Constructed Science and the Seventeenth Century ‘Revolution’

Westfall R. S. , Never at rest (Cambridge, 1980), 103–4.

Ibid., ix, 1.

Ibid., 17, 39.

Ibid., chs 3, 4. On ‘scientific development’, seen in terms of ‘understanding’ rather than ‘discovery’, see Hendry J. , “Understanding science”. History of science, xxi (1983), 419–24.

Gruber H. E. , quoted in Holmes F. L. , “The fine structure of scientific creativity”. History of science, xix (1981), 60–70, p. 66.

Westfall , Never at rest, ch. 3.

For Westfall, Newton was an “autodidact in mathematics, as he was in natural philosophy”, ibid., 99. Whiteside, however, doubts whether Newton was an entirely self-taught mathematician. Whiteside D.T. , “Newtonian motion”, Isis, lxxiii (1982), 100–7, p. 101 (this is a review of Never at rest).

Hall A. R. has discussed, for instance, H. Butterfield's whiggishness in The origins of modern science (London, 1949), in “On whiggism”, History of science, xxi (1983), 45–59.

Heimann P. M. , “The scientific revolutions”, in Burke P. (ed.), The new Cambridge modern history, xiii (Cambridge, 1979), 248–70, p. 249. The phrase ‘scientific revolution’ was not used in the seventeenth century. Cohen I. B. , “The eighteenth-century origins of the concept of scientific revolution”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxvii (1976), 257–88.

Westfall , Never at rest, 2; Westfall R. S. , Science and religion in seventeenth century England (New Haven, 1958), 1.

Collingwood R. G. , The idea of history (Oxford, 1946), 84. Page references are to the Oxford paperback edition. This conception can be associated readily with the definition of science as tested knowledge linked with observation which is developed in Fores M. , “Science and ‘the neolithic paradox”'. History of science, xxi (1983), 141–63.

For Butterfield, for instance, the “scientific revolution … popularly associated with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries”, reaches back “in an unmistakably continuous line to a period much earlier still”, op. cit. (ref. 8), viii.

For a critique of ‘industrial revolution’ on the same grounds, see Fores M. , “The myth of a British industrial revolution”, History, lxvi (1981), 181–98.

Kuhn T. S. , The structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago, 1962).

Fores , “Science” (ref. 11).

Westfall , Never at rest, 23.

Fores , “Science” (ref. 11), 158–61.

That is to say, the human actor is made to seem machine-like in the record, ibid., 160–1.

Cf., Hutchison K. , “Supernaturalism and the mechanical philosophy”, History of science, xxi (1983), 325–6.

Green V. H. H. , Renaissance and Reformation (London, 1964), 14.

Koestler A. , The act of creation (London, 1964); The ghost in the machine (London, 1967). Page references for The ghost are to the Pan paperback edition.

Koestler , The ghost (ref. 21), 213–15.

Ibid., 226.

Ibid., 215.

The issue was argued first in the earlier of the two books, where three examples of ‘discovery’ in ‘science’ were dealt with at some length, including Gutenberg's ‘act’ of invention. Koestler, The act (ref. 21), chs 1, 6.

In the discussion by Birdsall and Cipolla, for instance, of the “industrial revolution” as “an explosive revolution in the field of production”, “Watt's steam engine” is characterized as “Watt's discovery [which] was no accident. Nor was it an accident that the discovery had an overwhelming application in the field of production….” Birdsall D. Cipolla C. M. , The technology of man (London, 1980), 158.

Westfall , Never at rest, 17.

Hence the good sense in adopting Hendry's depiction of a longer period of ‘understanding’ in science-construction, rather than the short time-span of ‘discovery’, “Understanding science” (ref. 4).

Most scholars of Newton say that he worked hard. For Westfall, he was “not a man of halfhearted pursuits”, Never at rest, 144. See also the quotation at the head of this paper.

On the inappropriateness of the ‘technology’ construct, see Fores M. , “Technik: Or Mumford reconsidered”, History of technology, vi (1981), 122–8.

Forbes R.J. , The conquest of nature (London, 1968). Page references are to the Penguin edition.

Ibid., 32, 39. Whitehead A. N. , Science and the modern world (Cambridge, 1926), 120–1 (page references are to the Fontana edition). Amongst the many commentators to have quoted this assessment are Birdsall Cipolla , Technology of man (ref. 26), 159.

Fores , “Technik” (ref. 30), 122; idem, “Technical change and the ‘Technology’ myth”, Scandinavian economic history review, xxx (1982), 180.

On human activity as that of homo faber, see Sorge A. Hartmann G. , “Technology and labour markets”, International Institute of Management Discussion Paper 80–39 (Berlin, 1980).

Fores , “Science” (ref. 11), 161.

Westfall , Never at rest, 58. See also Whiteside's misgivings quoted at ref. 7 above.

Ibid., 154, 155.

For a general discussion of the “slow construction of ideas” by scientists, as opposed to “sudden moments of insight”, see Gruber H. E. , “On the relation between ‘Aha experiences’ and the construction of ideas”, History of science, xix (1981), 41–59. See also Hendry , “Understanding science” (ref. 4). On Newton in particular, see Gruber , op. cit., 57.

Butterfield , op. cit. (ref. 8), 143.

Quoted in West J. F. , The great intellectual revolution (London, 1965), 11.

Horton R. Finnegan R. , Modes of thought (London, 1973), 17.

Ibid., 17.

West , op. cit. (ref. 40), 2; Ashley M. , The golden century (London, 1969), 161, 23, 25; Siegel H. , “Truth, problem solving and the rationality of science”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xiv (1983), 89–112; Agassi J. , Science in flux (Dordrecht, 1975), 34–35, 219; Collingwood , Idea of history (ref. 11), 76–80. Page references for Ashley are to the Cardinal edition.

See also Fores , “Science” (ref. 11), 158–61.

Agassi , op. cit. (ref. 43), 312.

West , op. cit. (ref. 40), 2; Westfall , Never at rest, chs 2, 3, p. 236.

When Newton was asked, late in his life, “how he had discovered [invented] the law of universal gravitation. ‘By thinking on it continually’, was the reply”, Westfall , Never at rest, 105.

Ibid., 103.

Green V. H. H. , Luther and the Reformation (London, 1964), 163; Bacon F. , Novum organum (London, 1620), Book I, aphorism 124. Page references for Green are to the Mentor edition.

Luther, quoted in Hutchison “Supernaturalism” (ref. 19), 312: “Therefore let us learn that true wisdom is in the Holy Scripture and in the Word of God. This gives information … about … the whole of creation…. The more [the text] seems to conflict with all experience and reason, the more carefully must it be noted and the more surely believed.”.

Hence Bacon's stress that the “human mind resembles those uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them”, and his treatment of “the idols of the tribe” and “the idols of the den” (or “cavern”) discussed below in the context of the parochialism of ‘the mechanical philosophy’. Bacon , Novum organum (ref. 49), Book I, aphorisms 41, 42.

Whitehead Science (ref. 32), 19–21; Hutchison , “Supernaturalism” (ref. 19), 307.

Manuel F. E. , A portrait of Isaac Newton (Cambridge. Mass., 1968), 69, 29; Whiteside , “Newtonian motion” (ref. 7), 100.

Horton Finnegan , Modes of thought (ref. 41), 30, 249.

The Baconian legacy seen in these terms is discussed more fully in Fores M. , “Francis Bacon and the myth of industrial science”, History of technology, vii (1982), 57–75; idem, “Technical change” (ref. 33), 185–8.

Fores , “Science” (ref. 11), 146–7.

West , op. cit. (ref. 40), 38.

Dampier Sir C. , A history of science (Cambridge. 1966), 129; though even Grosseteste Robert (c. 1168–1253) seems fairly ‘modern’ in these terms. See Crombie A. C. , Robert Grosseteste and the origins of experimental science (Oxford, 1953), ch. 4.

Westfall . Never at rest, 285.

Cf. Hampson N. , The enlightenment (Harmondsworth, 1968), 78.

Whitehead , Science (ref. 32), 54.

Fores , “Science” (ref. 11), 153.

Westfall . Never at rest, 105, 14.

For a critique of Merlon's idea of “the norms of science” (of “science”-as-a-process), see Fores , “Science” (ref. 11), 159.

Hutchison's thesis is relevant here, that the new ‘mechanical philosophy’ of the seventeenth century had a significant ‘supernaturalist’ element, “Supernaturalism” (ref. 19).

Westfall , Never at rest, 62, 17; West , op. cit. (ref. 40), vii.

Bacon , Novum organum (ref. 49), Book I, aphorism 45.

For an amplification of this conception of science, see Fores , “Science” (ref. 11), 150–1.

Ibid.

Dictionary of the history of ideas, ed. by Wiener Philip P. (New York, 1968), i, 88.

For instance, Cohen , op. cit. (ref. 9), 258.

Westfall , Never at rest, 23.

Butterfield op. cit. (ref. 8), 84.

Perrow C. , Organizational analysis (London, 1971), 76. Quoted in Sorge A. , “Cultured organization”. International studies of management and organization, xii (1982), 125.

Westfall , Never at rest, 93; Green , Renaissance (ref. 20), 14.

Hampson , Enlightenment (ref. 60), 78.

Shapin S. Schaffer S. , “Making Newton”. History of science (to appear).

Ashley , Golden century (ref. 43), 25; Brown D. Harrison M. J. , A sociology of industrialisation (London, 1978), 89; Marx K. , Grundrisse (1858), 94; Weber M. , Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Berlin, 1923), 354; Rostow W. W. , The stages of economic growth (Cambridge, 1960), 4; Mumford L. Technics and civilization (London. 1934), 133–4. Page references for Marx are to the edition compiled by McLellan D. , Marx's Grundrisse (London. 1971), and for Weber to the edition published as General economic history (New Brunswick, 1981).

Kuznets S. , Modern economic growth (New Haven, 1966), 9; Parsons T. , The social system (London, 1951), 515; Marks J. , Science and the making of the modern world (London, 1983), 1, 195, 494; Birdsall Cipolla , Technology of man (ref. 26), 138, 156, 157; Landes D. S. , “Technological change and development in Western Europe, 1750–1914”, in Postan M. M. Habakkuk H. J. (eds), The Cambridge economic history of Europe, vi (Cambridge, 1965), pt I, 550; Heimann , “Scientific revolutions” (ref. 9), 248; Layton E. , “Scientific technology, 1845–1900”, Technology and culture, xx (1979), 64–89; Channell D. F. , “The harmony of theory and practice: The engineering science of W. J. M. Rankine”, Technology and culture, xxiii (1982), 39–52, p. 46; Hindle B. , “Technology through the 3-D time warp”, Technology and culture, xxiv (1983), 450–64, pp. 457, 458.

Cf., Fores , “Francis Bacon” (ref. 55).

Cf., ibid., 59–63.

Bacon , Novum organum (ref. 49), Book I, aphorism 59.

Agassi , Science (ref. 43), 312, 35.

Ibid., 35; Hendry, “Understanding science” (ref. 4).

Bacon , Novum organum (ref. 49), Book I, aphorism 60.

Cf., Becker C. , The heavenly city of the eighteenth century philosophers (New Haven, 1932). On the historiography of the USA seen in these terms, see Noble D. W. , Historians against history (Minneapolis, 1965).

Fores , “Francis Bacon” (ref. 55).

West , op. cit. (ref. 40), vii.

Cf., Schaffer's S. “divine Newton” thesis, in “Portraits of Newton”, Central TV/Crucible series, December 1982. When Newton took up alchemy, he did not “stumble” into it: “Rather he started with sober chemistry and gave it up rather quickly for what he took to be the greater profundity of alchemy.” Westfall , Never at rest, 285.

Concerning the “first theory of life to divide the world into the two domains of ratio and fortuna”, see Joachimsen P. , “Humanism and the development of the German mind”, in Strauss G. (ed.), Pre-reformation Germany (London, 1972), 169.

Sorge , “Cultured organization” (ref. 74), 120, 121.

Holmes has discussed the contention that the parts of the reports of the scientists which are written under the heading “method” are semi-fictitious, op. cit. (ref. 5), 62.

Maranda P. , Mythology (Harmondsworth, 1972), 12.

Quoted in Thorndike L. , A history of magic and experimental science, i (New York, 1923), 5.

Quoted in Horton Finnegan , Modes of thought (ref. 41), 38.

Collingwood , Idea of history (ref. 11), 78–80.