Toward a Historical Ethics

Abstract

Historians of medicine and science, often using tools from sociology and anthropology, are particularly interested in that space where the world and some method of analysis meet. The space where generalizable rule and contingent variability face one another is a vacuum that attracts and creates conclusions about the world, heavily infused with social meanings and practices. Studying how these conclusions are made over time identifies the broader cultural projects that may be furthered by them and/or that make them possible.