Making scientific objects and setting standards: values, technology, government and the enlightenment

Abstract

This paper explores how science became a toolbox for the rationalisation of the monarchy: that is, of the government of the people and of its territories. We will analize how the Earth was transformed in a mensurable, geodesic artefact; how a plant was managed in order to be considered a reliable medication; and how the notion of patriotic bound was deployed into an algebraic system for accountancy. Nobody like the scientists had dreamt so much of disciplines, instruments and formulas. Nor had anybody shown such an overwhelming passion for translating all problems into symptoms, signs and numbers. And so it was that the state became a scientific question, and science became a matter of state. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]