoretical and philosophical stances that Hering promoted and depended heavily on his charismatic leadership. Helmholtz's partisans were more loosely related to him and to his theoretical positions, and they stood in the relation of discipleship less frequently than did Hering's advocates . In his discussion of Kuhn's concept of incommensurability , Turner rightly observes that it arose from studies of scientific change. In the present case, he finds that despite sharp contrasts in research priorities, the lack of commonly accepted criteria for theory assessment, and divergent technical terminologies, the competing schools were able to communicate, to elicit concessions from one another, and to mount "effective appeals to nature" (p. 234). "Incommensurability " ultimately was limited to terminology. More generally, Turner argues that the controversy over spatial vision was formed through a "negotiation" in which Helmholtz used the contrast between nativistism and empiricism to unify his theoretical stance and Hering subsequently emphasized it to distinguish his program from Helmholtz's. Turner rightly emphasizes the role of rhetoric and discourse control in scientific success, though he goes considerably beyond what his study supports in accepting Pierre Bourdieu ' s notion of "symbolic capital" and contending that a failure to monopolize terminology leads to marginalization and destruction; the Helmholtz school came to dominate the terminology (theirs survives today), but Hering's positions maintained currency and are now presented as part of textbook theory, and perhaps even as subsuming Helmholtz's color theory as a subsidiary explanatory factor. In his analysis of disciplinary structure, Turner shows that "physiological optics" and "vision studies," then as now, drew upon at least the disciplines of physics, physiology, ophthalmology, and experimental psychology; this discussion would have gained considerably in depth had the origin and scope of the quoted labels been examined for themselves. The book is handsomely produced, with an extensive bibliography and a useful index. The excellent study it presents should capture several audiences, including historians of German science , historians and philosophers of physiology, psychology, and the theory of the senses, today's visual scientists, and those drawn to the book's application of the analytical framework of science studies to a fascinating case history. GARY HATFIELD Jacques Gasser. Aux origines du cerveau moderne : Localisations, langage et memoire dans l'oeuvre de Charcot. (Penser la M6decine.) 335 pp., illus., bibl., index. Paris: Fayard, 1995. (Paper .) Jean-Martin Charcot occupies an iconic position as the "father" of French neurology. He also possesses such other immediate claims to fame as the fact that he was one of the young Freud's preceptors. He is notable for the histrionic and spectacular nature of his pedagogy. As a result, Charcot's contribution to various departments of medical thought and practice is the subject of much, possibly too much, attention. Jacques Gasser concentrates upon a number of interrelated aspects of Charcot's work. He points out how from the outset of his career cerebral localization was central to Charcot's concerns . Like many of his colleagues, Charcot attempted to derive physiological insights into the distribution of particular functions upon the cerebral cortex from the cases of nervous disease presenting in his clinic. He therefore cherished the purest, most "typical" exemplars of a given pathology because of the exceptional heuristic value they possessed. In particular, those suffering from aphasic disorders were deemed to offer crucial insights into how linguistic capacities were represented in the brain. Gasser describes the elaborate psychological theory of language and its defects that underlay these attempts at localization. For Charcot language was constituted by the action of various repositories or depots of the memory of the acoustic, visual, and motor aspects of words in determinate parts of the cerebral cortex. Aphasia ensued when one or more of these centers was damaged; such disorders were therefore understood as a form of partial amnesia. This leads Gasser into a discussion of Charcot 's rather more attenuated treatment of memory ailments in general. Most of this section is 665 This content downloaded from 165.123.34.86 on Wed, 25 Nov 2015 22:39:09 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions