What do you think?
Rate this book
The Scientific Revolution
"There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it." With this provocative and apparently paradoxical claim, Steven Shapin begins his bold vibrant exploration of the origins of the modern scientific worldview.
"Shapin's account is informed, nuanced, and articulated with clarity. . . . This is not to attack or devalue science but to reveal its richness as the human endeavor that it most surely is. . . .Shapin's book is an impressive achievement."—David C. Lindberg, Science
"Shapin has used the crucial 17th century as a platform for presenting the power of science-studies approaches. At the same time, he has presented the period in fresh perspective."— Chronicle of Higher Education
"Timely and highly readable . . . A book which every scientist curious about our predecessors should read."—Trevor Pinch, New Scientist
"It's hard to believe that there could be a more accessible, informed or concise account of how it [the scientific revolution], and we have come to this. The Scientific Revolution should be a set text in all the disciplines. And in all the indisciplines, too."—Adam Phillips, London Review of Books
"Shapin's treatise on the currents that engendered modern science is a combination of history and philosophy of science for the interested and educated layperson."— Publishers Weekly
"Superlative, accessible, and engaging. . . . Absolute must-reading."—Robert S. Frey, Bridges
"This vibrant historical exploration of the origins of modern science argues that in the 1600s science emerged from a variety of beliefs, practices, and influences. . . . This history reminds us that diversity is part of any intellectual endeavor."— Choice
"Most readers will conclude that there was indeed something dramatic enough to be called the Scientific Revolution going on, and that this is an excellent book about it."—Anthony Gottlieb, The New York Times Book Review
"Shapin's account is informed, nuanced, and articulated with clarity. . . . This is not to attack or devalue science but to reveal its richness as the human endeavor that it most surely is. . . .Shapin's book is an impressive achievement."—David C. Lindberg, Science
"Shapin has used the crucial 17th century as a platform for presenting the power of science-studies approaches. At the same time, he has presented the period in fresh perspective."— Chronicle of Higher Education
"Timely and highly readable . . . A book which every scientist curious about our predecessors should read."—Trevor Pinch, New Scientist
"It's hard to believe that there could be a more accessible, informed or concise account of how it [the scientific revolution], and we have come to this. The Scientific Revolution should be a set text in all the disciplines. And in all the indisciplines, too."—Adam Phillips, London Review of Books
"Shapin's treatise on the currents that engendered modern science is a combination of history and philosophy of science for the interested and educated layperson."— Publishers Weekly
"Superlative, accessible, and engaging. . . . Absolute must-reading."—Robert S. Frey, Bridges
"This vibrant historical exploration of the origins of modern science argues that in the 1600s science emerged from a variety of beliefs, practices, and influences. . . . This history reminds us that diversity is part of any intellectual endeavor."— Choice
"Most readers will conclude that there was indeed something dramatic enough to be called the Scientific Revolution going on, and that this is an excellent book about it."—Anthony Gottlieb, The New York Times Book Review
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
80 people are currently reading
1063 people want to read
About the author
Steven Shapin
14 books39 followersShapin was trained as a biologist at Reed College and did graduate work in genetics at the University of Wisconsin before taking a Ph.D. in the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
From 1972 to 1989, he was Lecturer, then Reader, at the Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University, and, from 1989 to 2003, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, before taking up an appointment at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard. He has taught for brief periods at Columbia University, Tel-Aviv University, and at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. In 2012, he was the S. T. Lee Visiting Professorial Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
He has written broadly on the history and sociology of science. Among his concerns are scientists, their ethical choices, and the basis of scientific credibility. He revisioned the role of experiment by examining where experiments took place and who performed them. He is credited with restructuring the field's approach to “big issues” in science such as truth, trust, scientific identity, and moral authority.
"The practice of science, both conceptually and instrumentally, is seen to be full of social assumptions. Crucial to their work is the idea that science is based on the public's faith in it. This is why it is important to keep explaining how sound knowledge is generated, how the process works, who takes part in the process and how."
His books on 17th-century science include the "classic book" Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985, with Simon Schaffer); his "path-breaking book" A Social History of Truth (1994), The Scientific Revolution (1996, now translated into 18 languages), and, on modern entrepreneurial science, The Scientific Life (2008). A collection of his essays is Never Pure (2010). His current research interests include the history of dietetics and the history and sociology of taste and subjective judgment, especially in relation to food and wine.
He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and he has written for Harper's Magazine and The New Yorker.
From 1972 to 1989, he was Lecturer, then Reader, at the Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University, and, from 1989 to 2003, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, before taking up an appointment at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard. He has taught for brief periods at Columbia University, Tel-Aviv University, and at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. In 2012, he was the S. T. Lee Visiting Professorial Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
He has written broadly on the history and sociology of science. Among his concerns are scientists, their ethical choices, and the basis of scientific credibility. He revisioned the role of experiment by examining where experiments took place and who performed them. He is credited with restructuring the field's approach to “big issues” in science such as truth, trust, scientific identity, and moral authority.
"The practice of science, both conceptually and instrumentally, is seen to be full of social assumptions. Crucial to their work is the idea that science is based on the public's faith in it. This is why it is important to keep explaining how sound knowledge is generated, how the process works, who takes part in the process and how."
His books on 17th-century science include the "classic book" Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985, with Simon Schaffer); his "path-breaking book" A Social History of Truth (1994), The Scientific Revolution (1996, now translated into 18 languages), and, on modern entrepreneurial science, The Scientific Life (2008). A collection of his essays is Never Pure (2010). His current research interests include the history of dietetics and the history and sociology of taste and subjective judgment, especially in relation to food and wine.
He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and he has written for Harper's Magazine and The New Yorker.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
June 10, 2021
آن روایتی از تاریخ علم که در کتابهای علومِ دروهٔ راهنمایی و کتابهای شیمی و فیزیک دبیرستان به خاطر داریم روایتی خشک و به شدت تکبعدی است؛ این که افرادی حرفهایی زدند و بعد غلط از آب درآمده و افراد دیگری آمدند تا «حقیقت» را برای بشریت آشکار کنند. این تلقی بسیار ناقص و شاید حتا گمراهکننده باشد. این که جامعهٔ ما هنوز با روح علم مدرن خو نگرفته شاید ریشه در این داشته باشد که برای ما علم هنوز همان چیزی است که در کتابها است و باید به آن مراجعه کرد و آن را فرا گرفت. نگریستن به علمورزی به مثابه فعالیتی اجتماعی که قرار است بینش جدیدی به جامعه بدهد و در نهایت برای جامعه سودمند باشد هنوز در ایران جا نیفتاده.
این کتاب بخشی از خلاء موجود در روایت تاریخ علم را پر میکند. کتاب برشی از تاریخ علم را روایت میکند که در آن انقلاب کوپرنیکی رخ داده و در سدههای پسین تحول عظیمی در جهانبینی بشر ایجاد کرده است. بنابراین این روایت رابرت بویل دیگر تنها شیمیدان شکاکی نیست که به دنبال کشف حقیقت باشد، بلکه اشرافزادهای است مؤمن که علم مدرن (فلسفهٔ طبیعی) را نوعی عبادت و تلاشی برای تقویت ایمان به خدا میدانسته و به همین خاطر آزمایشهایش را در روزهای یکشنبه انجام میداده! طبیعی است که در کتابی ۲۰۰ صفحهای نمیتوان تصویر دقیق و موشکافانهای از وقایع اجتماعی دوران ارائه داد، با این حال به نظرم کتاب در رسیدن به اهدافش موفق بوده است.
ارتباط بین علم، دین و سیاست و نحوهٔ برهمکنش اینسه در فصل سوم بسیار خواندنی است. یک نقطهٔ ضعف کتاب این بود که دگرگونی پارادایم از چارچوب ارسطویی به چارچوب مکانیستی را خوب ریشهیابی نکرده است. به نظرم جا داشت این موضوع را وابکاود که سرآغاز رویکرد ماشینانگارانه - استعارهٔ ساعت - نتیجه چه رخدادهایی بوده است. احتمالاً رشد و توسعه در حوزه فنآوری و ماشینسازی که میدانیم پیش از انقلاب علمی به وقوع پیوسته در جوانهزدن استعاره ساعت بیتاثیر نبوده است که کتاب چندان شفاف به آن نپرداخته است.
از کتاب بسیار لذت بردم و خواندن آن را به علاقهمندان توصیه میکنم.
این کتاب بخشی از خلاء موجود در روایت تاریخ علم را پر میکند. کتاب برشی از تاریخ علم را روایت میکند که در آن انقلاب کوپرنیکی رخ داده و در سدههای پسین تحول عظیمی در جهانبینی بشر ایجاد کرده است. بنابراین این روایت رابرت بویل دیگر تنها شیمیدان شکاکی نیست که به دنبال کشف حقیقت باشد، بلکه اشرافزادهای است مؤمن که علم مدرن (فلسفهٔ طبیعی) را نوعی عبادت و تلاشی برای تقویت ایمان به خدا میدانسته و به همین خاطر آزمایشهایش را در روزهای یکشنبه انجام میداده! طبیعی است که در کتابی ۲۰۰ صفحهای نمیتوان تصویر دقیق و موشکافانهای از وقایع اجتماعی دوران ارائه داد، با این حال به نظرم کتاب در رسیدن به اهدافش موفق بوده است.
ارتباط بین علم، دین و سیاست و نحوهٔ برهمکنش اینسه در فصل سوم بسیار خواندنی است. یک نقطهٔ ضعف کتاب این بود که دگرگونی پارادایم از چارچوب ارسطویی به چارچوب مکانیستی را خوب ریشهیابی نکرده است. به نظرم جا داشت این موضوع را وابکاود که سرآغاز رویکرد ماشینانگارانه - استعارهٔ ساعت - نتیجه چه رخدادهایی بوده است. احتمالاً رشد و توسعه در حوزه فنآوری و ماشینسازی که میدانیم پیش از انقلاب علمی به وقوع پیوسته در جوانهزدن استعاره ساعت بیتاثیر نبوده است که کتاب چندان شفاف به آن نپرداخته است.
از کتاب بسیار لذت بردم و خواندن آن را به علاقهمندان توصیه میکنم.
August 12, 2018
The Scientific Revolution is an example of why reading introductions is important. It must be because many readers have skipped it that this book has such a low rating. I am talking about British-favoritism in the book which seems to be the main point of criticism.
Shapin has not attempted to give an overview of the period, be it geographically or temporally. He has written three very brief and closely related accounts of what was once considered a revolution. Three chapters cover respectively the shift in natural philosophers' factual understanding of the nature, methodological changes, and the primary incentives of the whole process. The main point of the book, akin to the literary maxim "show, don't tell", is to illustrate briefly, not to explain to exhaustion, the scientific non-revolution. And as he stresses in the introduction, his preference for English sources is mostly an attempt to utilize his means and skills to best, instead of, perhaps, roaming in alien waters. As Shapin demonstrates through the book, it is possible to achieve his goals with given constrictions.
This point aside, I have a few nitpicks, too. It is actually me, again, having too high expectations for the number of pages I have bothered to read. Still, one feels he could manage with more detailed descriptions when it comes to scientific details. Last one, and actually, this is the second book I have same complaint about: Original, historical pictures are fine, but, honestly, when you are illustrating, say the Geocentric System, a simple black-white picture will do just fine. There is no point in adding original drawings of Kepler if I cannot read his lines or even see the drawing clearly.
These are mere trifles, though. Steven Shapin has achieved almost impossible with The Scientific Revolution. To introduce reader to such a controversial period in less than two hundred pages deserves an applause.
Shapin has not attempted to give an overview of the period, be it geographically or temporally. He has written three very brief and closely related accounts of what was once considered a revolution. Three chapters cover respectively the shift in natural philosophers' factual understanding of the nature, methodological changes, and the primary incentives of the whole process. The main point of the book, akin to the literary maxim "show, don't tell", is to illustrate briefly, not to explain to exhaustion, the scientific non-revolution. And as he stresses in the introduction, his preference for English sources is mostly an attempt to utilize his means and skills to best, instead of, perhaps, roaming in alien waters. As Shapin demonstrates through the book, it is possible to achieve his goals with given constrictions.
This point aside, I have a few nitpicks, too. It is actually me, again, having too high expectations for the number of pages I have bothered to read. Still, one feels he could manage with more detailed descriptions when it comes to scientific details. Last one, and actually, this is the second book I have same complaint about: Original, historical pictures are fine, but, honestly, when you are illustrating, say the Geocentric System, a simple black-white picture will do just fine. There is no point in adding original drawings of Kepler if I cannot read his lines or even see the drawing clearly.
These are mere trifles, though. Steven Shapin has achieved almost impossible with The Scientific Revolution. To introduce reader to such a controversial period in less than two hundred pages deserves an applause.
February 3, 2013
While those very familiar with the history of science will be acutely aware of the glaring gaps and British favoritism in this text, I think it is a good teaching tool. It is an accessible introduction to the implications and contestations of 17th century European science, mainly the transition from Aristotelian teleology to a mechanical view of the universe as regulated and set in to motion by God. Shapin also does a good job of showing how moral inquiry was relegated to the realm of the subjective and uncertain and therefore not important for scientists to take in to account, a specter that still haunts today, particularly in medicine.
That said, a few things are remarkably absent from this text: COLONIALISM? Hello? How can a book on the attempt to secure natural knowledge to justify the European mindset and religious order, occurring at the height of the colonial period, NOT go in to race and encounters with non-European peoples? That is beyond me. There is a superficial treatment of it at best, and that treatment is confined to the 'New World' as being a source for new botanical knowledge, rather than an existential catalyst. Shapin is also eerily Eurocentric in the way he treats knowledge formation during this period in history. He conveniently ignores the historical data on how the knowledge and methods of colonialized peoples, Indians in particular, was 'borrowed' by Europeans without citation, not to mention the legacy of Middle Eastern philosophers during the medieval period. Still, if I ever teach a class on the history of science I will assign this text, albeit ALONG with many other texts that fill in these gaps.
That said, a few things are remarkably absent from this text: COLONIALISM? Hello? How can a book on the attempt to secure natural knowledge to justify the European mindset and religious order, occurring at the height of the colonial period, NOT go in to race and encounters with non-European peoples? That is beyond me. There is a superficial treatment of it at best, and that treatment is confined to the 'New World' as being a source for new botanical knowledge, rather than an existential catalyst. Shapin is also eerily Eurocentric in the way he treats knowledge formation during this period in history. He conveniently ignores the historical data on how the knowledge and methods of colonialized peoples, Indians in particular, was 'borrowed' by Europeans without citation, not to mention the legacy of Middle Eastern philosophers during the medieval period. Still, if I ever teach a class on the history of science I will assign this text, albeit ALONG with many other texts that fill in these gaps.
September 11, 2025
(Conceptualized as a kind of introductory textbook into the latter, and absolutely excellent as such.)
Pays attention to discontinuities and continuities in justifying new knowledge, the role of rhetoric, the fuzziness of actual practice, the concrete mechanical tools turned paradigmic metaphors and the normativity of method. Of note is (in contrast to our modern secularist indeas) how mutually necessary the embeddedness within religious thinking and the (apparent) limitations of seventeenth century mechanist science were.
_______
(p. 165, What was the knowledge for?)
_______
a problem of bibliography: accessibility and science in circummillenarian popular literature:
In order to avoid potentially intimidating* and weighty annotation, Shapin chose to strip the text of detailed reference. Any such approach obviously presents of conflict with maintaining rigour and traceability. Shapin's compromise and solution is the appended Bibliographic Essay - whose comments about the state of the field, approaches and topics of interest are rich and illuminating. (They may have lost a bit of their didactic relevance in the thirty-odd years since publication. As commonplace discourse (and, as ever, forever, Science and its mythological specters are wielded as tools of discourse) is always two-to-three decades behind, if not wilfully unaware of, any progress made by the historical profession, this is not much of an issue to its usefulness to the reader.) I will probably forever be referring to this as a positive example of bibliography in texts aiming to be accessible.
(Also, Shapin's occasionally humble-deprecatory reference to his own (older) work is amusing.)
______
ps
* (Personally, as a once-child browsing the history section of the library with a Discworld-instilled love for footnotes and zero idea about the scholarly utility of bibliography, I never got what the fear of lengthy sections of citations was about: you don't know what to do with them? Skip 'em. They make for a great place to keep your bookend** at whilst reading and give the appearance that you are reading a longer book that what you are (actually) reading. win-win. ez pz.)
______
pps
** (Of course, once and/or (else) if you find yourself capable and interested in following up on said citations, the novel problem may present itself of needing, at all times, (at least) two (2) bookends. Truly like the razor's sharp edge is this path hard and difficult to traverse.)
Pays attention to discontinuities and continuities in justifying new knowledge, the role of rhetoric, the fuzziness of actual practice, the concrete mechanical tools turned paradigmic metaphors and the normativity of method. Of note is (in contrast to our modern secularist indeas) how mutually necessary the embeddedness within religious thinking and the (apparent) limitations of seventeenth century mechanist science were.
_______
The cultural inheritance that enjoins us to contrast the domain of science to that of human passions and interests counts not only as a description but also as prescription: this is how things ought to be arranged in scince. That means that any account, such as this one, and much recent history and sociology of science, that seeks to portray science as the contingent, diverse and at times deeply problematic product of interestred, morally concerned, historically situated people is likely to be read as criticism of science. [...] Something is being criticized here: it is not science but some pervasive stories we tend to be told about science.
(p. 165, What was the knowledge for?)
_______
a problem of bibliography: accessibility and science in circummillenarian popular literature:
In order to avoid potentially intimidating* and weighty annotation, Shapin chose to strip the text of detailed reference. Any such approach obviously presents of conflict with maintaining rigour and traceability. Shapin's compromise and solution is the appended Bibliographic Essay - whose comments about the state of the field, approaches and topics of interest are rich and illuminating. (They may have lost a bit of their didactic relevance in the thirty-odd years since publication. As commonplace discourse (and, as ever, forever, Science and its mythological specters are wielded as tools of discourse) is always two-to-three decades behind, if not wilfully unaware of, any progress made by the historical profession, this is not much of an issue to its usefulness to the reader.) I will probably forever be referring to this as a positive example of bibliography in texts aiming to be accessible.
(Also, Shapin's occasionally humble-deprecatory reference to his own (older) work is amusing.)
______
ps
* (Personally, as a once-child browsing the history section of the library with a Discworld-instilled love for footnotes and zero idea about the scholarly utility of bibliography, I never got what the fear of lengthy sections of citations was about: you don't know what to do with them? Skip 'em. They make for a great place to keep your bookend** at whilst reading and give the appearance that you are reading a longer book that what you are (actually) reading. win-win. ez pz.)
______
pps
** (Of course, once and/or (else) if you find yourself capable and interested in following up on said citations, the novel problem may present itself of needing, at all times, (at least) two (2) bookends. Truly like the razor's sharp edge is this path hard and difficult to traverse.)
February 1, 2018
Might need to re-read this for a better rating. Very pressed for time.
Read
May 29, 2025Celeftiall Orbes, Heavenly Sphæres &c.
May 24, 2018
آرزوی من نوشتن چنین کتابی است. از بس که جامع، دقیق و پر از جزییات مفید است. میتواند نگاه شما را به علم مدرن دگرگون کند. یک ستاره کم دادم چون بعضی جاها خواندنش حوصلهٔ پولادین میخواست. اگر به تاریخ علم علاقه دارید خوب است سراغ این کتاب بروید اما اگر مجبورید تاریخ علم مطالعه کنید گزینهٔ خوبی نیست.
May 5, 2025
« چیزی به نام انقلاب علمی در قرن هفدهم وجود نداشت و این کتاب نیز درباره همین است. » ص ۱۵
استیون شپین با آوردن همین جمله در آغاز مقدمه کتاب در مقابل تمام تاریخ نگاری علم از اوایل قرن بیستم تا روزگار خودش میایستد. اما این جمله به چه معناست؟
همانطور که دکتر خوشنویس در پیشگفتار خود ذکر میکنند، شیپن عضو مکتب ادینبرو ست. ادینبروییها به جای اصالت دادند به فرایند علمی، به زمینههای اجتماعی و فرهنگی آن توجه میکنند و جمله آغاز یادداشت را هم با ارجاع به همین عقیده میتوان فهمید.
کتاب سه فصل دارد:
۱- چه میدانستند؟
۲- چگونه میدانستند؟
۳- دانش در خدمت چه بود؟
فصل اول و دوم چندان چیزی از کتابهای مرسوم علمی دیگر ندارند. تمایز این کتاب به فصل سومش است. شیپن در فصل سوم اول به رابطه فلسفه طبیعی آن روزگار با قدرت حاکم و سپس به صورت مفصلتری، با نهاد دین میپردازد. شیپن نشان میدهد که فلاسفه طبیعی یا همان دانشمندان تا چه اندازه درگیرِ دین بودند و دین برایشان اهمیت داشته. با خواندن این فصل میبینیم برخلاف آنچه که در کتابهای تاریخ علم دیگر آمده، فلاسفه طبیعی آنچنان هم شهسواران علم تجربی نبودند و گاه عقایدی داشتند بسیار مخالف با آنچه ما امروز علم تجربی میخوانیم.
با این توضیح کار شیپن مشخص میشود. او دقیقا میخواهد همین را ��شان دهد که واقعا اینطور نیست که در قرن هفدهم ناگهان یک گزاره جابهجا شده باشد ( مثلا انتقال از تبیینهای غایت شناختی به تبیینهای مکانیکی از عالم ) و ناگهان تمام معرفت بشری یک جا قلب شده است. بلکه این فرایندی زمان بر بوده که لزوما نام انقلاب را نمیتوان بر آن نهاد. از این لحاظ کار او بدعتی در تاریخ علم به شمار میآید.
استیون شپین با آوردن همین جمله در آغاز مقدمه کتاب در مقابل تمام تاریخ نگاری علم از اوایل قرن بیستم تا روزگار خودش میایستد. اما این جمله به چه معناست؟
همانطور که دکتر خوشنویس در پیشگفتار خود ذکر میکنند، شیپن عضو مکتب ادینبرو ست. ادینبروییها به جای اصالت دادند به فرایند علمی، به زمینههای اجتماعی و فرهنگی آن توجه میکنند و جمله آغاز یادداشت را هم با ارجاع به همین عقیده میتوان فهمید.
کتاب سه فصل دارد:
۱- چه میدانستند؟
۲- چگونه میدانستند؟
۳- دانش در خدمت چه بود؟
فصل اول و دوم چندان چیزی از کتابهای مرسوم علمی دیگر ندارند. تمایز این کتاب به فصل سومش است. شیپن در فصل سوم اول به رابطه فلسفه طبیعی آن روزگار با قدرت حاکم و سپس به صورت مفصلتری، با نهاد دین میپردازد. شیپن نشان میدهد که فلاسفه طبیعی یا همان دانشمندان تا چه اندازه درگیرِ دین بودند و دین برایشان اهمیت داشته. با خواندن این فصل میبینیم برخلاف آنچه که در کتابهای تاریخ علم دیگر آمده، فلاسفه طبیعی آنچنان هم شهسواران علم تجربی نبودند و گاه عقایدی داشتند بسیار مخالف با آنچه ما امروز علم تجربی میخوانیم.
با این توضیح کار شیپن مشخص میشود. او دقیقا میخواهد همین را ��شان دهد که واقعا اینطور نیست که در قرن هفدهم ناگهان یک گزاره جابهجا شده باشد ( مثلا انتقال از تبیینهای غایت شناختی به تبیینهای مکانیکی از عالم ) و ناگهان تمام معرفت بشری یک جا قلب شده است. بلکه این فرایندی زمان بر بوده که لزوما نام انقلاب را نمیتوان بر آن نهاد. از این لحاظ کار او بدعتی در تاریخ علم به شمار میآید.
June 3, 2022
Rönesans'ta ve sonrasında deneyciliğin -bilimsel bilgi-, otorite ve eski metinler karşısında, güvenilir kılınabilinmesi amacıyla 'aklın duyular üzerinde hakim kılınması' söz konusudur. Ay'ın bir elmadan daha büyük olduğunu ve güneşin hareketsiz olduğunu (dünyanın güneşin etrafında döndüğünü) 'görmek', duyular sayesinde değil, ancak eğitilmiş akıl sayesinde mümkün olabilirdi. Duyuların akla hakim olduğu noktada, akıl (gördüklerine göründüğü gibi inanır) ve bu inancın(ın) kölesi olurdu. Yine bu dönemde, otorite ve eski metinlerden sıyrılma eğilim gösteren insan aklının, güvendiği ve kaynak aldığı bilimsel deney yöntemlerine ve ölçümlerine standartlar geliştirme, bu döneme kadar toplanmış bilgiyi derleme (ansiklopedi), topluma yayma, yaygınlaştırma ve güvence altına alma (güvenilir kaynak haline getirme) çabası görülür. Bu amaçlarla kurulan; Florentine Accademia del Cimento (1657), Royal Society of London (The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge)(1660) ve Parisian Academie Royal des Sciences (1666), The Accademia dei Lincei (1603) gibi sivil toplum örgütlerinde bilimsel bilginin şifası için, insanlar arasında tartışma ve kavgalara yol açtığı sebebiyle dini ve politik konularda konuşmak yasaklanmıştı. Kitabın türkçe çevirisi var. https://www.vadiyayinlari.com.tr/bili...
December 3, 2024
科學這名詞被發明前，科學算入哲學。
《知道什麼？》
亞里斯多德384BC-322主張，在伽利略1564-1642對太陽黑點的解釋下被挑戰，天體易變性，不是把地球和其他軌跡分開。伽利略認為依事實，事物在前，命名在後。而不是將傳統理論視為理所當然。
培根1561-1626認為世界，會因航行、貿易、知識發現而進一步開啟。
托勒密100-170是以地球為宇宙中心。每個元素都有其自然位置，只是哪一個特別重的元素為主。
機械哲學是以機械的特徵去想像自然。時鐘，適合用來解釋機械哲學。1630笛卡兒用鐘來比喻自然界。波以耳以鐘理解自然運轉。神秘力量不是魔法，都可以被解釋。
培根反亞里斯多德，認為人造物和自然物，沒有很大的差異。
波以耳認為，機械哲學兩個原則=物質和運動。
克卜勒，柏拉圖派，以上帝創造五種標準幾何空間，來說數學支配行星間的距離。牛頓，運用兩種運動解釋克卜勒畫的橢圓軌道。（過去，宇宙是有限，牛頓後，宇宙是無限空間）所以，牛頓是引入神秘力量，顛覆機械哲學，還是，創立新哲學？這是一直爭議的問題。
《怎麼知道？》
新科學是十七世紀的標誌。兩種分裂：1）經驗，2）實驗，以工具來宣稱理論的確定性。
不要依賴人類過去給的證言，要相信自然給的，以自身經驗為主。只要人們的心靈受到正確的導引訓練，自然因果結構的知識可以百分之百確立。
培根～演繹：從已確定的原理，分析理解事物。
誰的經驗？不只是他們做了什麼，相信什麼，還包括做了哪些來確立、辯論、傳播信念。
《用來做什麼？》
誰能擁有知識？
社會秩序要求共識。每個人都相信同一個標準，何為正確？國家權力與科學的關係，微妙。
在詮釋上帝的語言方面，專業的自然哲學家，可能比神學家做的更好。自然哲學所追求的是上帝的語言，同時治療迷信的可靠藥方。所以科學是宗教的女僕。
對笛卡兒而言，解釋人類身體，不同於解釋人類。
神秘在於人類如何架構心和物質。心，不佔空間，到底在哪裡？笛卡兒認為在松果體。
最棘手的是如何面對科學與情感，可能對立的文化遺產？不刻意的拼湊科學神話，才是不否定科學的文化遺產。
《知道什麼？》
亞里斯多德384BC-322主張，在伽利略1564-1642對太陽黑點的解釋下被挑戰，天體易變性，不是把地球和其他軌跡分開。伽利略認為依事實，事物在前，命名在後。而不是將傳統理論視為理所當然。
培根1561-1626認為世界，會因航行、貿易、知識發現而進一步開啟。
托勒密100-170是以地球為宇宙中心。每個元素都有其自然位置，只是哪一個特別重的元素為主。
機械哲學是以機械的特徵去想像自然。時鐘，適合用來解釋機械哲學。1630笛卡兒用鐘來比喻自然界。波以耳以鐘理解自然運轉。神秘力量不是魔法，都可以被解釋。
培根反亞里斯多德，認為人造物和自然物，沒有很大的差異。
波以耳認為，機械哲學兩個原則=物質和運動。
克卜勒，柏拉圖派，以上帝創造五種標準幾何空間，來說數學支配行星間的距離。牛頓，運用兩種運動解釋克卜勒畫的橢圓軌道。（過去，宇宙是有限，牛頓後，宇宙是無限空間）所以，牛頓是引入神秘力量，顛覆機械哲學，還是，創立新哲學？這是一直爭議的問題。
《怎麼知道？》
新科學是十七世紀的標誌。兩種分裂：1）經驗，2）實驗，以工具來宣稱理論的確定性。
不要依賴人類過去給的證言，要相信自然給的，以自身經驗為主。只要人們的心靈受到正確的導引訓練，自然因果結構的知識可以百分之百確立。
培根～演繹：從已確定的原理，分析理解事物。
誰的經驗？不只是他們做了什麼，相信什麼，還包括做了哪些來確立、辯論、傳播信念。
《用來做什麼？》
誰能擁有知識？
社會秩序要求共識。每個人都相信同一個標準，何為正確？國家權力與科學的關係，微妙。
在詮釋上帝的語言方面，專業的自然哲學家，可能比神學家做的更好。自然哲學所追求的是上帝的語言，同時治療迷信的可靠藥方。所以科學是宗教的女僕。
對笛卡兒而言，解釋人類身體，不同於解釋人類。
神秘在於人類如何架構心和物質。心，不佔空間，到底在哪裡？笛卡兒認為在松果體。
最棘手的是如何面對科學與情感，可能對立的文化遺產？不刻意的拼湊科學神話，才是不否定科學的文化遺產。
June 6, 2022
« These are, so to speak, different games the natural philosopher might wish to play, and decisions about which game is best, are different in kind from decisions about what is a sensible move within a given game: an accurate pass from midfield to the winger winger in soccer is not a bad jump shot in basketball.”
Merci Ducheyne!
Merci Ducheyne!
May 23, 2019
Good book
Read
October 13, 2024lidt sent på den, men jeg gjorde det! lowkey banger
August 10, 2017
I never understood the significance of the history of the Scientific Revolution so well before now! P.S. this book has caused me to fall in love with Nikola Tesla.
January 24, 2023
draws the connections between philosophy and science! it is a really cool overview showing how natural philosophy became the science we do today
September 13, 2018
I have mixed feelings about this book. It made me reread it but I think its more due to its unusual structure than its substance. I don't think the structure works though. It's too chaotic which made its point much harder to come through than it should. There are only three chapters titled as "what was known", "how it was known" and "why knowledge was useful".
In the first chapter he shows how the heliocentric system contrasted with the old one. How it had to challenge the perception that everything that existed was already known (and was included in the bible) and the quite consistent and really intuitive Aristotelian cosmology with its teleological physics and astronomy. It was eventually replaced by a mechanistic view of nature that eliminated the "intentions" of things and was focused in the mathematization of the universe, using experiments conducted in ideal conditions (that for Aristotle would be useless as he was interested in examining nature as it is). But is the concept of gravity a valid explanation or just another occult power that is useful in calculations but doesn't identify any kind of cause? Is there really a difference between calling it gravity and calling it "the intention of things to reach the center of the earth" or maybe after Newton "the intention to attract"? It could have this name with all the inferences it leads to and still be a perfectly measurable concept. It seems that the difference with the ancients is that simply proclaiming a force that exists is not a good enough explanation if you don't also show the reason it is there. Nowadays we are fine with simply pointing them, describing them and measuring them mathematically and either attributing the causes to blanket concepts like the big bang or evolution, or avoiding causes altogether. Similar thoughts appear throughout the book, like for example in chapter two where he describes the reluctance of Boyle to create a philosophical theory that accounts for pressure, but staying instead on the mathematical explanations, while Descartes tried to fit everything into his mechanistic view of nature.
In the second chapter he describes how the new thinkers claimed to overthrow the old experts and replace them with observations and empirical testing, but at the same time still claim that their ideas were already discovered in antiquity but lost through the ages. What counted however as empirical evidence is hard to be defined as it is not that clear why one should choose a telescope instead of his own eyes. Aristotle's physics were also based on empirical testing: You throw the arrow upwards and it lands on the same spot you launched it from, thus earth does not move. Basically they meant that the new experts should be replaced with new ones. To describe a phenomenon, empirical evidence is not enough. You have to create a theory and for that you have to use your mind which means that you will see things in a certain way of your choice. Bacon simply argued for putting more weight in empirical evidence than the corresponding theory and not eliminating the latter altogether. That would mean accepting that an apple is larger than the moon. There was also the problem of how to publish the results of the experiments, which lead to having reliable witnesses. Finally there were also people like Hobbes and Descartes who thought that experiments were a waste of time and were really interested in the causes and the theory, not the math. Newton also claimed to prove the causes of his colour theory beyond certainty even though the evidence could be explained with multiple theories about its causes.
The third chapter begins with the frustration of Newton from the lack of consensus in the approval of his theory even though he thought it was mathematically proven. Again we go to the central idea that mathematics without causes were not enough for many physical philosophers (the scientists of that age). This conflict mirrored the one that resulted from the protestant reformation, the end of the feudal age, the discovery of the new world and the printing press. Truth, knowledge and expertise had to be redefined and conflict was considered natural. Education had to be reformed to get rid of Aristotelianism but it couldn't become too individualistic as that would undermine the power of the state and the church. Even the traditional form of education in universities was attacked as its goal seemed to be to preserve the old knowledge instead of developing new. Organizations like the Royal society with its gentlemen tried to claim a better source of discovery of knowledge with less conflict. The new worldview had some problems with the church since the latter was fused with Aristotelianism but they were generally easy to be solved by appealing to the book of nature and the logic that God gave us, plus the multiple benefits that science was promising. Actually, the depiction of nature as a perfect machine reinforced the idea that the world can't be random and it had to be constructed by God*. Thus, scientific (at the time) issues, rose like "does God set nature in motion and disappeared or does he have a more active role?" or if God is superfluous now and everything can be attributed to nature. Many members of the royal academy still believed in witches and ghosts. And finally only Descartes was convinced that the machinistic universe is going to explain everything.
And if after reading all that you can't understand what this book is about, congratulations. That is the point. The goal of the book is to show how different were the opinions of the scientists and to combine it with the fact that nobody really thought there was any scientific revolution going on at the time (the term was invented in the 20th century) to show that the scientific revolution never happened and it was simply business as usual. Was the book succesful? I am ambivalent about how to describe what really happened but I am definitely not a fan of the author's way to show what he thinks it happened. I believe the fatal flaw of this book is that when it describes what happened it does not contrast enough the different practices or reminds us why it mentions what it mentions. It is simply descriptions upon descriptions, one after another.
*Nothing to do with this book but since this is a common enough argument and my reviews are basically a blog anyway, I 'll write my thoughts because I might forget them. The question that might help someone who agrees with this argument is this: What kind of world would seem to us like a world that doesn't have order or one that doesn't work? Is it possible to come up with one where we have mental faculties but it doesn't seem ordered? I don't think so. I think our world is actually extremely chaotic, full of variation and random events and the supposed order is simply familiarity since we have nothing to compare it with. Coming up with a world that works a little worse than this one is easily countered by coming up with a world slightly better that also works. I guess someone could try to counter the requirement of mental faculties for the valution of the world and try to compare it with all the possible worlds instead, including the ones that we do not exist. But is this fair when the only way to make the valuation is by having mental faculties? It can be, I think. They are two different calculations. So maybe the strongest argument is this: Out of all the possible worlds that we can imagine, this one is much more ordered than most of them and it works better, at least for us. I think I simply stated the anthropic principle. That would be true but does it really say anything about needing a creator? Well, maybe it wasn't as simple as I thought it would be.
In the first chapter he shows how the heliocentric system contrasted with the old one. How it had to challenge the perception that everything that existed was already known (and was included in the bible) and the quite consistent and really intuitive Aristotelian cosmology with its teleological physics and astronomy. It was eventually replaced by a mechanistic view of nature that eliminated the "intentions" of things and was focused in the mathematization of the universe, using experiments conducted in ideal conditions (that for Aristotle would be useless as he was interested in examining nature as it is). But is the concept of gravity a valid explanation or just another occult power that is useful in calculations but doesn't identify any kind of cause? Is there really a difference between calling it gravity and calling it "the intention of things to reach the center of the earth" or maybe after Newton "the intention to attract"? It could have this name with all the inferences it leads to and still be a perfectly measurable concept. It seems that the difference with the ancients is that simply proclaiming a force that exists is not a good enough explanation if you don't also show the reason it is there. Nowadays we are fine with simply pointing them, describing them and measuring them mathematically and either attributing the causes to blanket concepts like the big bang or evolution, or avoiding causes altogether. Similar thoughts appear throughout the book, like for example in chapter two where he describes the reluctance of Boyle to create a philosophical theory that accounts for pressure, but staying instead on the mathematical explanations, while Descartes tried to fit everything into his mechanistic view of nature.
In the second chapter he describes how the new thinkers claimed to overthrow the old experts and replace them with observations and empirical testing, but at the same time still claim that their ideas were already discovered in antiquity but lost through the ages. What counted however as empirical evidence is hard to be defined as it is not that clear why one should choose a telescope instead of his own eyes. Aristotle's physics were also based on empirical testing: You throw the arrow upwards and it lands on the same spot you launched it from, thus earth does not move. Basically they meant that the new experts should be replaced with new ones. To describe a phenomenon, empirical evidence is not enough. You have to create a theory and for that you have to use your mind which means that you will see things in a certain way of your choice. Bacon simply argued for putting more weight in empirical evidence than the corresponding theory and not eliminating the latter altogether. That would mean accepting that an apple is larger than the moon. There was also the problem of how to publish the results of the experiments, which lead to having reliable witnesses. Finally there were also people like Hobbes and Descartes who thought that experiments were a waste of time and were really interested in the causes and the theory, not the math. Newton also claimed to prove the causes of his colour theory beyond certainty even though the evidence could be explained with multiple theories about its causes.
The third chapter begins with the frustration of Newton from the lack of consensus in the approval of his theory even though he thought it was mathematically proven. Again we go to the central idea that mathematics without causes were not enough for many physical philosophers (the scientists of that age). This conflict mirrored the one that resulted from the protestant reformation, the end of the feudal age, the discovery of the new world and the printing press. Truth, knowledge and expertise had to be redefined and conflict was considered natural. Education had to be reformed to get rid of Aristotelianism but it couldn't become too individualistic as that would undermine the power of the state and the church. Even the traditional form of education in universities was attacked as its goal seemed to be to preserve the old knowledge instead of developing new. Organizations like the Royal society with its gentlemen tried to claim a better source of discovery of knowledge with less conflict. The new worldview had some problems with the church since the latter was fused with Aristotelianism but they were generally easy to be solved by appealing to the book of nature and the logic that God gave us, plus the multiple benefits that science was promising. Actually, the depiction of nature as a perfect machine reinforced the idea that the world can't be random and it had to be constructed by God*. Thus, scientific (at the time) issues, rose like "does God set nature in motion and disappeared or does he have a more active role?" or if God is superfluous now and everything can be attributed to nature. Many members of the royal academy still believed in witches and ghosts. And finally only Descartes was convinced that the machinistic universe is going to explain everything.
And if after reading all that you can't understand what this book is about, congratulations. That is the point. The goal of the book is to show how different were the opinions of the scientists and to combine it with the fact that nobody really thought there was any scientific revolution going on at the time (the term was invented in the 20th century) to show that the scientific revolution never happened and it was simply business as usual. Was the book succesful? I am ambivalent about how to describe what really happened but I am definitely not a fan of the author's way to show what he thinks it happened. I believe the fatal flaw of this book is that when it describes what happened it does not contrast enough the different practices or reminds us why it mentions what it mentions. It is simply descriptions upon descriptions, one after another.
*Nothing to do with this book but since this is a common enough argument and my reviews are basically a blog anyway, I 'll write my thoughts because I might forget them. The question that might help someone who agrees with this argument is this: What kind of world would seem to us like a world that doesn't have order or one that doesn't work? Is it possible to come up with one where we have mental faculties but it doesn't seem ordered? I don't think so. I think our world is actually extremely chaotic, full of variation and random events and the supposed order is simply familiarity since we have nothing to compare it with. Coming up with a world that works a little worse than this one is easily countered by coming up with a world slightly better that also works. I guess someone could try to counter the requirement of mental faculties for the valution of the world and try to compare it with all the possible worlds instead, including the ones that we do not exist. But is this fair when the only way to make the valuation is by having mental faculties? It can be, I think. They are two different calculations. So maybe the strongest argument is this: Out of all the possible worlds that we can imagine, this one is much more ordered than most of them and it works better, at least for us. I think I simply stated the anthropic principle. That would be true but does it really say anything about needing a creator? Well, maybe it wasn't as simple as I thought it would be.
August 3, 2021
The book begins, “There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it.” This statement acknowledges the fact that there is a debate about whether there ever was a thing called the Scientific Revolution. The actors at the time, people such as Galileo, Newton, Descartes, Hobbes, Bacon and Boyle, exhibited much diversity of thought, they argued amongst themselves, and much of what they believed we would laugh at today as superstitious junk. The term “Scientific Revolution itself was not even coined until 1939 by Alexandre Kovre.
Yet the actors themselves believed “that they were proposing some very new and very important changes in the knowledge of natural reality and in the practices by which legitimate knowledge was to secured, assessed, and communicated.” They proclaimed themselves to be engaged in modern, as opposed to ancient thought. If we look back from our vantage point, we can see a real thing. This book really does tell you what the Scientific Revolution was. According to the author, the book concentrates upon four changes “the mechanization of nature… the de-personalization of natural knowledge… the attempted mechanization of knowledge making… and… the aspiration to use the resulting reformed natural knowledge to achieve moral, social, and political ends….
The author points out that the Scientific Revolution took place in a situation of European social crisis The feudal order had broken down and been replaced by warring nation states. The Age of Exploration and the discovery of the New World had brought new knowledge and ideas flooding in. Wars of religion ravaged Europe. And this erosion of authority set the stage for new kinds of knowledge-making. Some scholars became independent of the Church-controlled universities. Galileo and others received princely patronage. Science had military and practical applications, the new princes knew it, and they rewarded results. Galileo had to recant to the Inquisition in 1633, but this was merely an example of the old order being washed away.
Inevitably, the book dwells in some detail about what these thinkers actually thought. Obviously, they were not wholly modern. All of them were Christian, and most of them believed in ghosts, witches and demons. However, as Galileo said when he discovered sunspots in 1610, we cannot take ancient authority and then use it to describe what we see. We need to observe what actually is in the world, describe it and name it and build our theories from there. This was a revolutionary way to look at things, and it makes possible the idea of linear, cumulative, advances in knowledge.
Especially with Descartes, but all of the Scientific Revolution thinkers to a certain extent, looked upon the universe as a giant machine, and people and animals and everything in it as parts of that machine and also machines in and of themselves. They looked at the giant clocks being constructed in European cities and thought that the universe worked something like that. Remember, a clock needs a clockmaker, a designer, and that was God. Whether the clockmaker merely set it in motion according to a series of discoverable laws or was capable at any time in interfering with the motion was debated, but the thinkers were generally trying to find support for how God worked in the universe.
The link between a mechanistic view of the universe and mathematics was contested at the time and has been ever since, but the pinnacle of the Scientific Revolution has generally been considered to be Isaac Newton’s 1687 The Mathematical Principals of Natural Philosophy. He began modern physics. However, it was controversial at the time because he was not concerned with causes. What causes gravity? He doesn’t know. He just describes how to calculate its effects.
The core of all of this, according to the author, is the separation of science and morality. In order to do science, you need to keep society at bay, “represent what is in the natural world, not what ought to be.” Science is objective rather than subjective. Practitioners need to set aside their passions and interests and describe the world objectively and neutrally. This is greatest idea and achievement of the Scientific Revolution.
As we live in a democratic polis, it is sometimes important to be reminded of the importance of elite thought and action. Sometimes the majority are quite wrong or unaware of what is perhaps the most important thing going on among only a very few people. The author says that it would be possible to write several valuable and legitimate histories of the period without ever mentioning the Scientific Revolution. Probably only about 100 contemporaries read Newton’s book and only a dozen or two understood it. A change in thought among a very small number of people at a specific time in a specific place can cause great changes around the world. Sometimes that is a good thing.
This is an account of how something that claimed to be fundamentally new and modern aimed to replace what it said was ancient, worthless incorrect knowledge. A few things need to be said about this. Not all of the old knowledge was worthless and not all of the new knowledge was correct, though, by and large, the new had more explanatory power than the old. Also, the new built upon foundations and knowledge that the old had laid. We are facing the same problem now. This book was published in 1996 and I don’t know if it could be published now. Those who advocate for something called “The Scientific Revolution” are now accused of being Eurocentric racists who devalue other types of knowledge. The objectivity that those who carried it out claimed to be absolutely necessary is now thought to be impossible. Revolutions devour their young.
We stand on the shoulders of giants, and so did they. Their discoveries in astronomy and at the micro level were made possible by advances in European glass making that enabled the production of lenses that could be used to make telescopes and microscopes. There was an idea of air being more than an absence of things but it wasn’t until Evangelista Torricelli invented the barometer in 1644 that the idea of air pressure was born. And that led to vacuum pumps. They began to work out the idea of the experimental method. Etcetera and onward.
There is no such thing as teleology. We do not get from here to there inevitably. There has been much chance, luck, sweat and mistakes and everything else between then and now. It is possible to explain how we how we got from there to here, but none of it was inevitable. And neither is our future. It is in our hands.
Yet the actors themselves believed “that they were proposing some very new and very important changes in the knowledge of natural reality and in the practices by which legitimate knowledge was to secured, assessed, and communicated.” They proclaimed themselves to be engaged in modern, as opposed to ancient thought. If we look back from our vantage point, we can see a real thing. This book really does tell you what the Scientific Revolution was. According to the author, the book concentrates upon four changes “the mechanization of nature… the de-personalization of natural knowledge… the attempted mechanization of knowledge making… and… the aspiration to use the resulting reformed natural knowledge to achieve moral, social, and political ends….
The author points out that the Scientific Revolution took place in a situation of European social crisis The feudal order had broken down and been replaced by warring nation states. The Age of Exploration and the discovery of the New World had brought new knowledge and ideas flooding in. Wars of religion ravaged Europe. And this erosion of authority set the stage for new kinds of knowledge-making. Some scholars became independent of the Church-controlled universities. Galileo and others received princely patronage. Science had military and practical applications, the new princes knew it, and they rewarded results. Galileo had to recant to the Inquisition in 1633, but this was merely an example of the old order being washed away.
Inevitably, the book dwells in some detail about what these thinkers actually thought. Obviously, they were not wholly modern. All of them were Christian, and most of them believed in ghosts, witches and demons. However, as Galileo said when he discovered sunspots in 1610, we cannot take ancient authority and then use it to describe what we see. We need to observe what actually is in the world, describe it and name it and build our theories from there. This was a revolutionary way to look at things, and it makes possible the idea of linear, cumulative, advances in knowledge.
Especially with Descartes, but all of the Scientific Revolution thinkers to a certain extent, looked upon the universe as a giant machine, and people and animals and everything in it as parts of that machine and also machines in and of themselves. They looked at the giant clocks being constructed in European cities and thought that the universe worked something like that. Remember, a clock needs a clockmaker, a designer, and that was God. Whether the clockmaker merely set it in motion according to a series of discoverable laws or was capable at any time in interfering with the motion was debated, but the thinkers were generally trying to find support for how God worked in the universe.
The link between a mechanistic view of the universe and mathematics was contested at the time and has been ever since, but the pinnacle of the Scientific Revolution has generally been considered to be Isaac Newton’s 1687 The Mathematical Principals of Natural Philosophy. He began modern physics. However, it was controversial at the time because he was not concerned with causes. What causes gravity? He doesn’t know. He just describes how to calculate its effects.
The core of all of this, according to the author, is the separation of science and morality. In order to do science, you need to keep society at bay, “represent what is in the natural world, not what ought to be.” Science is objective rather than subjective. Practitioners need to set aside their passions and interests and describe the world objectively and neutrally. This is greatest idea and achievement of the Scientific Revolution.
As we live in a democratic polis, it is sometimes important to be reminded of the importance of elite thought and action. Sometimes the majority are quite wrong or unaware of what is perhaps the most important thing going on among only a very few people. The author says that it would be possible to write several valuable and legitimate histories of the period without ever mentioning the Scientific Revolution. Probably only about 100 contemporaries read Newton’s book and only a dozen or two understood it. A change in thought among a very small number of people at a specific time in a specific place can cause great changes around the world. Sometimes that is a good thing.
This is an account of how something that claimed to be fundamentally new and modern aimed to replace what it said was ancient, worthless incorrect knowledge. A few things need to be said about this. Not all of the old knowledge was worthless and not all of the new knowledge was correct, though, by and large, the new had more explanatory power than the old. Also, the new built upon foundations and knowledge that the old had laid. We are facing the same problem now. This book was published in 1996 and I don’t know if it could be published now. Those who advocate for something called “The Scientific Revolution” are now accused of being Eurocentric racists who devalue other types of knowledge. The objectivity that those who carried it out claimed to be absolutely necessary is now thought to be impossible. Revolutions devour their young.
We stand on the shoulders of giants, and so did they. Their discoveries in astronomy and at the micro level were made possible by advances in European glass making that enabled the production of lenses that could be used to make telescopes and microscopes. There was an idea of air being more than an absence of things but it wasn’t until Evangelista Torricelli invented the barometer in 1644 that the idea of air pressure was born. And that led to vacuum pumps. They began to work out the idea of the experimental method. Etcetera and onward.
There is no such thing as teleology. We do not get from here to there inevitably. There has been much chance, luck, sweat and mistakes and everything else between then and now. It is possible to explain how we how we got from there to here, but none of it was inevitable. And neither is our future. It is in our hands.
January 7, 2021
The Scientific Revolution took place in Europe in the 17th century and has bequeathed us as many myths as objective truths. Shapin splits this short work into three chapters or sections: what was known, how was it known and to what use was it to be put.
The What of the Scientific Revolution was a shift from an Aristotelian teleological understanding of nature to a mechanistic version. Take for instance the behaviour of a suction pump. The medieval explanation of its working would be to say that as nature hates a vacuum, so that the water rises to fill the gap left by the departing air. The mechanistic explanation would point to air pressure and various other process which I am too scientifically illiterate to recall verbatim. The main crux is that one explanation imbues nature with purpose: water hates a vacuum, and one does not. All this goes back to the medieval worldview, encompassing every aspect of human knowledge and life, articulated by the likes of Aquinas and Dante. So, for instance, it was accounted a point of great controversy when Galileo discovered irregularities on the surface of the sun. Why should this matter? Well, if you believe - as near every one in Latin Christendom did - that the translunar regions above the moon were perfect and unchanging - a prelapsarian world of absolute harmony - then the presence of such blots is logically impossible.
The How is the Scientific Method: the repudiation of textual authority and the embracement of empiricism. Nature is a book it were more worth your time to read than any dusty old volume of Aristotle. The idea of expert witnesses is introduced along with the Gentlemanly Code. We can trust that Robert Boyle really performed such and such an experiment and witnesses such and such a result because he gives his word as a Gentleman that he did so. This sounds slightly absurd to us now but no doubt it solved an important problem in an age where communication and methods of documentation were less advanced than today. One of the ways that experimentation and experience of nature were a break from tradition was their particularity. Aristotle, for instance, when he was making his observations of nature and recording them, was not doing so with aid of a telescope. Rather, he was witnessing processes that anyone might be supposed likely to notice if only they cared to look. The experience that Aristotle was drawing on was thus common and natural. But what of a highly controlled and elaborate experiment, such as Robert Boyle's famous air-pump. The pump itself was man-made: to what extent could it be supposed to count for naturally occurring processes? And what of Galileo observing irregularities on the sun's surface through his telescope? Granted, the findings of a telescope pointed at a distant building can be verified by anyone who cares to walk and inspect the building up close. But how can we verify celestial observations, and who is qualified to do so? Such questions seem obvious to us now when we are all assured of the functioning of such instruments, but it is clear they were not so in the 17th century, and not necessarily for reasons of self-interest.
Things are further complicated by questioning how certain we can be about processes in the natural world. It is one thing to perform the experiment and witness the effects. But what of the causes? Can we speak in mathematical certainties, or merely modest surmises. Is the Natural Philosopher engaged in fact-finding or in developing theories of the universe? The Royal Society, for instance, considered Isaac Newton a dogmatist in the same way as they considered Aristotelians dogmatists for believing he could deduce the mathematical laws governing nature. Were these any different than the occult connections proposed by Renaissance magicians? Newton's answer provides a helpful insight into the terms of the debate:
"These principles I consider, not as occult [ie hidden, unmanifest] Qualities, supposed to result from the specific Form of Things, but as general Laws of Nature, by which the Things themselves are formed; their Truth appearing to us by Phenomena, though their Causes be not yet discovered."
The final third relates to the value or use that such knowledge was put to. Much of this chapter deals with the conflict or lack thereof between emergent mechanistic understandings of nature and Christianity. Shapin stresses that few if any of the leading figures of the Scientific Revolution considered there to be conflict between their profession and orthodox belief. To the contrary many thought of themselves as natural priests, interpreting the Book of Nature as their tonsured brethren did the Book. And we must remember that the Aristotelianism that we have been talking about was, after all, derived from the work of a pagan ancient which Christianity was able to adapt and use to enrich its own teachings.
Shapin makes many good points, though I feel there are a few questions he might have addressed at least in passing. If there is no natural conflict between science and religion, why is there a conflict (at least in the popular mind) between science and religion? Why does the physician Thomas Browne begin his 1643 work defending his status as a Christian believer despite his studies in Natural Philosophy? These are perhaps beyond the scope of so short and focussed a work, and Shapin does an excellent job at least of explicating the contemporary interactions between the two 'non-overlapping magesteria', as Gould famously termed them. The beast of man's dual nature is the province of science, the angel is not. Shapin paraphrases Descartes:
"The uniqueness of human beings [flows] from the mysterious interaction between what [can] be encompassed within a mechanical framework and what [can] not."
The What of the Scientific Revolution was a shift from an Aristotelian teleological understanding of nature to a mechanistic version. Take for instance the behaviour of a suction pump. The medieval explanation of its working would be to say that as nature hates a vacuum, so that the water rises to fill the gap left by the departing air. The mechanistic explanation would point to air pressure and various other process which I am too scientifically illiterate to recall verbatim. The main crux is that one explanation imbues nature with purpose: water hates a vacuum, and one does not. All this goes back to the medieval worldview, encompassing every aspect of human knowledge and life, articulated by the likes of Aquinas and Dante. So, for instance, it was accounted a point of great controversy when Galileo discovered irregularities on the surface of the sun. Why should this matter? Well, if you believe - as near every one in Latin Christendom did - that the translunar regions above the moon were perfect and unchanging - a prelapsarian world of absolute harmony - then the presence of such blots is logically impossible.
The How is the Scientific Method: the repudiation of textual authority and the embracement of empiricism. Nature is a book it were more worth your time to read than any dusty old volume of Aristotle. The idea of expert witnesses is introduced along with the Gentlemanly Code. We can trust that Robert Boyle really performed such and such an experiment and witnesses such and such a result because he gives his word as a Gentleman that he did so. This sounds slightly absurd to us now but no doubt it solved an important problem in an age where communication and methods of documentation were less advanced than today. One of the ways that experimentation and experience of nature were a break from tradition was their particularity. Aristotle, for instance, when he was making his observations of nature and recording them, was not doing so with aid of a telescope. Rather, he was witnessing processes that anyone might be supposed likely to notice if only they cared to look. The experience that Aristotle was drawing on was thus common and natural. But what of a highly controlled and elaborate experiment, such as Robert Boyle's famous air-pump. The pump itself was man-made: to what extent could it be supposed to count for naturally occurring processes? And what of Galileo observing irregularities on the sun's surface through his telescope? Granted, the findings of a telescope pointed at a distant building can be verified by anyone who cares to walk and inspect the building up close. But how can we verify celestial observations, and who is qualified to do so? Such questions seem obvious to us now when we are all assured of the functioning of such instruments, but it is clear they were not so in the 17th century, and not necessarily for reasons of self-interest.
Things are further complicated by questioning how certain we can be about processes in the natural world. It is one thing to perform the experiment and witness the effects. But what of the causes? Can we speak in mathematical certainties, or merely modest surmises. Is the Natural Philosopher engaged in fact-finding or in developing theories of the universe? The Royal Society, for instance, considered Isaac Newton a dogmatist in the same way as they considered Aristotelians dogmatists for believing he could deduce the mathematical laws governing nature. Were these any different than the occult connections proposed by Renaissance magicians? Newton's answer provides a helpful insight into the terms of the debate:
"These principles I consider, not as occult [ie hidden, unmanifest] Qualities, supposed to result from the specific Form of Things, but as general Laws of Nature, by which the Things themselves are formed; their Truth appearing to us by Phenomena, though their Causes be not yet discovered."
The final third relates to the value or use that such knowledge was put to. Much of this chapter deals with the conflict or lack thereof between emergent mechanistic understandings of nature and Christianity. Shapin stresses that few if any of the leading figures of the Scientific Revolution considered there to be conflict between their profession and orthodox belief. To the contrary many thought of themselves as natural priests, interpreting the Book of Nature as their tonsured brethren did the Book. And we must remember that the Aristotelianism that we have been talking about was, after all, derived from the work of a pagan ancient which Christianity was able to adapt and use to enrich its own teachings.
Shapin makes many good points, though I feel there are a few questions he might have addressed at least in passing. If there is no natural conflict between science and religion, why is there a conflict (at least in the popular mind) between science and religion? Why does the physician Thomas Browne begin his 1643 work defending his status as a Christian believer despite his studies in Natural Philosophy? These are perhaps beyond the scope of so short and focussed a work, and Shapin does an excellent job at least of explicating the contemporary interactions between the two 'non-overlapping magesteria', as Gould famously termed them. The beast of man's dual nature is the province of science, the angel is not. Shapin paraphrases Descartes:
"The uniqueness of human beings [flows] from the mysterious interaction between what [can] be encompassed within a mechanical framework and what [can] not."
February 1, 2021
For many years, a jaunty and inspiring account of the Scientific Revolution as the achievement of a handful of inspired geniuses replacing superstitious notions with the reasonable ones we have today, and breaking society free from medieval shackles has been the main – often the only – account from the history of science to reach the wider public. What exactly was it that these geniuses were doing is more often than not beyond the point. To be fair, academia itself has been dominated by the narrative that the Scientific Revolution had been the moment where the world became modern. But recently a new debate has been keeping historians of science busy: surely the practices of early modern science were not a complete break from previous activities; after all, we can find continuities between ancient and modern natural knowledge. Besides, were those practices coherent enough to be encompassed by the same term, and could that term be "science" at that stage?
Science in the seventeenth century did not yet mean "systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment" (Oxford UK definition), but something like "any organized and systematically acquired body of certain knowledge". And the transition will not be swift. Though prima facie we might think that natural philosophy was close enough to our science for the terms to be interchangeable, the idea of a mathematical natural philosophy, for example, was at the time controversial, and other disciplines, like astronomy, "chemistry", and natural history, were thought too distinctive to be subsumed under one same designation.
All this said, the controversial initial statement of the book, "There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is an essay about it", is, as one might suspect, a rhetorical move. Despite the discomfort with the terms "science" and "revolution", and the conjunction of the two, Shapin will allow that "it is possible to talk about the Scientific Revolution unapologetically and in good faith".
The book has a tripartite structure. The first chapter synthesises what was known about the natural world and adopts a traditional narrative, though it is dappled here and there with non-traditional historiographical considerations. The second and third chapters, dealing with how this knowledge was secured and what purposes it served, respectively, are more ingenious and provide examples of how science and its development are inextricable from societal factors.
In terms of the subject matters and personae addressed, we can conclude that this book does not add much, if anything, to the historiographic landscape. Its richness lies in the contextual perspective it offers on themes usually discussed in an entirely abstract manner, detached from worldly interference. One reason for our preconceived anectodical accounts of earlier forms of knowledge is that the moderns themselves spread them, but close analysis of the complexity of ancient theorization will reveal that this was a rhetorical tactic the modern intellectuals used to gain credibility for their own new visions of what knowledge should be about and how it should be acquired.
One of the book’s weakness is its failure to handle the problem of using the term "science". Shapin does not put forward a reconciliatory theory that would allow him to speak of science and scientists in the seventeenth century. Except for natural philosophy (and even there shakily), we turn the last page not knowing how continuity could be defended between modern "scientific" practices and our own sciences. Another weakness is its "moderate bias towards the empirical and experimental sciences and towards English materials", which is not at all moderate. Also, although the wonders of the New World are briefly alluded to, not much is said of colonialism, and one nothing of substance is said about the contributions of the non-intellectual layers of society. Surprisingly, the invention of calculus, indispensable to understand Newton’s mathematisation of physical movements, is only mentioned in the Bibliographic Essay.
We are aware that no history book can mention every important aspect of any given account, but Shapin should have been more straightforward about his focus on experimental traditions instead of implying he would draw a big picture of the Scientific Revolution. Shapin's selection is reductive even at a European scale. Defining a less ambitious title and argumentative scope would have been seemlier.
In a nutshell, the continuity thesis here proposed does not refuse that revolutionary changes took place, but it debunks their suddenness and the arrogant claims that they were generated spontaneously by exposing in what ways the practices of the Scientific Revolution were mediated by social factors and how they relate to previous theories, which were certainly not dismissed for their lack of sophistication. The Scientific Revolution cannot be perceived as a single event, and that at the time no single distinguishable thing could be named science. That is the case even today: "science" is associated to a wide range of distinctive activities. The fact that they can be subsumed under one unifying term is but a historical contingency.
More recent works have been written with broader scopes, both geographical, social, and disciplinary, nonetheless, The Scientific Revolution still holds as a great introduction for the layman, more so because it draws attention to its own faults and how to complement them. The updated Bibliographic Essay visibly seeks to incorporate the historiographic concerns and developments of the twenty-first century. It should be a helpful reference guide for any historian of science.
Science in the seventeenth century did not yet mean "systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment" (Oxford UK definition), but something like "any organized and systematically acquired body of certain knowledge". And the transition will not be swift. Though prima facie we might think that natural philosophy was close enough to our science for the terms to be interchangeable, the idea of a mathematical natural philosophy, for example, was at the time controversial, and other disciplines, like astronomy, "chemistry", and natural history, were thought too distinctive to be subsumed under one same designation.
All this said, the controversial initial statement of the book, "There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is an essay about it", is, as one might suspect, a rhetorical move. Despite the discomfort with the terms "science" and "revolution", and the conjunction of the two, Shapin will allow that "it is possible to talk about the Scientific Revolution unapologetically and in good faith".
The book has a tripartite structure. The first chapter synthesises what was known about the natural world and adopts a traditional narrative, though it is dappled here and there with non-traditional historiographical considerations. The second and third chapters, dealing with how this knowledge was secured and what purposes it served, respectively, are more ingenious and provide examples of how science and its development are inextricable from societal factors.
In terms of the subject matters and personae addressed, we can conclude that this book does not add much, if anything, to the historiographic landscape. Its richness lies in the contextual perspective it offers on themes usually discussed in an entirely abstract manner, detached from worldly interference. One reason for our preconceived anectodical accounts of earlier forms of knowledge is that the moderns themselves spread them, but close analysis of the complexity of ancient theorization will reveal that this was a rhetorical tactic the modern intellectuals used to gain credibility for their own new visions of what knowledge should be about and how it should be acquired.
One of the book’s weakness is its failure to handle the problem of using the term "science". Shapin does not put forward a reconciliatory theory that would allow him to speak of science and scientists in the seventeenth century. Except for natural philosophy (and even there shakily), we turn the last page not knowing how continuity could be defended between modern "scientific" practices and our own sciences. Another weakness is its "moderate bias towards the empirical and experimental sciences and towards English materials", which is not at all moderate. Also, although the wonders of the New World are briefly alluded to, not much is said of colonialism, and one nothing of substance is said about the contributions of the non-intellectual layers of society. Surprisingly, the invention of calculus, indispensable to understand Newton’s mathematisation of physical movements, is only mentioned in the Bibliographic Essay.
We are aware that no history book can mention every important aspect of any given account, but Shapin should have been more straightforward about his focus on experimental traditions instead of implying he would draw a big picture of the Scientific Revolution. Shapin's selection is reductive even at a European scale. Defining a less ambitious title and argumentative scope would have been seemlier.
In a nutshell, the continuity thesis here proposed does not refuse that revolutionary changes took place, but it debunks their suddenness and the arrogant claims that they were generated spontaneously by exposing in what ways the practices of the Scientific Revolution were mediated by social factors and how they relate to previous theories, which were certainly not dismissed for their lack of sophistication. The Scientific Revolution cannot be perceived as a single event, and that at the time no single distinguishable thing could be named science. That is the case even today: "science" is associated to a wide range of distinctive activities. The fact that they can be subsumed under one unifying term is but a historical contingency.
More recent works have been written with broader scopes, both geographical, social, and disciplinary, nonetheless, The Scientific Revolution still holds as a great introduction for the layman, more so because it draws attention to its own faults and how to complement them. The updated Bibliographic Essay visibly seeks to incorporate the historiographic concerns and developments of the twenty-first century. It should be a helpful reference guide for any historian of science.
August 4, 2008
This book was decent, it was clearly written for the non-mathematically inclined. If you are interested in how scientific thinking changed from the belief that everything one could know could be determined by ones mind to the belief that knowledge could only truly be gained through experimentation and experience then this is the book for you. I found it interesting at parts and dull at others. The author tends to use long, convoluted sentences and is somewhat of a sesquipedalian.
August 25, 2024
I came into this book with a question: "What were the underlying causes of the Scientific Revolution?" Shapin’s book does not talk about the underlying causes, but by describing some of the experiments from the 17th century and literature, he shows how people advanced existing knowledge.
The scientific method, which is so quickly defined in your school science class, has a lot to mull through. Where did it come from? Who invented it? How was it reached? When was it conceived? Every part of it, from the thought behind it to how it is actually deployed in the world has a lot of nuances, the scientific instruments, the practice of conducting experiments, and laboratories people use, even the scientific community evolved over time. At some point historians decided there was a 'scientific revolution', and they argued that when the scientific method was adopted it represented the beginning of the modern era. But history sometimes has trouble with these macro developments when you get into the details. How did we get to a world where objective data, fact gathering, quantifying and observation were split from meditations on the causes and purposes of things, or put another way, philosophy and religion?
Shapin shows that the scientists of the 17th century did not consider themselves scientists!
They considered themselves natural philosophers and mechanical philosophers, not scientists, yet. They formed new analogies. They argued that it was heretical to guess what God wanted, humans had to observe nature by reading it carefully as one would a book, or by looking closely at the mechanisms set in motion, like looking at the inner workings of a clock. These two metaphors: 'reading the book of nature', and looking at the world as a kind of clock set in motion by the creator, were interesting departures from traditional thought. They argued that society should put aside the assumptions of antiquity, which had been taken for granted. Aristotle, still considered the most meaningful guide to the universe even in the Renaissance, had posited a geocentric universe. His doctrine of Teleology represented all phenomena, animistically, things always had a cause and purpose that was organic. Teleology, the study of purpose and cause, which seemed to be a kind of anthropomorphism, where things 'wanted to be as they were’ was replaced by an idea: 'only the quantifiable facts were necessary to record', and forming a hypothesis about what phenomena meant (the question of “why?”) could be reserved cautiously until all the data was gathered about how it happened- and through repeated experiments, we could verify the results.
Shapin does his best to explain this intellectual paradigm shift. In his account, he mentions Bacon, Boyle, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Leeuwenhoek and other natural scientists and seeks to delineate their thoughts one from another. They did not all think the same or have the same contributions, and how sharp the turn was from the previous period is a matter of debate, an interpretation of history that has changed over time. He gets into some detail about their experiments, and reproduces contemporary sources either by directly quoting them or providing illustrations. At the end of the book there is a detailed bibliographic essay that not only cites his sources but gives us context.
Shapin taught me a word: 'historiography'. Roughly speaking, it is the history of history. That is to say, the research on the time period is dynamic. There have been layers and nuances in the discussion. The concept of the scientific revolution itself has been challenged. The method for studying it has also been revised. There was a significant change but was it more gradual or radical? Perhaps the underlying causes don’t matter as much as a detailed account. The scientific method with its objective approach has affected our analysis of history as well. Shapin tries to give a balanced perspective, he explains the issue by talking about perception as described in the accounts of the time. This is very thought provoking.
The scientific method, which is so quickly defined in your school science class, has a lot to mull through. Where did it come from? Who invented it? How was it reached? When was it conceived? Every part of it, from the thought behind it to how it is actually deployed in the world has a lot of nuances, the scientific instruments, the practice of conducting experiments, and laboratories people use, even the scientific community evolved over time. At some point historians decided there was a 'scientific revolution', and they argued that when the scientific method was adopted it represented the beginning of the modern era. But history sometimes has trouble with these macro developments when you get into the details. How did we get to a world where objective data, fact gathering, quantifying and observation were split from meditations on the causes and purposes of things, or put another way, philosophy and religion?
Shapin shows that the scientists of the 17th century did not consider themselves scientists!
They considered themselves natural philosophers and mechanical philosophers, not scientists, yet. They formed new analogies. They argued that it was heretical to guess what God wanted, humans had to observe nature by reading it carefully as one would a book, or by looking closely at the mechanisms set in motion, like looking at the inner workings of a clock. These two metaphors: 'reading the book of nature', and looking at the world as a kind of clock set in motion by the creator, were interesting departures from traditional thought. They argued that society should put aside the assumptions of antiquity, which had been taken for granted. Aristotle, still considered the most meaningful guide to the universe even in the Renaissance, had posited a geocentric universe. His doctrine of Teleology represented all phenomena, animistically, things always had a cause and purpose that was organic. Teleology, the study of purpose and cause, which seemed to be a kind of anthropomorphism, where things 'wanted to be as they were’ was replaced by an idea: 'only the quantifiable facts were necessary to record', and forming a hypothesis about what phenomena meant (the question of “why?”) could be reserved cautiously until all the data was gathered about how it happened- and through repeated experiments, we could verify the results.
Shapin does his best to explain this intellectual paradigm shift. In his account, he mentions Bacon, Boyle, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Leeuwenhoek and other natural scientists and seeks to delineate their thoughts one from another. They did not all think the same or have the same contributions, and how sharp the turn was from the previous period is a matter of debate, an interpretation of history that has changed over time. He gets into some detail about their experiments, and reproduces contemporary sources either by directly quoting them or providing illustrations. At the end of the book there is a detailed bibliographic essay that not only cites his sources but gives us context.
Shapin taught me a word: 'historiography'. Roughly speaking, it is the history of history. That is to say, the research on the time period is dynamic. There have been layers and nuances in the discussion. The concept of the scientific revolution itself has been challenged. The method for studying it has also been revised. There was a significant change but was it more gradual or radical? Perhaps the underlying causes don’t matter as much as a detailed account. The scientific method with its objective approach has affected our analysis of history as well. Shapin tries to give a balanced perspective, he explains the issue by talking about perception as described in the accounts of the time. This is very thought provoking.
March 24, 2019
I've been looking forward to reading a solid relativist Sociology of Scientific Knowledge history of science since I read Bloor's Knowledge and Social Imagery. Shapin's other book is the one example that always gets listed so I probably should have started with that one but this someone ended up in my Kindle first so I saw how short it was and read it. And honestly, while it's totally fine, I was pretty disappointed. It's way too short for the breadth and lack of focus it takes to its topic. There's no driving thesis like Is Water H2O, and the result is a limp and meandering description of various aspects of something noncommittally called the Scientific Revolution, divided arbitrarily into three sections on science, sociology, and philosophy, but without any organization or purpose evident within each section. It feels reasonable as you're reading it--it definitely isn't dense or badly written--but after a few pages I just found myself wondering what the point of any of it was. It's closer to a bunch of a qualified statements a relativist might make about the history of the scientific revolution than a history or a sociology or a metacommentary on the historiography.
August 25, 2024
"The mathematization of the universe might then stand against the quest for causes, mechanical and material or otherwise. One interpretation of the Newtonian enterprise thus has it setting aside causal inquiry in favor of mathematical formulations of the regularities observable in nature, while another interpretation celebrates Newton's expansion of the scope of causal mechanical explanation. Crucially, however, Newton reintroduced, or at least put new stress on the role of, immaterial 'active powers' in a properly constituted natural philosophy, especially in accounting for effects whose reduction to mechanical principles he considered impossible or improper: magnetism, electricity, capillary action, cohesion, fermentation, and the phenomena of life." (63)
"Science, in this account, fails to report objectively on the world -- it fails to be science -- if it allows considerations of value, morality, or politics to intrude into the processes of making and valuing knowledge. When science is being done, society is kept at bay." (162)
"Science, in this account, fails to report objectively on the world -- it fails to be science -- if it allows considerations of value, morality, or politics to intrude into the processes of making and valuing knowledge. When science is being done, society is kept at bay." (162)
September 29, 2024
“there is no such thing as a scientific revolution and this is a book about it”.
the era if this so called scientific revolution was questioned in this book. it showed how influential scientists like nicholas copernicus who received a lot of recognition for his work, adopted many nonwestern ideas, particularly in islamic countries and south asia and yet often go uncredited. it makes you question how many other ideas of these “influential people” are in actuality just adopted from another. i love the criticism that this era was more of a concept than anything revolutionary and the concept of rejecting many ideas of aristotle’s law of nature from induction (direct observations as a means to generalize). it made me think of ibn al-haythm, the first known person to use a scientific procedure, which proved the lack of empirical evidence in many Greek beliefs! sorry for the rant… absolutely crushing my hps100 class though 🙂↕️
the era if this so called scientific revolution was questioned in this book. it showed how influential scientists like nicholas copernicus who received a lot of recognition for his work, adopted many nonwestern ideas, particularly in islamic countries and south asia and yet often go uncredited. it makes you question how many other ideas of these “influential people” are in actuality just adopted from another. i love the criticism that this era was more of a concept than anything revolutionary and the concept of rejecting many ideas of aristotle’s law of nature from induction (direct observations as a means to generalize). it made me think of ibn al-haythm, the first known person to use a scientific procedure, which proved the lack of empirical evidence in many Greek beliefs! sorry for the rant… absolutely crushing my hps100 class though 🙂↕️
August 2, 2018
As an introduction to the subject, I wish this book had spent more time presenting a traditional history of the Scientific Revolution relative to the amount of time it spent problematizing it. But that's just a general gripe I have with a lot of history textbooks; I find it preferable to actually absorb a detailed narrative of what (supposedly) happened before you start picking it apart. Beyond that, this is a good place to begin: all of the content was interesting, and the bibliographical essay is a great resource.
February 28, 2024
I picked this book for a class based on another teacher's recommendation. It is interesting, but also very hard to read and he rambles, sometimes with a point, other times the point is lost. He also uses words that need to be looked up, but are really just synonyms of each other. This is particularly difficult for students whose first language is not English. There is some good information in there, but it's hard to dig out and there isn't really a good index or any way to do that. Would not recommend unless you are really interested in the 15th-16th century scientific revolution.
September 2, 2025
An odd book to try to rate. At its best is is quite good at inspiring thought about thought. At its worst it is a wordy ramble. The end result is to cause thoughts about the scientific revolution and how it changed the world from on of authorities having the words first and last to a world where science has most of the words and the authorities mostly trying to use or escape science. Any book that causes thought is a good book in my thoughts.
February 19, 2025
assigned for a class but still a really interesting read, it gave a great overview of the shifts in metaphysics, method, and social structure, without being difficult to read or understand. probably the best text i’ve read to dislodge the notion of science as objective and neutral knowledge, but can understand why some people don’t like it, especially without some background in philosophy.
October 8, 2025
The last chapter was what I was going for so it took me a long time to read this as the first chapters were... historical. I would make a poor historian.
That being said, things were pretty succint, I feel like I have a better understanding of the pathing of "science" and for that I am grateful.
That being said, things were pretty succint, I feel like I have a better understanding of the pathing of "science" and for that I am grateful.
September 25, 2024
Would I have finished this book if it was not for uni? Probably not. Would i recommend you to read it - also probably not unless you are a huge nerd.. to sum it up in one sentence: everyone disagrees about everything all the time. Believe me or see for yourself
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews