Science Is Dead; Long Live Science

Scholars nowadays generally accept that there is no single enterprise of “science”—that there is a multiplicity of special studies that are grouped together under that label. This article discusses a possible route by which to trace certain common cultural characteristics of modern science, rooted in a particular (and complex) relationship between discourses of philosophical understanding and utilitarian practice. The issue is examined in relation to recent discussions of the scope of the history of science, metaphors of “networks” and “circulation” of knowledge, present-centeredness, and the temporal continuity of historical accounts. The article illustrates how the two entwined themes of natural philosophy and instrumentality may be traced in forms characteristic of an ideology of modern science.