FROM DISCOVERY TO INVENTION SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF ACADEMIC CORRESPONDENCE

The article proposes a sociological analysis of the epistolary relationship between two forerunners of the social study of science and technology: Robert K. Merton and Seabury C. Gilfillan. Based on primary source archived at Columbia University-a set of letters exchanged between 1932 and 1976-it develops a relational approach of epistolary communication that aims to reassess the traditional (and mostly economic) genealogy of innovation studies. The study of the invisible college of invention through the private and informal interactions allows us to specify the cognitive, normative and strategic components of academic correspondance but also to explain the durable separation of the sociological study of science (discovery) and technology (invention) observed until the end of the 1970s, before the emergence of the Science, Technology and Society (STS) field.