Leviathan and the Air-Pump by Steven Shapin
In the aftermath of the English Civil War, as people were groping for new forms of political order, Robert Boyle built an air-pump to do experiments. Focusing on the debates between Boyle and Thomas Hobbes over the air-pump, the authors proposes that 'solutions to the problem of knowledge are solutions to the problem of social order.
.. Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer have ventured beyond ordinary history of science or history of ideas to produce a novel 'exercise in the sociology of scientific knowledge.' ... a historical study rich in new interpretations and notable for the use of sources of a kind not hitherto fully exploited by scholars. -- Clive Holmes, American Historical Review Shapin and Schaffer work out the implications of these debates [between Hobbes and Boyle] for the history of science with great skill of interpretation and exposition. They use their findings and their analysis to give an explanation of the experimental enterprise in general, which, although it is not philosophical in nature, always takes philosophy most seriously. This is simply one of the most original, enjoyable and important books published in the history of science in recent years. -- Owen Hannaway, Technology and Culture If any proof of the intellectual buoyancy or intrinsic worth of the history and philosophy for science was needed, nothing better could be provided than this study by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer... Their findings suggest the futility of wrenching science from its ideological context, and not only with respect to the seventeenth century; they also detect parallels with the crisis of confidence affecting contemporary science. -- Charles Webster, The Times Literary Supplement
Shapin, Steven: - Steven Shapin is the Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science at Harvard, and his books include Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (with Simon Schaffer), A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England, and The Scientific Revolution. He has written for the New Yorker and writes regularly for the London Review of Books.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780691024325 |
| ISBN 10 | 0691024324 |
| Title | Leviathan and the Air-Pump |
| Author | Steven Shapin |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Princeton University Press |
| Year published | 1989-10-21 |
| Number of pages | 456 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |