Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500-1700

by Peter Dear

From Copernicus, who put the earth in orbit around the sun, to Isaac Newton, who gave the world universal gravitation, the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries transformed the way that Europeans understood their world. In this book, Peter Dear offers an accessible introduction to the origins of modern science for both students and general readers.

Beginning with "what was worth knowing in 1500," Dear takes the reader through natural philosophy, humanism, mathematics, and experimentalism until he can describe "what was worth knowing by the eighteenth century." Along the way, he discusses the key ideas, individuals, and social changes that constituted the Scientific Revolution.

For all of its economy and broad appeal, Revolutionizing the Sciences never sacrifices sophistication of treatment. Dear questions triumphal ideas of scientific progress, unravels the connections between scientific knowledge and power over nature, and distinguishes between the scientific renaissance that characterized the sixteenth century and the more fundamental revolution that occurred in the seventeenth.

This is an ideal textbook on the Scientific Revolution for courses on the history of science or the history of early modern Europe. The text is chronologically arranged and fully covers both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, standing alone as an up-to-date, complete general introduction to the origins of modern science in Europe.

Revolutionizing the Sciences is the best available choice for teaching or learning about the developments that came to be called the Scientific Revolution.

Genres: History, History Of Science, Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Read For School, School

208 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very good, short exploration of the period that has come to be known as the scientific revolution. Dear divides this period into the "scientific renaissance," and the "scientific revolution." In the first era, the 16th century, scholars had not yet fully turned their backs on the old classical, Aristotelian scholarship, and they (even someone like Copernicus) still looked for old Greek and Roman sources that could provide precedent for new findings. It was only with the second era of the 17th century, Dear argues, that we saw the start of a real break with the past. Now scientists began to openly break with old sources and conceptions of the world, and claim that the new knowledge was an improvement.
Dear is also concerned with contextualizing individual scientists. It does not really matter, he argues, that what Copernicus came to believe about the solar system was true. What matters to the historian are the historical circumstances that led him to believe it. Galileo, Dear points out, was not just a man operating in a vacuum. When he moved from a professorship to a position in the Medici court, he fell under a lot of pressure to make bold claims and to make them frequently. Descartes was not free to present his ideas in whatever way he chose, he was limited by his attempts to cover specific topics that Aristotle had explored; Descartes “wanted to replace Aristotle as the accepted philosophical authority,” but he did not want to overturn the whole university system that operated according to Aristotelian precepts. And they got a lot of stuff wrong! This book reminds one that these geniuses like Newton who we tend to revere today were not right about everything. They won some, they lost some.

[Charlie Huenemann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gem of an introduction to the scientific revolution. Dear manages to assemble the many different dimensions of this important historical transformation into a coherent narrative, taking up not just the various scientific theories, but also the influence of institutions, traditions, and religion, as well as the roles of magic, alchemy, and astrology. He delves into particular theories and extracts from them general observations about how the practitioners view the business of knowledge: what it is to rely on experience, how to incorporate experiments in theory, and the role of mathematics. He also does not ignore the more human dimensions, such as the relations between scientific discovery and European colonialism, and the limited ways in which women were allowed to play roles learned societies. It is amazing how much he manages to cover in such a short book.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful introduction to the emergence of our scientific way of thinking during the 16th and 17th centuries. The chapter titles give a sense of what makes this book special: "What Was Worth Knowing" in 1500 ... Experiment: How to learn things about nature in the Seventeenth Century. etc. The book is intended as an introductory text for undergraduates. It should be used as part of a course to fill out the brief discussions in the book. I have been reading about science and philosophy in this period for a few years, so I found that this book helped me integrate what I have been learning. More than that, however, is that Dear has a sophisticated point of view about this period. Reading his interpretation was invigorating. The book also contains suggested readings, which is very helpful.

[WondrousReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a school read assigned for my Scientific Revolution class! It was interesting and connected back well to what we were learning in class, though I found the writing style a bit hard to get through and superfluous.

[John David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certain kinds of books are hard to review because they don’t lend themselves to being read from cover to cover. This is one of them. The third and latest edition of Peter Dear’s “Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge in Transition, 1500-1700” (which was also published elsewhere with the alternate subtitle “European Knowledge and Its Ambitions”) was released by 2019 by Princeton University Press. Because it is moderately technical in its approach and covers a pretty short period of time, this is probably ideal for undergraduates studying (or academics teaching) a course on the history of science during the Scientific Revolution. Just don’t expect any rip-roaring, narrative-driven history of science – because this isn’t it.

If you know that it’s not for casual readers and often dry writing that entails, Dear’s book is a solid introduction to the material. Very broadly, it’s a brief survey (about 170 pages) of the major intellectual changes that occurred in the European natural sciences from the very tail end of the Middle Ages when Aristotelianism reigned supreme through much of the Enlightenment with the advent of the scientific method, empiricism, and Newtonianism.

By 1500, scientific knowledge had been handed down to students in the form of authoritative texts (think Aristotle, Galen, Ptolemy, et cetera) for centuries. It wasn’t until the Renaissance that these sources themselves began to be questioned to see if their claims were accurate assessments of the natural world. The Renaissance loosened the hold of Aristotelian scholasticism on the natural sciences. In doing so, it slowly replaced the abstract theorizing of Aristotle with the first-hand observation and empiricism that would define the science of the next two centuries. In fact, if there’s one major weakness of the book, it’s that the analysis remains strictly on educational, rhetorical, and philosophical contexts of knowledge creation at the expense of any sociological analysis. Knowledge itself not only underwent a sea change, but it also experienced institutionalization in which each of the sciences differentiated themselves out of the catch-all “natural philosophy.” Scientific organizations like the Royal Society in England and the Academy of Sciences in France provided institutional protection – and importantly, funding – for the questioning of received knowledge, setting scientific standards, and conducting experiments.

Overall, a wonderful survey I only have a few quibbles with. If supplemented with other kinds of writing about the philosophy of science during the period – ones that pay attention the sociological conditions, institutions, as well as ones pay more attention to the lives and contributions of individual scientists – this would make this a great introduction to the period.

[Read by Fred · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not a fan of the formatting of the book (I had the paperback).

I found the blocks of text too long and the line spacing too close - I lost my place a few times because of this. It's unfortunate the blocks weren't broken up into separate paragraphs, or not more sub sections with sub section headings were added.

Aside from the formatting, the content was good. Though taking on an academic tone, the author did a great job describing the evolution of science during the time period described. I found that it flowed well and I learned a lot of each notable figure's contribution, as well as the mindset of the times.

[Jonathon Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this book at University and decided to give it another go, this time with more success. This is well written and an effective description of the scientific revolution. The language was on the academic side and therefore a little inaccessible at times. Will be picking this up and reading-reading sections in future.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very often we get a superficial read of the industrial revolution. The traps for such narratives are rote typically unhelpful. Dear avoids the polemics AND provides a readable history. He does a good job of laying out the cultural background and historical movements bringing in a pretty broad range of factors playing out across the "revolution."

The chapter on "alchemy, craftsman and scholar" was particularly good. What constitutes the occult and alchemy? What is the effort to "stand above nature" as Bacon puts it (his use of metaphor, particularly the rape and torture stuff sure does give one pause). What is techne and what is epistome? There really is an interesting psychology of work that comes to bear in using instruments and mechanisms. Dear does a great job of showing a sort of trajectory or "rise of the craft guilds" that plays out in a manner that doesn't simply getting reduced to a sort of of Hegelian or Marxist read of history.

[Lewis Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

This shall be a brief review for a brief book. Dear's writing style is to the point, though he does not allow the academic nature of the text to make his prose dry.

Throughout the book there are fun allegories, anecdotes, and metaphors. On the Aristotelian conception of free will the image of Avian Wright brothers arose. Oh, and who can forget the summary of the elemental view of the world as a "terrestrial onion"? In this respect, Dear's book is a great introduction to a broad, and confusing, period of time. He steers clear of such anachronisms as 'the scientific revolution', in fact his work goes some way in disillusioning the reader of this.

His position, that the evolution in secular thought should not be seen as a secular fight against religious dogma (but rather a change in thought process across both categories), is fascinating. He stresses that philosophers, who had been previously focused on rationalizing why the world worked, had progressed onto focusing on how the world worked.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dear gives a brief but historically rich overview of developments in early modern science. He helped me to understand the thought processes of some of the major figures and to see how the view of the universe associated with modern science developed over time. For example, rejection of the Aristotelian view that elements sought their natural place led to interesting questions about what causes objects to fall. The answers didn't just jump out at people, and some of the new solutions stuck, while others didn't. He also describes the different kinds of patrons and organizations that made early modern science possible, such as the Jesuit order, the Royal Society of London, and the French royal academy.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent read which delved into where our modern scientific outlook, not just knowledge, originated from. I appreciated the work delving into the scientific associations of each individual, at times explaining at length what they had come up with and in a way that very much so does not patronize the audience, but, rather calls it to make their own conclusions when comparing the history. It is a rather short and very entertaining read that I would highly reccommend to anyone simply wishing to expand their views and knowledge of the progression of thinking and the human state.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Far too abbreviated for my taste, but I certainly learned a lot about figures I otherwise may not have heard about. It also reinforced knowledge I already had and provided in some instances new perspectives on historical figures I thought I knew.

[gltgw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful, solid overview of the period. Language can occasionally be a bit inaccessible, but for the most part a very helpful summary.

[Vicky P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect primer for the topic and all of its related parts for someone new to the topics or looking for further inspiration to follow for research questions.

[Cheryl Lassiter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a college textbook, but quite readable. The author sets the stage by reminding us that Aristotle ruled the world of "natural philosophy" for over a thousand years. Then came these upstarts in the 16th century who began to think...differently...

[John]

nonfiction,history,enlightenment,science

[Whoof · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting! But some sections were a little dry