Papers by Patrick Carroll
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research, 2015
This paper is an empirically grounded theoretical critique of the idea of the "regulatory state."... more This paper is an empirically grounded theoretical critique of the idea of the "regulatory state." The language of the "regulatory state" obscures the nature of the modern state as a constitutive "thing." The modern state is crucially constituted through the co-productions of science and government. It needs to be investigated in terms of its discursive, practiced, and material dimensions, its meanings, its agencies, and its formation as a material entity composed of land, people and built environment. This critique is needed because the idea of the regulatory state too often leaves implicit the notion that capitalism exists prior to the state, and is thus only "regulated" as such post-hoc. The methods used are those of historical sociological case based analytics, utilizing archival materials. The purpose is to challenge the takenfor-granted distinction between the state and capitalist social organization. The implications for further research are the need to delve deeper into the complex entanglements of state and society, and the ironic role that science as culture played in constructing both those concrete entanglements and the abstract bounded categories that obscure them.
Medical History, 2002
These hovels were in many instances not provided with the commonest conveniences of the rudest po... more These hovels were in many instances not provided with the commonest conveniences of the rudest police; contiguous to every door might be observed the dung heap on which every kind of filth was accumulated .
Social Studies of Science, 2001
This paper is conceptual and methodological. On the basis of both empirical and explanatory consi... more This paper is conceptual and methodological. On the basis of both empirical and explanatory considerations, I craft a number of analytic categories-'epistemic engines', 'meters', 'scopes', 'graphs' and 'chambers'-through which to investigate and understand the character of key forms of the material culture of scientific practice. I argue that much of modern science can be understood in its specificity as 'engine science', a tremendously powerful and generative culture of inquiry. The analytic categories have stability across temporal and spatial localities and have broad applicability across the sciences. The analysis circumvents dualisms, such as those between science and technology, micro and macro, and science and society, and indicates a way to conceptualize the character of 'engineering cultures' and 'engineering states'.
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Papers by Patrick Carroll