Materials and their Biographies

Abstract

In this article, we are interested in analyzing the biography of metallic titanium (Ti) and its dioxide (TiO2) from a historical, philosophical, and sociological point of view of some of its modes of existence. This biography does not suggest any anthropomorphization of material objects, rather, it is about an attempt to reconcile the reality of science in the present with its history to understand the particularities of materials in contemporary societies. We intend to investigate some properties and characteristics of the “natural” modes of existence and the new properties and implications when these materials gain a new mode of existence, the nanostructured one. This mode of existence refers to a new way of organizing scientific knowledge, an inflection which has been called technoscience, more concerned with what an object will become in the future, then with what it essentially is. In this sense, the proper chemical identity of these substances is one among other modes of existence, into this mode of existence, one must add others which can approach its biological, geological, cultural, technological, economic or geopolitical behavior.

É melhor precaver do que remediar: do princípio da precaução à ciência precautória

“…Uma das maneiras de concretizar essa prescrição é se focar em propriedades preocupantes e comuns a diversas substâncias, como sua biopersistência (Cranor, 2003, p. 311;Gee & Stirling, 2003, p. 201-202;Tickner, 2005, p. 222;Tickner & Kriebel, 2006, p. 43). Que tal foco de pesquisa é ainda pequeno pode ser ilustrado pela baixo financiamento direcionado aos riscos da nanotecnologia em vez de outros aspectos dela: apenas um em cada trezentos dólares de acordo com uma pesquisa de 2006 (Mocellin & Zaterka, 2022).…”