10. Phenomenology and STS (Szalo and Braun)

Scientists developed the pulsar at night and their work was recorded on magnetic tape. This pulsar
was created in a particular historicity. Each observation is reported as one of a numerical series
of consecutive observations. The instrument settings are recorded and it is mentioned that the
observations will be repeats or checks of previous observations. On the tape, the features of their
discovery work were experienced for the first time. This is a "pottery object". This is explained
on the distinction between real and apparent pulse. The real pulse is derived from the
characteristics of the apparent pulse when these apparent characteristics are subjected to careful
inference and testing. The potter's object is an amalgamation of mundane objects and embodied
practice, just like the pulsar being produced at that moment. However, this becomes ephemeral when
its local historicity begins to be considered as a blueprint.

There has been an increase in the use of the term ontology in STS and anthropology and other social
science disciplines. This was an attempt to (un)divide agency between humans, non-human beings and
material things. The turn to ontology was a way of turning away from an exclusively humanist
conception of action and agency in favour of posthumanism. The author proposes the term ontography
as a derivative of the term epistography. It is a descriptive description. Epistemography seeks to
investigate science in the field. It focuses on developing an empirical understanding of scientific
knowledge, as opposed to epistemology, which is the prescriptive study of how knowledge can or
should be constructed. Ontography takes the same starting point as epistemography. Ontography is
not an investigation of things as such, just as epistemography is not an investigation of ideas.
Ontography is meant to include investigations that aim to describe the contingent and
organizational work of social agents in proposing, writing down, or questioning particular
ontological matters. The aim is not to transcend a particular discursive field, but to characterize
their practical operations.


Garfinkel, H. , M. Lynch, and E. Livingston. 1981. "The Work of a Discovering Science Construed
with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar." Philosophy of the Social Sciences 11
(2):131–158. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/004839318101100202

Lynch, Michael. 2019. "Ontography as the Study of Locally Organized Ontologies." ZMK Zeitschrift
für Medien- und Kulturforschung: Ontography.