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
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Page 2
... practitioners expressed their intention to bring about radical intellectual change, they used no such term to refer to what they were doing. 1. “Early modern,” in historians' usage, generally refers to the period in European history ...
... practitioners expressed their intention to bring about radical intellectual change, they used no such term to refer to what they were doing. 1. “Early modern,” in historians' usage, generally refers to the period in European history ...
Page 6
... practitioners. This point cannot be stressed too strongly. The cultural practices subsumed in the category of the Scientific Revolution—however it has been construed— are not coextensive with early modern, or seventeenth-century ...
... practitioners. This point cannot be stressed too strongly. The cultural practices subsumed in the category of the Scientific Revolution—however it has been construed— are not coextensive with early modern, or seventeenth-century ...
Page 7
... practitioners often had about them as much of the ancient as the modern; their notions had to be successively transformed and redefined by generations of thinkers to become “ours.” And finally, the people, the thoughts, and the ...
... practitioners often had about them as much of the ancient as the modern; their notions had to be successively transformed and redefined by generations of thinkers to become “ours.” And finally, the people, the thoughts, and the ...
Page 9
... practitioners between those who drew attention to what were called “intellectual factors”—ideas, concepts, methods, evidence— and those who stressed “social factors”—forms of organization, political and economic influences on science ...
... practitioners between those who drew attention to what were called “intellectual factors”—ideas, concepts, methods, evidence— and those who stressed “social factors”—forms of organization, political and economic influences on science ...
Page 10
... practitioners who have also been accounted revolutionary “moderns.” Since in my view there is no essence of the Scientific Revolution, a multiplicity of stories can legitimately be told, each aiming to draw attention to some real ...
... practitioners who have also been accounted revolutionary “moderns.” Since in my view there is no essence of the Scientific Revolution, a multiplicity of stories can legitimately be told, each aiming to draw attention to some real ...
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