Temporality and Prudence: On Stem Cells as "Phronesic Things"
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In this paper we explore the temporalities entailed in scientists' accounts of their research into the use of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to develop beta cells for the treatment of diabetes. Stem cell scientists, by virtue of working in what is still a controversial field, find themselves engaged with a variety of more or less transparent futures, or more or less cogent expectations, about the trajectories of their research. In this paper, we initially examine a number of dimensions to these futures. At the formal level, we consider—in contrast to much of the sociological literature on futures and expectations, which has primarily focused upon the performativity of futures that are concrete, transparent, or well-articulated—futures whose import lies in their very opacity, vagueness, or immanence. We do this with the aid of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's notions of "epistemic things" and "technical objects,"1 primarily because this dichotomy reflects the divergent temporalities of, respectively, immanent and concrete futures.
However, we also take issue with Rheinberger's exclusive orientation toward the epistemic. In a technoscientific field that is as controversial as human embryonic stem cells, scientists are overtly concerned not only with the ways in which knowledge about human embryonic stem cells is produced, but also, on the one hand, with how their work is to be regulated or rendered ethical, and, on [End Page 373] the other, with the institutional context that enables them to enter into cross-disciplinary collaborations in order to see their work translated "from the laboratory to the bedside." In other words, we examine how, at the substantive level, futures address a range of concerns—ethical and political (or institutional) as well as epistemic—that draw in a variety of constituencies, including other-disciplinary colleagues, regulators, funders, and publics. Moreover, while Rheinberger's dichotomy of objects and things serves to structure our discussion of the way scientists talk about stem cell research,2 we also expand on these concepts in order to address a more extended time frame (at least beyond the temporalities entailed in the experimental process on which Rheinberger concentrates).
In sum, we aim at once to advance some of the theoretical concerns of the sociology of expectations by exploring the discursive utility of the "vagueness" and "immanence" of futures, and, in keeping with much contemporary sociology of science (notably actor-network theory) we aim to widen, or heterogenize, the range of substantive futures with which scientists are engaged.
Now, to demonstrate how the epistemic cohabits with the ethical and the institutional/political is, of course, hardly novel nowadays. Our particular contribution to this "amodern project"3 is to show how each of these entails contrasting future temporalities, and how all of these temporalities have important roles to play in scientists' [End Page 374] epistemic, ethical, and institutional positionings. Moreover, again in keeping with the "amodern," we are suspicious of the ease with which the epistemic, the ethical, and the institutional analytically shake out. That is to say, we are interested in exploring—and we emphasize the exploratory nature of this exercise—ways in which the epistemic, ethical, and institutional might be reenvisioned. On this score, we draw on recent reworkings of Aristotle's notion of phronesis in order to suggest that hESCs might be better conceptualized as "phronesic things," as a first step toward rethinking and reconfiguring the epistemic-ethical-political futures of human embryonic stem cells.
The Expectations of Objects and Things
Rheinberger's dichotomy of "epistemic things" and "technical objects" provides a useful starting point for expanding upon the temporal character of stem cell scientists' accounts of the trajectories of their research.4 As noted, and elaborated below, Rheinberger's sensitivity to the immanent casts a different light onto the role of expectations in the research process...
