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The common focus of the essays in this book is the debate on the
nature of science - often referred to by contemporaries as 'natural
knowledge' - in Britain during the first half of the 19th century.
This was the period before major state support for science allowed
its professionalization; indeed, it was a time in which the word
'scientist' (although coined in 1833 by William Whewell) was not
yet widely used. In this context, the questions about the nature of
science were part of a public debate that included the following
topics: scientific method and intellectual authority, the moral
demeanour of the man of science, the hierarchy of specialised
scientific disciplines, and the relation with natural theology.
These topics were discussed both within scientific circles - in
correspondence and meeting of societies - as well as in the wider
public sphere constituted by quarterly journals and encyclopaedias.
A study of these debates allow us to see how British science of
this period began to cast loose some of its earlier theological
supports, but still relied on a moral framework to affirm its
distinctive method, ethos and cultural value.
Xiang Li is a cultured, rational Chinese Mandarin, Governor of
Xinjiang Province. He sees a sign in the skies and falls under a
compulsion to travel to the west in the depth of winter. Nothing is
clear but that he must hurry. His journey takes him through the
snow-choked passes of the Tian Shan mountains and the searing heat
of the Syrian Desert, through ambush by evil tribesmen and the
deadly court of King Herod, while ahead of him rises a light in the
night sky...
Lucius is a young Centurion in the time of Hadrian, serving at
Trimontium, modern-day Melrose in southern Scotland. Trista is a
Roman patrician girl, living in Gaul. She is orphaned and becomes a
vagrant when her parents are killed by traitors plotting to
overthrow the emperor. Following the death of his wife, Lucius
becomes an imperial agent, operating beyond the borders of the
Empire as a trader, seeking signs of invasion. He meets Trista who
is under threat of assassination. The story follows their flight
across Gaul, pursued by evil forces, to the German forests in a
race to avert invasion and the death of the emperor.
The eighteenth-century English dictionaries of arts and sciences
claimed to contain all knowledge that a person of education should
possess. These early encyclopaedias responded to the explosion of
information by reducing knowledge to essentials, stressing the need
for a coherent account of the sciences, and for some time excluding
biography and history. Richard Yeo places these scientific
dictionaries in a rich cultural framework of debate that includes
the arrangement of knowledge, the Republic of Letters, the
Enlightenment public sphere, copyright issues and the
specialisation of science. He discusses dilemmas involved in the
quest for knowledge to be both organised and readily available,
examining assumptions about the organisation, communication and
control of knowledge in these works. Elegantly illustrated and
accessibly written, Encyclopaedic Visions provides a major
contribution to Enlightenment studies and the history of ideas in
general.
Images of scientists and ideas about science are often communicated
to the public through historic biographies of eminent scientists,
yet there has been little study of the development of scientific
biography. Telling Lives brings together a collection of original
essays by leading historians of science, several of them
biographers, which explore for the first time the nature and
development of scientific biography and its importance in forming
our ideas about what scientists do, how science works, and why
scientific biography remains popular. Theoretical and historical
studies range from the seventeenth to the twentieth century,
concentrating on such icons as Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin,
Humphry Davy, Florence Nightingale and Sir Joseph Banks. With its
broad sweep and careful, imaginative scholarship, this volume
provides a timely and challenging examination of an important
aspect of the culture of science that will be of special interest
to historians of science, academics and students, and the general
reader interested in the popularization of science.
This 1993 book deals with debates about science - its history,
philosophy and moral value - in the first half of the nineteenth
century, a period in which the 'modern' features of science
developed. Defining Science also examines the different forms or
genres in which science was discussed in the public sphere - most
crucially in the Victorian review journals, but also in
biographical, historical and educational works. William Whewell
wrote major works on the history and philosophy of science before
these became technical subjects. Consequently he had to define his
own role as a metascientific critic (in a manner akin to cultural
critics like Coleridge and Carlyle) as well as seeking to define
science for both expert and lay audiences.
The eighteenth-century English dictionaries of arts and sciences claimed to contain all knowledge that a person of education should possess. Richard Yeo places these scientific dictionaries in a rich cultural framework of debate that includes the classification of knowledge, the tradition of commonplaces, the Republic of Letters, the Enlightenment public sphere, copyright issues, and the specialization of science. He examines assumptions about the organization, communication, and control of knowledge in these works. Elegantly illustrated and clearly written, Encyclopaedic Visions provides a major contribution to Enlightenment studies, the history of science, and the history of ideas in general.
Images of scientists and ideas about science are often communicated to the public through historic biographies of eminent scientists, yet there has been little study of the development of scientific biography. Telling Lives brings together a collection of original essays by leading historians of science, several of them biographers, which explore for the first time the nature and development of scientific biography and its importance in forming our ideas about what scientists do, how science works, and why scientific biography remains popular. Theoretical and historical studies range from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, concentrating on such icons as Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin, Humphry Davy, Florence Nightingale and Sir Joseph Banks. With its broad sweep and careful, imaginative scholarship, this volume provides a timely and challenging examination of an important aspect of the culture of science that will be of special interest to historians of science, academics and students, and the general reader interested in the popularization of science.
Defining Science deals with the major role of the historian and philosopher of science, William Whewell, in early Victorian debates about the nature of science and its moral and cultural value. Richard Yeo also examines the different forms or genres in which science was discussed in the public sphere--most crucially in the Victorian review journals, but also in biographical, historical and educational works. Analysis of the whole corpus of Whewell's work suggests that it be seen not only as an attempt to define science, but to clarify his own vocation as its leading critic.
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