Stephen Gaukroger
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199296446
- eISBN:
- 9780191711985
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296446.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
The West's sense of itself, its relation to its past, and its sense of its future have been profoundly altered since the 17th century as cognitive values generally have gradually come to be shaped ...
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The West's sense of itself, its relation to its past, and its sense of its future have been profoundly altered since the 17th century as cognitive values generally have gradually come to be shaped around scientific ones. The issue is not just that science brought a new set of such values to the task of understanding the world and our place in it, but rather that it completely transformed the task, redefining the goals of enquiry. This is a distinctive feature of the development of a scientific culture in the West and it marks it out from other scientifically productive cultures. This book examines the first stage of this development, from the 13th-century introduction of Aristotelianism and its establishment of natural philosophy as the point of entry into systematic understanding of the world and our place in it, to the attempts to establish natural philosophy as a world-view in the wake of the Scientific Revolution. It offers a conceptual and cultural history of the emergence of a scientific culture in the West from the early-modern era to the present. Science in the modern period is treated as a particular kind of cognitive practice and as a particular kind of cultural product, with aim to show that if we explore the connections between these two, we can learn something about the concerns and values of modern thought that we could not learn from either of them taken separately.Less
The West's sense of itself, its relation to its past, and its sense of its future have been profoundly altered since the 17th century as cognitive values generally have gradually come to be shaped around scientific ones. The issue is not just that science brought a new set of such values to the task of understanding the world and our place in it, but rather that it completely transformed the task, redefining the goals of enquiry. This is a distinctive feature of the development of a scientific culture in the West and it marks it out from other scientifically productive cultures. This book examines the first stage of this development, from the 13th-century introduction of Aristotelianism and its establishment of natural philosophy as the point of entry into systematic understanding of the world and our place in it, to the attempts to establish natural philosophy as a world-view in the wake of the Scientific Revolution. It offers a conceptual and cultural history of the emergence of a scientific culture in the West from the early-modern era to the present. Science in the modern period is treated as a particular kind of cognitive practice and as a particular kind of cultural product, with aim to show that if we explore the connections between these two, we can learn something about the concerns and values of modern thought that we could not learn from either of them taken separately.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
To understand the radical transformations brought about by modern science concerning the order of nature, it is necessary first to mention the significance of the traditional sciences of the cosmos ...
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To understand the radical transformations brought about by modern science concerning the order of nature, it is necessary first to mention the significance of the traditional sciences of the cosmos and the fact that they shared, in contrast to modern science, the same universe of discourse with the religion or religions of the civilization in whose bosom they were cultivated. In fact, modern science not only eclipsed the religious and traditional philosophical understanding of the order of nature in the West, but it also all but destroyed the traditional sciences. The divorce of the meaning of order in nature from its traditional sense and the substitution for it of laws governing the running of a machine—an idea so central to the rise of the Scientific Revolution and the eclipse of the traditional religious understanding of nature—is closely related to the modern idea of “laws of nature” that appeared at this time and became widely held in the 17th century.Less
To understand the radical transformations brought about by modern science concerning the order of nature, it is necessary first to mention the significance of the traditional sciences of the cosmos and the fact that they shared, in contrast to modern science, the same universe of discourse with the religion or religions of the civilization in whose bosom they were cultivated. In fact, modern science not only eclipsed the religious and traditional philosophical understanding of the order of nature in the West, but it also all but destroyed the traditional sciences. The divorce of the meaning of order in nature from its traditional sense and the substitution for it of laws governing the running of a machine—an idea so central to the rise of the Scientific Revolution and the eclipse of the traditional religious understanding of nature—is closely related to the modern idea of “laws of nature” that appeared at this time and became widely held in the 17th century.
John A. Schuster
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195075519
- eISBN:
- 9780199853052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195075519.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter describes the discovery, perfection, and application of the scientific method as the Scientific Revolution happens. Bacon, Galileo, Harvey, Huygens, and Newton were singularly successful ...
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This chapter describes the discovery, perfection, and application of the scientific method as the Scientific Revolution happens. Bacon, Galileo, Harvey, Huygens, and Newton were singularly successful in persuading posterity that they contributed to the invention of a single, transferable, and efficacious scientific method. The treatment of Descartes' method by historians of science and historians of philosophy has been no exception to this pattern. The Discours de la methode has been seen as one of the most important methodological treatises in the Western intellectual tradition, and the Cartesian method has been viewed as doubly successful and significant within that tradition. First, Descartes' method has been taken to mark an early stage in that long maturation of the scientific method resulting from interaction between application of method in scientific work and critical reflection about method carried out by great methodologists, from Bacon and Descartes down to Popper and Lakatos. Second, Descartes' considerable achievements in the sciences and in mathematics during a crucial stage of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century have been taken to have depended upon his method. This chapter discusses the tendency of historians and philosophers to create a cult of the thoughts of thinkers and revive the link between theorizing about the purported scientific method and requiring a method-centric history of science. It explains further that in all cults, there is a doctrine of truth and it informs us of what we already know and that there is an open ended set of rules.Less
This chapter describes the discovery, perfection, and application of the scientific method as the Scientific Revolution happens. Bacon, Galileo, Harvey, Huygens, and Newton were singularly successful in persuading posterity that they contributed to the invention of a single, transferable, and efficacious scientific method. The treatment of Descartes' method by historians of science and historians of philosophy has been no exception to this pattern. The Discours de la methode has been seen as one of the most important methodological treatises in the Western intellectual tradition, and the Cartesian method has been viewed as doubly successful and significant within that tradition. First, Descartes' method has been taken to mark an early stage in that long maturation of the scientific method resulting from interaction between application of method in scientific work and critical reflection about method carried out by great methodologists, from Bacon and Descartes down to Popper and Lakatos. Second, Descartes' considerable achievements in the sciences and in mathematics during a crucial stage of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century have been taken to have depended upon his method. This chapter discusses the tendency of historians and philosophers to create a cult of the thoughts of thinkers and revive the link between theorizing about the purported scientific method and requiring a method-centric history of science. It explains further that in all cults, there is a doctrine of truth and it informs us of what we already know and that there is an open ended set of rules.
Robin Feldman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195368581
- eISBN:
- 9780199867455
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368581.003.0006
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
This chapter highlights key moments in which science emerges and separates from other types of intellectual inquiry. In particular, it focuses on three periods of history that are critical to the ...
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This chapter highlights key moments in which science emerges and separates from other types of intellectual inquiry. In particular, it focuses on three periods of history that are critical to the development of the law/science relationship: ancient Greece, the Scientific Revolution in Europe, and 20th-century reevaluations of the meaning of science. In highly simplified form, what we think of as science today begins its history deeply entwined with philosophy and theology.Less
This chapter highlights key moments in which science emerges and separates from other types of intellectual inquiry. In particular, it focuses on three periods of history that are critical to the development of the law/science relationship: ancient Greece, the Scientific Revolution in Europe, and 20th-century reevaluations of the meaning of science. In highly simplified form, what we think of as science today begins its history deeply entwined with philosophy and theology.
Ted McCormick
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199547890
- eISBN:
- 9780191720529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547890.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Economic History
This chapter examines Petty's early life and apprenticeship in England, education at a Jesuit collège in Normandy, and studies in philosophy and medicine in Utrecht, Leiden, Amsterdam and Paris ...
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This chapter examines Petty's early life and apprenticeship in England, education at a Jesuit collège in Normandy, and studies in philosophy and medicine in Utrecht, Leiden, Amsterdam and Paris during the early and mid‐1640s. It was during these years that Petty first came into contact with several important influences on his later work: among the Jesuits, pure and mixed (applied) mathematics; in the Low Countries, Cartesianism, Harveian mechanistic physiology, and iatrochemistry (alchemical medicine); in Paris, such natural philosophers as Pierre Gassendi, Marin Mersenne and, most importantly, Thomas Hobbes. While still just developing his own philosophical persona, Petty was exposed in these years to some of the main currents of the new natural philosophy, and some of the major participants in the Scientific Revolution.Less
This chapter examines Petty's early life and apprenticeship in England, education at a Jesuit collège in Normandy, and studies in philosophy and medicine in Utrecht, Leiden, Amsterdam and Paris during the early and mid‐1640s. It was during these years that Petty first came into contact with several important influences on his later work: among the Jesuits, pure and mixed (applied) mathematics; in the Low Countries, Cartesianism, Harveian mechanistic physiology, and iatrochemistry (alchemical medicine); in Paris, such natural philosophers as Pierre Gassendi, Marin Mersenne and, most importantly, Thomas Hobbes. While still just developing his own philosophical persona, Petty was exposed in these years to some of the main currents of the new natural philosophy, and some of the major participants in the Scientific Revolution.
Jeremy Black
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780300167955
- eISBN:
- 9780300198546
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300167955.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter describes the significant role played by the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution in the coming of the modern age. It discusses the consequences of the ...
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This chapter describes the significant role played by the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution in the coming of the modern age. It discusses the consequences of the Reformation and the ways in which modernisation and modernity have been traditionally linked to religious tolerance, printing, and Scientific Revolution. During the Reformation, printing facilitated the exchange of information and enhanced possibilities for systematisation and dissemination of new knowledge.Less
This chapter describes the significant role played by the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution in the coming of the modern age. It discusses the consequences of the Reformation and the ways in which modernisation and modernity have been traditionally linked to religious tolerance, printing, and Scientific Revolution. During the Reformation, printing facilitated the exchange of information and enhanced possibilities for systematisation and dissemination of new knowledge.
Ted McCormick
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199547890
- eISBN:
- 9780191720529
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547890.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Economic History
William Petty (1623–1687) was a founding figure in the history of social science, an architect of English colonial power in Ireland, and a champion of the new empirical and mechanical philosophy at ...
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William Petty (1623–1687) was a founding figure in the history of social science, an architect of English colonial power in Ireland, and a champion of the new empirical and mechanical philosophy at the heart of the Scientific Revolution. This book explores Petty's intellectual biography and examines in particular the origins, ambitions, and significance of his greatest work, ‘political arithmetic’. It argues that Petty's invention was less an early form of economics than a program of social engineering that applied the methods and concepts of seventeenth‐century natural philosophy to the challenges of governing a multiple monarchy and a colonial empire. Addressing the problems of English rule in Restoration Ireland, colonization in the Americas, and the politics of religion in the Three Kingdoms, and drawing on contemporary developments in economic and political as well as scientific thought, Petty reduced political, religious, and ethnic differences to matters of demography and proposed removing these differences by ‘transmuting’ troublesome populations into loyal and industrious subjects. Only after Petty's death and the Glorious Revolution was his ‘instrument of government’ through demographic engineering rearticulated as a mode of statistical analysis — an early social science. Drawing on a wide range of printed and manuscript sources this book revises our understanding of political arithmetic and offers the first fully integrated, contextualized, and archivally researched account of Petty's intellectual work in over a century.Less
William Petty (1623–1687) was a founding figure in the history of social science, an architect of English colonial power in Ireland, and a champion of the new empirical and mechanical philosophy at the heart of the Scientific Revolution. This book explores Petty's intellectual biography and examines in particular the origins, ambitions, and significance of his greatest work, ‘political arithmetic’. It argues that Petty's invention was less an early form of economics than a program of social engineering that applied the methods and concepts of seventeenth‐century natural philosophy to the challenges of governing a multiple monarchy and a colonial empire. Addressing the problems of English rule in Restoration Ireland, colonization in the Americas, and the politics of religion in the Three Kingdoms, and drawing on contemporary developments in economic and political as well as scientific thought, Petty reduced political, religious, and ethnic differences to matters of demography and proposed removing these differences by ‘transmuting’ troublesome populations into loyal and industrious subjects. Only after Petty's death and the Glorious Revolution was his ‘instrument of government’ through demographic engineering rearticulated as a mode of statistical analysis — an early social science. Drawing on a wide range of printed and manuscript sources this book revises our understanding of political arithmetic and offers the first fully integrated, contextualized, and archivally researched account of Petty's intellectual work in over a century.
Elena Aronova
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027953
- eISBN:
- 9780262326100
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027953.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
‘Big Science’ as a notion was coined in 1960 by physicist Alvin Weinberg and physicist-turned-historian Derek de Solla Price, and immediately became the center of heated discussions in the U.S. ...
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‘Big Science’ as a notion was coined in 1960 by physicist Alvin Weinberg and physicist-turned-historian Derek de Solla Price, and immediately became the center of heated discussions in the U.S. Simultaneously, in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, a counterpart of the American discussion of Big Science was epitomized in the concept of Scientific-Technological Revolution, which became the center of a theoretically significant discussions focused on the conditions and consequences of scientific-technical, social and economic change in different political systems. Throughout the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union advocated their ability to offer and display different visions of a modern industrial society, and Big Science played major role in these powerful Cold War imageries. This chapter examines different ways in which Big Science was deployed as a resource to debate, negotiate, and rationalize the concerns and anxieties of the Cold War, on the opposite sides of the political divide. In both political settings, scientists, as well as social theorists, promoted the view that Big Science needs what might be called “Big Science Studies” – an independent expertise, which would provide a systematic assessment and characterization of Big Science, and advise governments accordingly.Less
‘Big Science’ as a notion was coined in 1960 by physicist Alvin Weinberg and physicist-turned-historian Derek de Solla Price, and immediately became the center of heated discussions in the U.S. Simultaneously, in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, a counterpart of the American discussion of Big Science was epitomized in the concept of Scientific-Technological Revolution, which became the center of a theoretically significant discussions focused on the conditions and consequences of scientific-technical, social and economic change in different political systems. Throughout the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union advocated their ability to offer and display different visions of a modern industrial society, and Big Science played major role in these powerful Cold War imageries. This chapter examines different ways in which Big Science was deployed as a resource to debate, negotiate, and rationalize the concerns and anxieties of the Cold War, on the opposite sides of the political divide. In both political settings, scientists, as well as social theorists, promoted the view that Big Science needs what might be called “Big Science Studies” – an independent expertise, which would provide a systematic assessment and characterization of Big Science, and advise governments accordingly.
Leofranc Holford-Strevens and Amiel Vardi (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199264827
- eISBN:
- 9780191718403
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264827.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This collection of essays on the 2nd-century Roman miscellanist Aulus Gellius, the author of the Attic Nights, is the first multi-author study of his work in any language. It brings together the work ...
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This collection of essays on the 2nd-century Roman miscellanist Aulus Gellius, the author of the Attic Nights, is the first multi-author study of his work in any language. It brings together the work of established and younger scholars with different specialities and approaches in order to study various facets both of Gellius' intellectual outlook and that of his later readers. The book is dived into three parts. Part I, ‘Contexts and Achievements’, examines the use of Greek by Gellius and other Romans, in particular the leading orator Fronto and Apuleius; the conflicting criteria of Fronto and Gellius for lexical choice outside the standard Latin vocabulary; Gellius' linguistic skills in etymology; his literary skills in narrative; and his relation to Roman antiquarianism. Part II, ‘Ideologies’, considers Gellius' work against the expectations aroused by writing a miscellany and his claim to offer moral education — which proves acceptable once stated in less than absolutist terms — and compares his attitude to intellectuals with that of Apuleius. Part III, ‘Reception’, reviews various aspects of Gellius' literary afterlife down to the 17th century, ranging from medieval florilegia and a baroque-era song, through false ascriptions and lost manuscripts, to his presence in Montaigne and other Renaissance French authors, humanism, and the Scientific Revolution.Less
This collection of essays on the 2nd-century Roman miscellanist Aulus Gellius, the author of the Attic Nights, is the first multi-author study of his work in any language. It brings together the work of established and younger scholars with different specialities and approaches in order to study various facets both of Gellius' intellectual outlook and that of his later readers. The book is dived into three parts. Part I, ‘Contexts and Achievements’, examines the use of Greek by Gellius and other Romans, in particular the leading orator Fronto and Apuleius; the conflicting criteria of Fronto and Gellius for lexical choice outside the standard Latin vocabulary; Gellius' linguistic skills in etymology; his literary skills in narrative; and his relation to Roman antiquarianism. Part II, ‘Ideologies’, considers Gellius' work against the expectations aroused by writing a miscellany and his claim to offer moral education — which proves acceptable once stated in less than absolutist terms — and compares his attitude to intellectuals with that of Apuleius. Part III, ‘Reception’, reviews various aspects of Gellius' literary afterlife down to the 17th century, ranging from medieval florilegia and a baroque-era song, through false ascriptions and lost manuscripts, to his presence in Montaigne and other Renaissance French authors, humanism, and the Scientific Revolution.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206088
- eISBN:
- 9780191676970
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206088.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late 17th and 18th centuries — in the wake of the Scientific Revolution — of ...
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Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late 17th and 18th centuries — in the wake of the Scientific Revolution — of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, culminating in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. In this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery, substituting the modern principles of equality, democracy, and universality, the Radical Enlightenment played a crucially important part. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of the late 18th century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have been little studied doubtless largely because of its very wide international sweep and the obvious difficulty of fitting it into the restrictive conventions of ‘national history’ which until recently tended to dominate all historiography. The greatest obstacle to the Radical Enlightenment finding its proper place in modern historical writing is simply that it was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish, or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents, particular stress is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism.Less
Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late 17th and 18th centuries — in the wake of the Scientific Revolution — of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, culminating in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. In this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery, substituting the modern principles of equality, democracy, and universality, the Radical Enlightenment played a crucially important part. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of the late 18th century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have been little studied doubtless largely because of its very wide international sweep and the obvious difficulty of fitting it into the restrictive conventions of ‘national history’ which until recently tended to dominate all historiography. The greatest obstacle to the Radical Enlightenment finding its proper place in modern historical writing is simply that it was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish, or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents, particular stress is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism.
Daniel Garber
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226317038
- eISBN:
- 9780226317175
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226317175.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions attempts to interpret scientific change on the model of a political revolution: a period of normalcy, followed by a crisis, that is resolved by a new ...
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Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions attempts to interpret scientific change on the model of a political revolution: a period of normalcy, followed by a crisis, that is resolved by a new regime, a new paradigm. This essay explores the appropriateness of this model for the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. When we examine the eclipse of Aristotelian natural philosophy, for a long while, if ever, it was not replaced by a single new paradigm. Rather, the “new” non-Aristotelian philosophy was actually a diverse group of thinkers, the “novatores” or “innovators” who agreed only in the rejection of Aristotelian natural philosophy but otherwise were quite diverse. This is important not only for understanding the historical period, but also because it reveals a flaw in Kuhn’s framework. It is important for political revolutions to be resolved: the stability of the life depends on it. But there is no reason why a scientific revolution needs to result in the adoption of a single new paradigm: in the scientific world, a diversity of competing alternatives, and not Kuhnian normal science may turn out to be the norm.Less
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions attempts to interpret scientific change on the model of a political revolution: a period of normalcy, followed by a crisis, that is resolved by a new regime, a new paradigm. This essay explores the appropriateness of this model for the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. When we examine the eclipse of Aristotelian natural philosophy, for a long while, if ever, it was not replaced by a single new paradigm. Rather, the “new” non-Aristotelian philosophy was actually a diverse group of thinkers, the “novatores” or “innovators” who agreed only in the rejection of Aristotelian natural philosophy but otherwise were quite diverse. This is important not only for understanding the historical period, but also because it reveals a flaw in Kuhn’s framework. It is important for political revolutions to be resolved: the stability of the life depends on it. But there is no reason why a scientific revolution needs to result in the adoption of a single new paradigm: in the scientific world, a diversity of competing alternatives, and not Kuhnian normal science may turn out to be the norm.
Richard Scholar
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199274406
- eISBN:
- 9780191706448
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199274406.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
It is commonly said in the early modern period that elusive qualities draw natural bodies together. This chapter offers a critical history of attempts to explain such preternatural forces in natural ...
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It is commonly said in the early modern period that elusive qualities draw natural bodies together. This chapter offers a critical history of attempts to explain such preternatural forces in natural philosophy. It argues that the je-ne-sais-quoi appears as a key term in the vernacular debate about occult qualities and other secrets of nature, and that it becomes a site of lexical conflict between traditionalists (especially Jesuit natural philosophers) and so-called ‘new’ philosophers (Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton). Its appearance in this context is best understood as a symptom of the crisis that besets scholastic natural philosophy in the 17th century. The je-ne-sais-quoi offers in this way a point of entry into central debates of the period known as the ‘Scientific Revolution’. Not only does the word help articulate philosophical discussions about preternatural phenomena, but those discussions also offer access to the nature of the je-ne-sais-quoi itself.Less
It is commonly said in the early modern period that elusive qualities draw natural bodies together. This chapter offers a critical history of attempts to explain such preternatural forces in natural philosophy. It argues that the je-ne-sais-quoi appears as a key term in the vernacular debate about occult qualities and other secrets of nature, and that it becomes a site of lexical conflict between traditionalists (especially Jesuit natural philosophers) and so-called ‘new’ philosophers (Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton). Its appearance in this context is best understood as a symptom of the crisis that besets scholastic natural philosophy in the 17th century. The je-ne-sais-quoi offers in this way a point of entry into central debates of the period known as the ‘Scientific Revolution’. Not only does the word help articulate philosophical discussions about preternatural phenomena, but those discussions also offer access to the nature of the je-ne-sais-quoi itself.
Noretta Koertge (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195117257
- eISBN:
- 9780199785995
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195117255.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
The interdisciplinary enterprise of Science, Technology and Society Studies (STS) fosters the view that the results of scientific inquiry are social constructions that are strongly influenced by ...
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The interdisciplinary enterprise of Science, Technology and Society Studies (STS) fosters the view that the results of scientific inquiry are social constructions that are strongly influenced by ideology and special interests. Academics working within traditions of postmodernism and cultural studies use both theoretical analysis and historical case studies to defend their allegations that the objectivity and empirical character of science have been vastly overrated. This anthology, with essays by philosophers, historians, scientists, and engineers, scrutinizes these claims in detail. Inspired by the Sokal hoax, these essays provide devastating refutations of the most central and widely trumpeted claims of the postmodernist critique of science. Included are clear analyses of philosophical concepts such as relativism, theory ladenness, underdetermination of theory by evidence, scientific experimentation, objectivity, the context of discovery, the role of metaphors in science, and sociology of scientific knowledge. The historical episodes discussed come from alchemy, the Scientific Revolution, Darwinian evolutionary theory, reproductive biology, particle physics, fluid mechanics, relativity theory, and statistics. Implications are drawn for science education, science journalism, science development, and the historiography of science.Less
The interdisciplinary enterprise of Science, Technology and Society Studies (STS) fosters the view that the results of scientific inquiry are social constructions that are strongly influenced by ideology and special interests. Academics working within traditions of postmodernism and cultural studies use both theoretical analysis and historical case studies to defend their allegations that the objectivity and empirical character of science have been vastly overrated. This anthology, with essays by philosophers, historians, scientists, and engineers, scrutinizes these claims in detail. Inspired by the Sokal hoax, these essays provide devastating refutations of the most central and widely trumpeted claims of the postmodernist critique of science. Included are clear analyses of philosophical concepts such as relativism, theory ladenness, underdetermination of theory by evidence, scientific experimentation, objectivity, the context of discovery, the role of metaphors in science, and sociology of scientific knowledge. The historical episodes discussed come from alchemy, the Scientific Revolution, Darwinian evolutionary theory, reproductive biology, particle physics, fluid mechanics, relativity theory, and statistics. Implications are drawn for science education, science journalism, science development, and the historiography of science.
Michael Ruse
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691195957
- eISBN:
- 9781400888603
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691195957.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter discusses the Scientific Revolution that is dated from the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus's On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, the work that put the sun rather than ...
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This chapter discusses the Scientific Revolution that is dated from the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus's On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, the work that put the sun rather than the earth at the center of the universe to Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687, the work that gave the causal underpinnings of the whole system as developed over the previous one hundred and fifty years. Historian Rupert Hall put his finger precisely on the real change that occurred in the revolution. It was not so much the physical theories, although these were massive and important. It was rather a change of metaphors or models—from that of an organism to that of a machine. By the sixteenth century, machines were becoming ever more common and ever more sophisticated. It was natural therefore for people to start thinking of the world—the universe—as a machine, especially since some of the most elaborate of the new machines were astronomical clocks that had the planets and the sun and moon moving through the heavens, not by human force but by predestined contraptions. In a word, by clockwork!Less
This chapter discusses the Scientific Revolution that is dated from the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus's On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, the work that put the sun rather than the earth at the center of the universe to Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687, the work that gave the causal underpinnings of the whole system as developed over the previous one hundred and fifty years. Historian Rupert Hall put his finger precisely on the real change that occurred in the revolution. It was not so much the physical theories, although these were massive and important. It was rather a change of metaphors or models—from that of an organism to that of a machine. By the sixteenth century, machines were becoming ever more common and ever more sophisticated. It was natural therefore for people to start thinking of the world—the universe—as a machine, especially since some of the most elaborate of the new machines were astronomical clocks that had the planets and the sun and moon moving through the heavens, not by human force but by predestined contraptions. In a word, by clockwork!
Amit Prasad
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780262026956
- eISBN:
- 9780262322065
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262026956.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
“Nobel Prizes: Asian Scientists Set to Topple America's Run of Wins”: This 2011 Manchester Guardian's headline may seem premature, but it no longer sounds implausible. In fact, its discursive ...
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“Nobel Prizes: Asian Scientists Set to Topple America's Run of Wins”: This 2011 Manchester Guardian's headline may seem premature, but it no longer sounds implausible. In fact, its discursive presence reflects a recent dramatic shift in the transnational geography of technoscience. Although this shift offers an opportunity to move beyond Euro/West-centric constructions, such a move requires a radical reorientation of our technoscientific imaginary. The conclusion highlights the role of two Eurocentric constructions that have played crucial roles in obscuring, if not erasing, the complex and vibrant genealogies of transnational technosciences. The first one conflates two different regimes of invention in Europe and the West and thereby presents a homogeneous and exclusive framing of the European/Western inventive spirit and, indeed, of European/Western exceptionalism as well. Transnational genealogies of technoscience have also been obscured because of Eurocentric framing of the Scientific Revolution. If we are able to move beyond such Eurocentric constructions, the conclusion argues, a very different picture will emerge of not only present-day transformations, but also of the much longer and influential genealogy of transnational technoscience.Less
“Nobel Prizes: Asian Scientists Set to Topple America's Run of Wins”: This 2011 Manchester Guardian's headline may seem premature, but it no longer sounds implausible. In fact, its discursive presence reflects a recent dramatic shift in the transnational geography of technoscience. Although this shift offers an opportunity to move beyond Euro/West-centric constructions, such a move requires a radical reorientation of our technoscientific imaginary. The conclusion highlights the role of two Eurocentric constructions that have played crucial roles in obscuring, if not erasing, the complex and vibrant genealogies of transnational technosciences. The first one conflates two different regimes of invention in Europe and the West and thereby presents a homogeneous and exclusive framing of the European/Western inventive spirit and, indeed, of European/Western exceptionalism as well. Transnational genealogies of technoscience have also been obscured because of Eurocentric framing of the Scientific Revolution. If we are able to move beyond such Eurocentric constructions, the conclusion argues, a very different picture will emerge of not only present-day transformations, but also of the much longer and influential genealogy of transnational technoscience.
Michael Hunter
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300243581
- eISBN:
- 9780300249460
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300243581.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This introductory chapter explores the Scientific Revolution and its relationship with the supernatural, as well as the significance of atheism. It identifies two developments in the Scientific ...
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This introductory chapter explores the Scientific Revolution and its relationship with the supernatural, as well as the significance of atheism. It identifies two developments in the Scientific Revolution which have left an impact on magic. The first was the rise of the inductive philosophy which gave a methodological structure to the inchoate empiricism that had already begun to flourish in the Middle Ages and more notably in the sixteenth century. The second was the rise of the mechanical philosophy, the claim that everything in nature could be explained in terms of the interaction of matter and motion. In addition to this relation between science and the supernatural, the chapter delves into the question of atheism and why so much effort was invested in opposing it during this period.Less
This introductory chapter explores the Scientific Revolution and its relationship with the supernatural, as well as the significance of atheism. It identifies two developments in the Scientific Revolution which have left an impact on magic. The first was the rise of the inductive philosophy which gave a methodological structure to the inchoate empiricism that had already begun to flourish in the Middle Ages and more notably in the sixteenth century. The second was the rise of the mechanical philosophy, the claim that everything in nature could be explained in terms of the interaction of matter and motion. In addition to this relation between science and the supernatural, the chapter delves into the question of atheism and why so much effort was invested in opposing it during this period.
Larrie D. Ferreiro
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262062596
- eISBN:
- 9780262272582
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262062596.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
In this chapter, the process of professionalization of naval constructors that started in several countries of Europe, including France, Spain, and Denmark in 1700s and then spread to other countries ...
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In this chapter, the process of professionalization of naval constructors that started in several countries of Europe, including France, Spain, and Denmark in 1700s and then spread to other countries of the world, is discussed. Naval constructors began to be seen as socially elite professionals in the late 1600s, as the enactment of greater control and oversight of the design and construction of ships was initiated by the governments of those countries during that period. The chapter emphasizes the initiation and evolution of professional corps of engineers in France, and also examines the impact of the French Revolution on the development of ship theory and the professionalization of constructors. It further states how French models were adopted for the professionalization of naval constructors by Spain, along with other European countries including Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Britain. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the closing of the French Academy of Sciences and the transition of naval architecture from the beginning of the Scientific Revolution to the dawn of the Industrial Age.Less
In this chapter, the process of professionalization of naval constructors that started in several countries of Europe, including France, Spain, and Denmark in 1700s and then spread to other countries of the world, is discussed. Naval constructors began to be seen as socially elite professionals in the late 1600s, as the enactment of greater control and oversight of the design and construction of ships was initiated by the governments of those countries during that period. The chapter emphasizes the initiation and evolution of professional corps of engineers in France, and also examines the impact of the French Revolution on the development of ship theory and the professionalization of constructors. It further states how French models were adopted for the professionalization of naval constructors by Spain, along with other European countries including Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Britain. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the closing of the French Academy of Sciences and the transition of naval architecture from the beginning of the Scientific Revolution to the dawn of the Industrial Age.
Gerard Passannante
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226648491
- eISBN:
- 9780226648514
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226648514.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book offers a radical rethinking of a familiar narrative: the rise of materialism in early modern Europe. It begins by taking up the ancient philosophical notion that the world is composed of ...
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This book offers a radical rethinking of a familiar narrative: the rise of materialism in early modern Europe. It begins by taking up the ancient philosophical notion that the world is composed of two fundamental opposites: atoms, as the philosopher Epicurus theorized, intrinsically unchangeable and moving about the void; and the void itself, or nothingness. The book considers the fact that this strain of ancient Greek philosophy survived and was transmitted to the Renaissance primarily by means of a poem that had seemingly been lost—a poem insisting that the letters of the alphabet are like the atoms that make up the universe. By tracing this elemental analogy through the fortunes of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, it argues that, long before it took on its familiar shape during the Scientific Revolution, the philosophy of atoms and the void reemerged in the Renaissance as a story about reading and letters—a story that materialized in texts, in their physical recomposition, and in their scattering. From the works of Virgil and Macrobius to those of Petrarch, Poliziano, Lambin, Montaigne, Bacon, Spenser, Gassendi, Henry More, and Newton, the book recovers a forgotten history of materialism in humanist thought and scholarly practice, and asks us to reconsider one of the most enduring questions of the period: what does it mean for a text, a poem, and philosophy to be “reborn”?Less
This book offers a radical rethinking of a familiar narrative: the rise of materialism in early modern Europe. It begins by taking up the ancient philosophical notion that the world is composed of two fundamental opposites: atoms, as the philosopher Epicurus theorized, intrinsically unchangeable and moving about the void; and the void itself, or nothingness. The book considers the fact that this strain of ancient Greek philosophy survived and was transmitted to the Renaissance primarily by means of a poem that had seemingly been lost—a poem insisting that the letters of the alphabet are like the atoms that make up the universe. By tracing this elemental analogy through the fortunes of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, it argues that, long before it took on its familiar shape during the Scientific Revolution, the philosophy of atoms and the void reemerged in the Renaissance as a story about reading and letters—a story that materialized in texts, in their physical recomposition, and in their scattering. From the works of Virgil and Macrobius to those of Petrarch, Poliziano, Lambin, Montaigne, Bacon, Spenser, Gassendi, Henry More, and Newton, the book recovers a forgotten history of materialism in humanist thought and scholarly practice, and asks us to reconsider one of the most enduring questions of the period: what does it mean for a text, a poem, and philosophy to be “reborn”?
Michael Ruse
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691195957
- eISBN:
- 9781400888603
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691195957.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter traces the triumph of the Kantian perspective. From the time of the Scientific Revolution to the present, vocal representatives are characterized as the Platonic approach or tradition ...
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This chapter traces the triumph of the Kantian perspective. From the time of the Scientific Revolution to the present, vocal representatives are characterized as the Platonic approach or tradition and of the Aristotelian approach or tradition. Before the Origin, there were those like William Whewell and Adam Sedgwick, professor of geology at Cambridge, who simply put down the origins of new species to divine intervention. The fossil record shows that there has been a turnover of forms, and extinction is almost certainly due to natural causes. But when it comes to new forms, God intervenes miraculously. After the Origin, there were those who felt the same way. Louis Agassiz, Swiss-born ichthyologist and professor at Harvard, could never accept evolution, even though his students stepped over the line pretty sharpishly. The preferred option though, for those who were Christians believing in a Creator God, was some form of guided evolution. God puts direction into new variations and hence natural selection has at most a kind of garbage disposal function—it gets rid of the bad forms but does little or nothing to create new, good forms.Less
This chapter traces the triumph of the Kantian perspective. From the time of the Scientific Revolution to the present, vocal representatives are characterized as the Platonic approach or tradition and of the Aristotelian approach or tradition. Before the Origin, there were those like William Whewell and Adam Sedgwick, professor of geology at Cambridge, who simply put down the origins of new species to divine intervention. The fossil record shows that there has been a turnover of forms, and extinction is almost certainly due to natural causes. But when it comes to new forms, God intervenes miraculously. After the Origin, there were those who felt the same way. Louis Agassiz, Swiss-born ichthyologist and professor at Harvard, could never accept evolution, even though his students stepped over the line pretty sharpishly. The preferred option though, for those who were Christians believing in a Creator God, was some form of guided evolution. God puts direction into new variations and hence natural selection has at most a kind of garbage disposal function—it gets rid of the bad forms but does little or nothing to create new, good forms.
C. U. M. Smith, Eugenio Frixione, Stanley Finger, and William Clower
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199766499
- eISBN:
- 9780199950263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199766499.003.0011
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, History of Neuroscience
This chapter outlines the views about physical or natural responses from ancient Greek philosophers until the revolutionary medical theories that were introduced by Giorgio Baglivi and Francis ...
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This chapter outlines the views about physical or natural responses from ancient Greek philosophers until the revolutionary medical theories that were introduced by Giorgio Baglivi and Francis Glisson. It studies Baglivi's claim that fibers composing the organs—particularly the muscles—are directly responsive to irritation. It shows that the Scientific Revolution that occurred during the Renaissance had deeply affected the understanding of living matter in a deep and very basic way: Organs were all composed of fibers, despite their differences in form and function. Gottfried Leibniz is credited as being the first one to have held this view.Less
This chapter outlines the views about physical or natural responses from ancient Greek philosophers until the revolutionary medical theories that were introduced by Giorgio Baglivi and Francis Glisson. It studies Baglivi's claim that fibers composing the organs—particularly the muscles—are directly responsive to irritation. It shows that the Scientific Revolution that occurred during the Renaissance had deeply affected the understanding of living matter in a deep and very basic way: Organs were all composed of fibers, despite their differences in form and function. Gottfried Leibniz is credited as being the first one to have held this view.
