The Scientific RevolutionUniversity of Chicago Press, 2018 M11 5 - 256 pages This scholarly and accessible study presents “a provocative new reading” of the late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century advances in scientific inquiry (Kirkus Reviews). In The Scientific Revolution, historian Steven Shapin challenges the very idea that any such a “revolution” ever took place. Rejecting the narrative that a new and unifying paradigm suddenly took hold, he demonstrates how the conduct of science emerged from a wide array of early modern philosophical agendas, political commitments, and religious beliefs. In this analysis, early modern science is shown not as a set of disembodied ideas, but as historically situated ways of knowing and doing. Shapin shows that every principle identified as the modernizing essence of science—whether it’s experimentalism, mathematical methodology, or a mechanical conception of nature—was in fact contested by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century practitioners with equal claims to modernity. Shapin argues that this contested legacy is nevertheless rightly understood as the origin of modern science, its problems as well as its acknowledged achievements. This updated edition includes a new bibliographic essay featuring the latest scholarship. “An excellent book.” —Anthony Gottlieb, New York Times Book Review |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 24
Page 6
... interest in our ancestors, where “we” are late twentieth-century scientists and those for whom what they believe counts as truth about the natural world. And this interest provides the second legitimate justification for writing about ...
... interest in our ancestors, where “we” are late twentieth-century scientists and those for whom what they believe counts as truth about the natural world. And this interest provides the second legitimate justification for writing about ...
Page 7
... interest displayed by Darwinian evolutionists telling stories about those branches of the tree of life that led to human beings—without assuming in any way that such stories are adequate accounts of what life was like hundreds of ...
... interest displayed by Darwinian evolutionists telling stories about those branches of the tree of life that led to human beings—without assuming in any way that such stories are adequate accounts of what life was like hundreds of ...
Page 8
... interest in the academic state of play will find guidance in the accompanying bibliographic essay. There is no reason to deny that this story about the Scientific Revolution represents a particular point of view, and that, although I ...
... interest in the academic state of play will find guidance in the accompanying bibliographic essay. There is no reason to deny that this story about the Scientific Revolution represents a particular point of view, and that, although I ...
Page 10
... interests, even if we aim all the while to “tell it like it really was.” That is to say, there is inevitably something of “us” in the stories we tell about the past. This is the historian's predicament, and it is foolish to think there ...
... interests, even if we aim all the while to “tell it like it really was.” That is to say, there is inevitably something of “us” in the stories we tell about the past. This is the historian's predicament, and it is foolish to think there ...
Page 11
... interest. I am content to accept that this account of the Scientific Revolution is selective and partial. There is a ... interests and partly the consequence of my judgment that many previous historical surveys have been excessively ...
... interest. I am content to accept that this account of the Scientific Revolution is selective and partial. There is a ... interests and partly the consequence of my judgment that many previous historical surveys have been excessively ...
Contents
1 | |
15 | |
Two How Was It Known? | 65 |
Three What Was the Knowledge For? | 119 |
Bibliographic Essay | 167 |
Index | 235 |
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air pump Alchemy Alexandre Koyré ancient Aristotelian astronomy Bacon belief bodies Book of Nature Boyle's Cambridge University Press causal causes century certainty changes chaps chapter Chicago Press claims clock conception Copernican culture Descartes Descartes's disciplines Early Modern Europe early modern period early modern science earth effects English especially essay example experience experimental fact factual Galileo historians History of Science Hobbes human idea intellectual intelligible Isaac Newton Johannes Hevelius mathematical matter mechanical accounts mechanical explanation mechanical philosophers Medicine mercury Merton Thesis metaphor microscope modern natural philosophers motion natural history natural knowledge natural philosophy natural world Newton objects observed occult orig Oxford phenomena philoso physical practice practitioners Princeton principles produced proper publ relation reliable religious Renaissance Robert Boyle Robert Hooke role Roy Porter Royal Society Scientific Revolution secure sense sensibilities seventeenth Shapin sixteenth social sources structure telescope texts theory things tion traditional ture University of Chicago York