Robert K. Merton (1910–2003)

What is true of every book is especially so in the case of Robert K. Merton’s On the Shoulders of Giants. Or, to quote its complete title On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript. The Post-Italianate Edition, with a foreword by Umberto Eco, an Afterword by Denis Donoghue, and a Preface and Postface by the Author. Or, to use the acronym Merton invents for it, OTSOG. I’ve cited all three variants to convey a flavor of what you’ll find in this book. Some will savor the humor, while others will be annoyed by what strikes them as intellectual snobbery. Hence the evocation of the truth universally acknowledged about books in general: you’ll either enjoy it or you won’t. In the case of this book, you’ll either hate it or think it’s one of the best books you’ve ever read. No moral superiority is ascribed to those who belong to either group.
You’ll know after a few pages to which group you belong. Well, a few pages of Merton. My copy begins with a foreword by Umberto Eco, a translation of his foreword to the Italian edition. It’s vintage Eco, but I think I’d have enjoyed it more if it had appeared as an afterword (perhaps in place of that by Denis Donoghue, which in its attempt to render homage both to Merton’s thesis and style, didn’t quite rise to the level of Merton himself).
If you find yourself smiling, even laughing, in Merton’s first few pages and continue to read the entire book, you’ll find both a spoof of scholarship and a serious example of indefatigable scholarly sleuthing. In its narrowest sense, it investigates the antecedents of the phrase referred to in the title, usually attributed to Isaac Newton, and its Wirkungsgeschichte. However, it soon becomes clear that there is a broader issue, the relative value of ancient and modern learning.
Along the way, the reader is introduced to the Parvus-complex, the palimpsestic syndrome, and ghost-writing in reverse (as well as a closely-related phenomenon, anticipatory plagiarism).
Merton characterizes the whole thing as “Shandean” for his indulgence in digression, magnificently exemplified by Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. But Merton’s employment of Shandyism is not only for comic effect. Instead, it pulls back the curtain to show that scholarly inquiry often follows a zig-zag course rarely visible when the results are published. So for anyone with academic interests, this book is more than entertaining: it’s also a chance to see “how to scholar.” Compared with an ordinary scholarly tome, the effect is like the difference between dining in a fine restaurant and being invited to stand at the elbow of a master chef as he creates what is offered.
Merton spent his life investigating the social dimension of knowledge production (“science”). This book is the fruit of that career. It’s rich in allusion and citation (just don’t test me on all this). Did I mention that it’s entertaining? I even guffawed while reading the index.… (mehr)