Essay Review: Science in the Enlightenment: Science and the Enlightenment

Diderot D. and D'Alembert J. , (eds), Encyclopédic ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (28 vols, Paris, 1751–72), article “Sciences”, cited in Dieckmann Herbert , “The concept of knowledge in the Encyclopédie”, in Dieckmann H. Levin Harry and Motekat Helmut , Essays in comparative literature (St Louis, 1961), 73–107, pp. 92–93.

Cassirer Ernst , The philosophy of the Enlightenment, transl. by Koelln Fritz C. and Pettegrove James P. (Princeton, 1951).

See in particular Cassirer , op. cit. (ref. 2), v, vi, ix, 3, 5–6, etc.; and for criticisms the reviews by Boas G. , Journal of philosophy, xlix (1952), 244–5; Price K. B. , “Cassirer and the Enlightenment”, Journal of the history of ideas, xviii (1957), 101–12; Dieckmann H. , “An interpretation of the eighteenth century”, Modern language quarterly, xv (1954), 295–311.

Cassirer , op. cit. (ref. 2), vii, 8, 12–16.

ibid., 3–4. For background on Cassirer's philosophy and methods: Körner S. , “Cassirer, Ernst”, in Edwards Paul (ed.), The encyclopedia of philosophy (8 vols, New York, 1967), ii, 44–46; Hendel Charles W. , “Introduction”, in Cassirer E. , The philosophy of symbolic forms, transl. by Mannheim Ralph (3 vols, New Haven, 1955), i, 1–65; Lipton David R. , Ernst Cassirer: The dilemma of a liberal intellectual in Germany 1914–33 (Toronto, 1978); Verene Donald P. , “Introduction”, in Cassirer E. , Symbol, myth, and culture (New Haven, 1979), 1–45; Schilpp Paul Arthur , (ed.), The philosophy of Ernst Cassirer (New York, 1949).

Gay Peter , The Enlightenment: An interpretation (2 vols, London, 1970), i, 3–19. See also: idem, “The social history of ideas: Ernst Cassirer and after”, in Wolff Kurt H. and Moore Barrington Jr (eds), The critical spirit: Essays in honor of Herbert Marcuse (Boston, 1967), 106–20; idem, “The Enlightenment in the history of political thought”, Political science quarterly, lxix (1954), 374–89; idem, The party of humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment (Princeton, 1959).

Gay , Enlightenment (ref. 6), passim, in particular: Ii, 126–207, 319–68.

Darnton Robert , “In search of the Enlightenment: Recent attempts to create a social history of ideas”, Journal of modern history, xliii (1971), 113–32, pp. 114–24; cf. Porter Roy , “The Enlightenment in England”, in Porter R. and Teich M. (eds), The Enlightenment in national context (Cambridge, 1981), 1–18, pp. 4–6; Venturi Franco , Utopia and reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1971), 1–5. See also Vartanian A. , “The Annales school and the Enlightenment”, Studies in eighteenth-century culture, xiii (1984), 233–47; and for background, Wilson Stephen , “‘They order this matter better in France’: Some recent books on modern French historiography”, The historical journal, xxi (1978), 721–35.

Darnton R. , “The high Enlightenment and the low-life of literature in prerevolutionary France”, Past and present, no. 51 (1971), 81–115; idem, “A police inspector sorts his files: The anatomy of the republic of letters”, in Darnton , The great cat massacre and other episodes in French cultural history (New York, 1984), 145–89.

Darnton R. , The business of Enlightenment: The publishing history of the Encyclopédie 1775–1800 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979); idem, “Trade in the taboo: The life of a clandestine book dealer in prerevolutionary France”, in Korshin Paul J. (ed.), The widening circle: Essays on the circulation of literature in eighteenth-century Europe (Pennsylvania, 1976), 11–83.

Darnton , Business (ref. 10), 246–323. See also the complementary studies of the reception of the Enlightenment among French provincial élites by Roche Daniel : “Milieux académiques provinciaux et société des lumières: Trois académies provinciales au 18e siècle: Bordeaux, Dijon, Châlons sur Marne”, in Bolleme G. , Livre et société dans la France du XVIIIe siècle, i (Paris and The Hague, 1965), 93–184; idem, “Encyclopédistes et académiciens: Essai sur la diffusion sociale des lumières”, in Furet F. (ed.), Livre et société dans la France du XVIIIe siècle, ii (Paris and The Hague, 1970), 73–92; idem, La siècle des lumières en province: Académies et académiciens provinciaux, 1680–1789 (2 vols, Paris and The Hague, 1978). Roche's work is discussed in Darnton , “Enlightenment” (ref. 8), 129–30; and in Baker K. M. , “Enlightenment and revolution in France: Old problems, renewed approaches”, Journal of modern history, liii (1981), 281–303, pp. 293–8.

For example in summarizing Daniel Mornet's work on the contents of French private libraries in the eighteenth century. See Darnton R. , “Reading, writing and publishing in eighteenth-century France: A case-study in the sociology of literature”, Daedalus, c (1971), 214–56, pp. 223–6.

See Darnton , “Enlightenment” (ref. 8), 118–19, 123, 127–8; idem, “Reading” (ref. 12), 218–26; idem, Business (ref. 10), 520–31.

Representative studies include: Porter Roy , “Science, provincial culture and public opinion in Enlightenment England”, The British journal for eighteenth-century studies, iii (1980), 20–46; idem, English society in the eighteenth century (Harmondsworth, 1982), 248–60; Inkster Ian , “Culture, institutions and urbanity: The itinerant science lecturer in Sheffield 1790–1850”, in Pollard S. and Holmes C. (eds), Essays in the economic and social history of South Yorkshire (Sheffield, 1976), 218–32; idem, “The public lecture as an instrument of science education for adults — the case of Great Britain, c. 1750–1850”, Paedogogica historica: International journal of the history of education, xx (1980), 80–107; Millburn John R. , Benjamin Martin: Author, instrument-maker, and “country showman” (Leyden, 1976); Secord James A. , “Newton in the nursery: Tom Telescope and the philosophy of tops and balls, 1761–1838”, History of science, xxiii (1985), 127–51; Fawcett Trevor , “Popular science in eighteenth-century Norwich”, History today, xxii (1972), 590–5; Rowbottom Margaret E. , “The teaching of experimental philosophy in England 1700–1730”, Actes du XIe Congrès International d'Histoire des Sciences, Varsovie-Cracovie, 1965 (6 vols, Wroclaw, 1968), iv, 46–57.

Millburn John R. , “The London evening courses of Benjamin Martin and James Ferguson, eighteenth-century lecturers on experimental philosophy”, Annals of science, xl (1983), 437–55; Golinski J. V. , “Peter Shaw: Chemistry and communication in Augustan England”, Ambix, xxx (1983), 19–29; Rousseau G. S. , “Science books and their readers in the eighteenth century”, in Rivers Isabel (ed.), Books and their readers in eighteenth-century England (Leicester and New York, 1982), 197–255.

Plumb J. H. , The commercialization of leisure in eighteenth-century England (Reading, 1973); see also McKendrick Neil Brewer John , and Plumb J. H. , The birth of a consumer society: The commercialisation of eighteenth-century England (London, 1982).

For some discussion of these issues, see Thompson E. P. , “Patrician society, plebeian culture”, Journal of social history, vii (1973–74), 382–405; idem, “Eighteenth-century English society: Class struggle without class?”, Social history, iii (1978), 133–65. For an attempt to place eighteenth century British science in the context of a “hegemonic” culture, see Berman Morris , “‘Hegemony’ and the amateur tradition in British science”, Journal of social history, viii (1975), 30–50; and for a critique of this, Inkster Ian , “Introduction: Aspects of the history of science and science culture in Britain, 1780–1850 and beyond”, in Inkster I. and Morrell J. B. (eds), Metropolis and province: Science in British culture, 1780–1890 (London, 1983), 11–54, pp. 17–20.

See Porter , “Science” (ref. 14), esp. pp. 25, 27; Thackray A. , “Natural knowledge in cultural context: The Manchester model”, American historical review, lxxix (1974), 672–709; Borsay P. , “The English urban renaissance: The development of provincial urban culture c. 1680-c. 1760”, Social history, no. 5 (1977), 581–603; Inkster Ian , “Marginal men: Aspects of the social role of the medical community in Sheffield, 1790–1850”, in Woodward John and Richards David (eds), Health care and popular medicine in nineteenth-century England: Essays in the social history of medicine (London, 1977), 128–63. And compare also Plumb J. H. , “Reason and unreason in the eighteenth century: The English experience”, in Plumb , In the light of history (London, 1972), 3–24, pp. 23–24.

Thackray , “Natural knowledge” (ref. 18), 682, 694–8, 706–7.

This point is made by Phillipson Nicholas , in his “Culture and society in the eighteenth-century province: The case of Edinburgh and the Scottish Enlightenment”, in Stone Lawrence (ed.), The university in society (2 vols, Princeton, 1975), ii, 407–48, pp. 407ff.

Thackray , “Natural knowledge” (ref. 18), 686–93.

Inkster , “Introduction” (ref. 17); Morrell J. B. , “Individualism and the structure of British science in 1830”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), 183–204, pp. 191–4; idem, “Reflections on the history of Scottish science”, History of science, xii (1974), 81–94, pp. 88–92; Weindling Paul , “The British Mineralogical Society: A case-study in science and social improvement”, in Inkster and Morrell (eds), Metropolis and province (ref. 17), 120–50.

Inkster , “Introduction” (ref. 17), 26–34. See also the application of Inkster's typology to the case of science in nineteenth century Bradford, in Morrell J. B. , “Wissenschaft in Worstedopolis: Public science in Bradford, 1800–1850”, The British journal for the history of science, xviii (1985), 1–23.

Hufbauer Karl , “Social support for chemistry in Germany during the eighteenth century: How and why did it change?”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), 205–31; idem, The formation of the German chemical community (1720–1795) (Berkeley, 1982); Gillispie C. C. , Science and polity in France at the end of the Old Regime (Princeton, 1980), e.g. pp. 66, 549–52; cf. idem, “The natural history of industry”, in Musson A. E. (ed.), Science, technology and economic growth in the eighteenth century (London, 1972), 121–35, pp. 129–32. For a criticism of Gillispie's approach, see Jordanova L. J. , “Towards the light? Science, politics and the Enlightenment”, European studies review, xii (1982), 479–88, pp. 481–3; and for a sustained attempt to place the personalized science-state relations of post-revolutionary France in a wider social context, see Outram Dorinda , Georges Cuvier: Vocation, science and authority in post-revolutionary France (Manchester, 1984).

Morrell , “Individualism” (ref. 22).

Darnton , “Enlightenment” (ref. 8), 113, 132.

Vartanian , “Annales school” (ref. 8), 238, 245.

Foucault Michel , The order of things (London, 1970), esp. pp. xx–xxii, 157; idem, The archaeology of knowledge (London, 1972), esp. pp. 126–31; and for continuities between Foucault and Kantian historiography, Megill Allan , “Foucault, structuralism and the ends of history”, Journal of modem history, li (1979), 451–503, pp. 459, 468, 474–6, 482–3.

Foucault Compare , Order (ref. 28), xxii, 51, 56–57, 74–75, etc. with idem, Archaeology (ref. 28), 30, 129, 178, 180, 191.

Benjamin Walter , One-way street and other writings (London, 1979), 66.