Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent

Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (born 7 July 1949) is a French philosopher, historian and historian of science and a professor emeritus at University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. She considers the study of the history of science to be essential for "understanding scientific research as a multi-dimensional endeavor embedded in a cultural context and with societal and cultural impacts." She focuses particularly on the histories of chemistry and materials science. In 1993, she published Histoire de la chimie with Isabelle Stengers, for which they received the Prix Jean-Rostand. It was translated as A History of Chemistry in 1996. In 1997, she received the Dexter Award for her work on the history of science. Her address, on receiving the award, was entitled "A Language to Order the Chaos".

Education Bensaude-Vincent was born in Béziers on 7 July 1949. She studied at the École normale supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses from 1968 to 1971. She earned a degree in philosophy in 1970, an Associate of Philosophy degree (Agrégation de philosophie) in 1971 and a Doctorate of Letters and Human Sciences as of 1981 from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.

Research Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent studies the philosophy and history of chemistry and of materials science. She examines patterns of communication and the ways in which scientific language has been constructed, the relationships between science and the public, and the impact of science and technology on ethics and society.

Bensaude-Vincent is particularly concerned with emerging technologies such as nanotechnologies and synthetic biology and with the philosophy of technoscience, and Emile Meyerson.

Career Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent worked as a teacher of philosophy from 1972–1982, Bensaude-Vincent and Stengers received the Prix Jean-Rostand for this work. This resulted in the publication of La science populaire dans la presse et l'édition: XIXe et XX (1997) edited by Bensaude-Vincent and Rasmussen.

From 1993 to 1997, Bensaude-Vincent led a team within the framework of the European Program on "The Evolution of Chemistry (1789–1939)" of the European Science Foundation.

In 1997, Bensaude-Vincent became a Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Université Paris-X Nanterre. She remained there until 2010.

From 2000 to 2003, Bensaude-Vincent led the Materials Research sub-project, part of the History of Recent Science and Technology (HRST) project at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at MIT.

From 2005 to 2008, Bensaude-Vincent coordinated a research program on "Nanobioethics", the ethics of nanobiotechnology, for France's Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR). This work examined the epistemology and ethics of nanotechnology, cloning and bioinformatics. In the resulting book, Les vertiges de la technoscience. Façonner le monde atome par atome (2009), she suggests that technoscience is a new model, requiring re-examination of our concepts of scientific discovery. She calls for a new alliance between science and ethics.

Beginning in 2009, Bensaude-Vincent co-directed a joint ANR/DFG project on the "Genesis and Ontology of Technoscientific Objects" (GOTO), working with Sacha Loeve in France and Astrid Schwarz and Alfred Nordmann in Germany. The project sought to distinguish between science and technoscience, and resulted in the edited work Research Objects in their Technological Setting (2017).

From 2010 to 2015, Bensaude-Vincent was a professor at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne and the director of The Center for Study of Technology, Knowledge & Practice (Centre d'étude des techniques, des connaissances et des pratiques, CETCOPRA).

In addition, Bensaude-Vincent has been a visiting professor at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (1994), She served as the Vice President for professional and disciplinary history, on the Commission on the History of Modern Chemistry (CHMC) of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science. She has served on the Ethics Committee of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)

Partial bibliography Paul Langevin. Science et vigilance (Belin, 1987) Lavoisier, Memoires d'une Révolution (Lavoisier, Memories of a revolution) (Flammarion, 1993) Dans le laboratoire de Lavoisier, (Nathan, Monde en Poche, Paris, 1993) Histoire de la chimie (1993) with Isabelle Stengers Eloge du Mixte. Matériaux nouveaux et philosophie ancienne (In Praise of the Compound. New Materials and Old Philosophy) (Hachette Littérature, 1998) L'opinion publique et la science. A chacun son ignorance. (Synthélabo, Paris, 2000) Science et opinion. Histoire d'un divorce (2003) Se libérer de la matière. Fantasmes autour des nouvelles technologies (2004) Faut-il avoir peur de la chimie? (2005)

Awards and honors 1993, with Isabelle Stengers, for Histoire de la chimie, from the Association of Science Writers of France (l'Association des Ecrivains scientifiques de France) 1997, Dexter Award for Outstanding Achievements in the History of Chemistry, American Chemical Society 2021, George Sarton Medal