Lorraine Daston Last updated October 17, 2025 Early life and education Daston was born in 1951 in East Lansing,Michigan , [ 5] to parents of Greek heritage,who named her for the muse Urania . [ 1] Her father was attending Michigan State University and soon became a professor of psychology. [ 1] Daston earned her BA from Harvard University in 1973,summa cum laude, [ 5] after studying a variety of subjects including both science and the history of science. [ 1] She then went on to earn a diploma in history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge in 1974,again summa cum laude. [ 5]
Daston earned a PhD from Harvard University in the history of science under the direction of I. Bernard Cohen [ 6] and Erwin N. Hiebert , [ 7] with the thesis The Reasonable Calculus:Classical Probability Theory 1650-1840 . [ 7] postdoctoral junior fellow at Columbia University 's Society of Fellows before returning to Harvard for her first professorial position. [ 1]
Career Daston began her professorial career as an assistant professor at Harvard University (1980–1983), [ 5] during which time she participated in the Center for Interdisciplinary Research,Bielefeld program "The Probabilistic Revolution" organized by Lorenz Krüger,Ian Hacking ,and Nancy Cartwright 1982–1983. [ 8] There she met her husband-to-be Gerd Gigerenzer and began a complex series of professional moves to handle their academic two-body problem . [ 1] Her positions included Princeton University (1983–1986),the Dibner Chair at Brandeis University (1986–1990),a professor and director role at the University of Göttingen (1990–1992),a professorship at the University of Chicago (1992–1997),and finally directorship and membership at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (1995–). [ 5] While at the Max Planck Institute,she also returned to visiting professorships at Harvard University and the University of Chicago [ 5] and has held a place on the University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought . [ 2]
In 2002,she delivered two Tanner Lectures at Harvard University,in which she traced theoretical conceptions of nature in several literary and philosophical works. [ 9] In 2006,she gave the British Academy 's Master-Mind Lecture. [ 10] Daston was appointed the inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor in the History of Ideas at the University of Oxford for 2012–2013. [ 11] She has also served as Oxford's Isaiah Berlin Lecturer in the History of Ideas April–May 1999. [ 12]
Daston has been awarded two Pfizer Awards from the History of Science Society ,in 1989 for her 1988 book Classical Probability in the Enlightenment and again in 1999 for her 1998 book with Katharine Park ,Wonders and the Order of Nature,1150-1750 . [ 13] Daston was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2010. [ 14] She won the 2012 George Sarton Medal for lifetime achievement in the history of science. [ 15] She was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Princeton University in 2013. [ 16] She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2017. [ 17] In 2018,she received the Dan David Prize . [ 18] In 2024 she was awarded the Balzan Prize for "History of Modern and Contemporary Science". [ 19]
She is on the editorial board of Critical Inquiry . [ 20] She is a contributor to the London Review of Books . [ 21]
Personal life Daston married the German psychologist and social scientist Gerd Gigerenzer ,with whom she has a daughter. [ 1]
Selected bibliography Monographs Rivals:How Scientists Learned to Cooperate ,Columbia Global Reports 2023, ISBN 979-8987053560 Rules: A Short History of What We Live By , Princeton University Press 2022, ISBN 978-0691254081 Against Nature , MIT Press 2019, ISBN 978-0262537339 doi : 10.7551/mitpress/12267.001.0001 with Peter Galison : Objectivity , Zone Books 2007, ISBN 978-1890951795 Wunder, Beweise und Tatsachen: zur Geschichte der Rationalität , Fischer Verlag 2001, ISBN 978-3596147632 Eine kurze Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Aufmerksamkeit , Siemens-Stiftung 2001. K10plus PPN 1162291753.with Katharine Park : Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750 , Zone Books 1998, ISBN 978-0942299915 Classical Probability in the Enlightenment , Princeton University Press 1988, ISBN 978-0691084978 As editor with Elizabeth Lunbeck : Histories of Scientific Observation , University of Chicago Press 2011, ISBN 978-0226136776 with Michael Stolleis : Natural Law and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Europe , Ashgate 2008, ISBN 978-0754657613 with Katharine Park : The Cambridge History of Science , Vol. 3: Early Modern Science , Cambridge University Press 2006, ISBN 978-1107553668 Things that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science , [ 22] Zone Books 2004, ISBN 978-1890951443 with Fernando Vidal: The Moral Authority of Nature , University of Chicago Press 2003, ISBN 978-0226136813 Biographies of Scientific Objects , University of Chicago Press 2000, ISBN 978-0226136721 with Lorenz Krüger and Michael Heidelberger: The Probabilistic Revolution , Vol. 1: Ideas in History , MIT Press 1987, ISBN 978-0262111188 Articles with Moritz Stefaner & Jen Christiansen: "The language of science". 175 Years of Discovery. Scientific American . 323 (3): 2020, 24–31. "Before the Two Cultures: Big Science and Big Humanities in the Nineteenth Century". Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities . IX (1): 2015. brief description, Bookstore, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities "The Disciplines of Attention," in David E. Wellbery , ed., A New History of German Literature , Harvard University Press Reference Library, 2005. "The Morality of Natural Orders: The Power of Medea" and "Nature's Customs versus Nature's Laws" . Tanner Lectures at Harvard University, 2002. "The Ideal and Reality of the Republic of Letters in the Enlightenment". Science in Context. 4 (2): 1991, pp. 367–386. doi : 10.1017/S0269889700001010 "Degrees of Wrinkledness". London Review of Books , 46 (21). [A review of the book Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology by Gregory Radick, The University of Chicago Press, 2023.] References 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Detschke, Uta (February 2012). "The Observer" (PDF) . MaxPlanckResearch : 86– 92. 1 2 "Lorraine Daston | John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought" . socialthought.uchicago.edu . Retrieved November 2, 2024 . ↑ "Lorraine J. Daston | American Academy of Arts and Sciences" . www.amacad.org . October 16, 2024. Retrieved November 2, 2024 . ↑ Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, "The Permanent Fellows " , Lorraine J. Daston , July 12, 2018 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Max Planck profile" . Retrieved February 15, 2018 . ↑ Lorraine Daston at the Mathematics Genealogy Project 1 2 "Erwin Hiebert's doctoral students" . MacTutor: School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland . April 2015. Retrieved November 20, 2024 . ↑ Daston, Lorraine (2023). "The Voice of Ted". In Wise, M. Norton ; Morgan, Mary S. ; Didier, Emmanuel; Daston, Lorraine ; de Chadarevian, Soraya (eds.). Ted's Numbers ↑ Daston, Lorraine (November 6, 2002). "I. The Morality of Natural Orders: The Power of Medea; II. Nature's Customs versus Nature's Laws" (PDF) . The Tanner Lectures on Human Values . Archived from the original (PDF) on October 21, 2012. Retrieved November 2, 2024 . ↑ Daston, Lorraine (2007). "Master-Mind Lecture: Condorcet and the Meaning of Enlightenment" (PDF) . Proceedings of the British Academy . 151 : 113– 134. ↑ "Lorraine Daston: Humanitas Visiting Professorship in History of Ideas (2012-2013)" . Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Scholarships and Leadership Programme . March 24, 2013. Retrieved November 2, 2024 . ↑ Doniger, Wendy; Galison, Peter ; Neiman, Susan , eds. (2016). "Curriculum Vitae of Lorraine Daston". What Reason Promises (ebook ed.). De Gruyter. pp. 261– 277. doi :10.1515/9783110455113-033 . ISBN 978-311045511-3 ↑ "Pfizer Award" . History of Science Society . Retrieved December 10, 2024 . ↑ "Prof. Lorraine Daston" . Dan David Prize . August 16, 2021. Retrieved November 2, 2024 . ↑ "George Sarton Medal" . History of Science Society . Retrieved December 16, 2024 . ↑ "Past Honorary Degree Recipients" . Office of the President . Retrieved May 16, 2024 . ↑ "APS Member History" . search.amphilsoc.org . Retrieved February 8, 2021 . ↑ "Lorraine Daston honored for research on the history of science | University of Chicago News" . news.uchicago.edu . February 15, 2018. Retrieved November 2, 2024 . ↑ Balzan Prize 2024 ↑ "Critical Inquiry Editorial Staff" . criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu . University of Chicago IT Services. Retrieved November 2, 2024 . ↑ "Lorraine Daston" . London Review of Books . Retrieved November 6, 2024 . ↑ Hankins, Thomas L. (2005). "Reviewed Works: Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science by Lorraine Daston; Models: The Third Dimension of Science by Soraya de Chadarevian, Nick Hopwood". Isis . 96 (1): 91– 94. doi :10.1086/430683 . JSTOR 10.1086/430683 . External links
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