History of Human Science Laboratories

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the historical transformations and contemporary state of affairs with human science laboratories. Humanitarian laboratories are explained in the form of social networks and interactive venues where social experts and practitioners encounter together in order to construct and exchange common senses. The laboratory gets an explanation by taking into account uniqueness of human sciences, differences in modes of knowledge production, and understanding social technologies as nonmaterial entities (not ‘artefacts’ as in STS). Inside natural sciences, the laboratory serves for experimentation and purposeful intervention into nature by empirical scholars equipped with technical devices, including cognitive, semiotic, and discursive tools. The laboratory in human sciences exists as an institutional locus for empirical investigation, social experimentation and professional, skilled communications. The exchange of information flows between cognitive and practical actors, measuring common viewpoints, accumulating behavioral data, explaining social situations, and setting rational policy for them. The morphology and progressive advancements of human science laboratories (in past and present) frame the scope of research. Conforming to its main idea, the laboratory is perceived as a vehicle for human progress. Usually, it is a professional organization aiming to synthesize theoretical, empirical, and applied knowledge with social activism in the light of incoming demands.