How Modern Science Came into the World : Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century Breakthrough / H. Floris Cohen.

By:

Cohen, H. Floris [author.]

Material type: Text

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9789048512737
9048512735

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: How modern science came into the world. Four civilizations, one 17th-century breakthrough.DDC classification:

509 22

LOC classification:

Q125 .C638 2010eb

Other classification:

TB 2355

Online resources:

EBSCOhost

Contents:

Part I: Nature-Knowledge in Traditional Society -- Greek foundations, Chinese contrasts -- Greek nature-knowledge transplanted: the islamic world -- Greek nature-knowledge transplanted in part: medieval Europe -- Greek nature-knowledge transplanted, and more: renaissance Europe -- Part II: Three revolutionary transformations -- The first transformation: realist-mathematical science -- The second transformation: a kinetic-corpuscularian philosophy of nature -- The third transformation: to find facts through experiment -- Concurrence explained -- Prospects around 1640 -- Part III: Dynamics of the Revolution -- Achievements and limitations of realist-mathematical science -- Achievements and limitations of kinetic corpuscularianism -- Legitimacy in the balance -- Achievements and limitations of fact-finding experimentalism -- Nature-knowledge decompartmentalized -- The fourth transformation: corpuscular motion geometrized -- The fifth transformation: the baconian brew -- Legitimacy of a new kind -- Nature-knowledge by 1684: the achievement so far -- The sixth transformation: the newtonian synthesis.

Summary: "Once upon a time 'The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century' was an innovative concept that inspired a stimulating narrative of how modern science came into the world. Half a century later, what we now know as 'the master narrative' serves rather as a strait-jacket--so often events and contexts just fail to fit in. No attempt has been made so far to replace the master narrative. H. Floris Cohen now comes up with precisely such a replacement. Key to his path-breaking analysis-cum-narrative is a vision of the Scientific Revolution as made up of six distinct yet narrowly interconnected, revolutionary transformations, each of some twenty-five to thirty years' duration. This vision enables him to explain how modern science could come about in Europe rather than in Greece, China, or the Islamic world. It also enables him to explain how half-way into the 17th century a vast crisis of legitimacy could arise and, in the end, be overcome. Building on his earlier The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry (1994), Cohen's new book connects the latest research results in highly innovative ways, breaking up all-too-deeply frozen patterns of thinking about the history of science"--Publisher's description.

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"Once upon a time 'The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century' was an innovative concept that inspired a stimulating narrative of how modern science came into the world. Half a century later, what we now know as 'the master narrative' serves rather as a strait-jacket--so often events and contexts just fail to fit in. No attempt has been made so far to replace the master narrative. H. Floris Cohen now comes up with precisely such a replacement. Key to his path-breaking analysis-cum-narrative is a vision of the Scientific Revolution as made up of six distinct yet narrowly interconnected, revolutionary transformations, each of some twenty-five to thirty years' duration. This vision enables him to explain how modern science could come about in Europe rather than in Greece, China, or the Islamic world. It also enables him to explain how half-way into the 17th century a vast crisis of legitimacy could arise and, in the end, be overcome. Building on his earlier The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry (1994), Cohen's new book connects the latest research results in highly innovative ways, breaking up all-too-deeply frozen patterns of thinking about the history of science"--Publisher's description.