Newtonianism and information control in Rome at the wake of the eighteenth century

ABSTRACT

This paper offers an opportunity to ponder the way the Catholic Church and its methods of information control reshaped, and paradoxically even enabled, the dissemination and practice of science in early modern Italy. Focusing on the activities of Newtonian scholars operating in Rome in the First half of the eighteenth century – especially the Celestine monk Celestino Galiani (1681–1753) and prelate Francesco Bianchini (1662–1729) – I will argue that major contributions to the spread of Newtonianism in Italy came from individuals operating within the Church, acting more-or-less independently from the Church’s oversight. These scholars realized they were witnessing an inexorable transition and that the medieval scholastic cosmology and physics could not survive. In order to rescue the Church – and to avoid further embarrassment, especially after the Galileo Affair – renewal was needed. Counterintuitively, the dissemination of Italian Newtonianism was largely a Catholic effort.     

Early research on the biological effects of microwave radiation: 1940–1960

Two overriding considerations shaped the development of early research on the biological effects of microwave radiation—possible medical application (diathermy) and uncertainty about the hazards of exposure to radar. Reports in the late 1940s and early 1950s of hazards resulting from microwave exposure led to the near abandonment of medical research related to microwave diathermy at the same time that military and industrial concern over hazards grew, culminating in the massive research effort known as ‘the Tri-Service program’ (1957–1960). Both the early focus on medical application and the later search for hazards played important roles in dictating how this field of research developed as a science.     

'Science Fights Death': David Stark Murray,Science, and Socialism in Interwar Britain

The pathologist David Stark Murray (1900-77) was a founder and leading member of the Socialist Medical Association (SMA), an organization affiliated to the Labour Party and instrumental in shaping its health policy in the period up to 1945. Murray played a prominent role in the SMA as a member of its Executive Committee and as Editor of its journal MedicineToday and Tomorrow. This article examines Murray's popular writings about science during the interwar period, focusing on his emphasis on the relationship between, on the one hand, scientific knowledge and scientific method; and, on the other, a socialized health service and a socialist society.     

Analogical reflection as a source for the science of life: Kant and the possibility of the biological sciences

In contrast to the previously widespread view that Kant's work was largely in dialogue with the physical sciences, recent scholarship has highlighted Kant's interest in and contributions to the life sciences. Scholars are now investigating the extent to which Kant appealed to and incorporated insights from the life sciences and considering the ways he may have contributed to a new conception of living beings. The scholarship remains, however, divided in its interest: historians of science are concerned with the content of Kant's claims, and the ways in which they may or may not have contributed to the emerging science of life, while historians of philosophy focus on the systematic justifications for Kant's claims, e.g., the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of Kant's statement that living beings are mechanically inexplicable. My aim in this paper is to bring together these two strands of scholarship into dialogue by showing how Kant's methodological concerns (specifically, his notion of reflective judgment) contributed to his conception of living beings and to the ontological concern with life as a distinctive object of study. I argue that although Kant's explicit statement was that biology could not be a science, his implicit and more fundamental claim was that the study of living beings necessitates a distinctive mode of thought, a mode that is essentially analogical. I consider the implications of this view, and argue that it is by developing a new methodology for grasping organized beings that Kant makes his most important contribution to the new science of life.     

Pensions for 'cultivators of science'

The occasional (and belated) concern of the British Government with science in the nineteenth century is a matter of potential interest to historians of science, yet many previous studies have tended to range over a variety of different aspects of the question. There have been too many vague allusions to financial support as 'money for science' in general. It is time that particular parts of the problem were unpacked. For example, the award of money (from the 1820s) to pay a few people of independent means for apparatus was quite distinct from the provision (from the 1830s) of an occasional pension. Even then, to speak of 'pensions' uncovers unfortunate ambiguities. For too long science in Britain was regarded as no more than a private hobby for the well-to-do. As late as 1856 an official government statement seemed to make this attitude official. The English attitude to pensions differed remarkably from the French, who established a precedent in the reward of savants, sometimes quoted enviously by British men of science. In 1837 Robert Peel virtually admitted that, in awarding pensions to 'cultivators of science', he was following the French practice. It may also be useful to emphasise the contrast between the English (often led by Cambridge professors) and the Scots, mostly from Edinburgh, mainly represented here by Whewell and Brewster, respectively. Babbage had a different role in this story from that usually told. A large part in supporting men of science of modest means could have been played by the British Association for the Advancement of Science but it consistently refused to do so, although it supported an elite among its own members.     

Pensions for ‘Cultivators of Science’

The occasional (and belated) concern of the British Government with science in the nineteenth century is a matter of potential interest to historians of science, yet many previous studies have tended to range over a variety of different aspects of the question. There have been too many vague allusions to financial support as ‘money for science’ in general. It is time that particular parts of the problem were unpacked. For example, the award of money (from the 1820s) to pay a few people of independent means for apparatus was quite distinct from the provision (from the 1830s) of an occasional pension. Even then, to speak of ‘pensions’ uncovers unfortunate ambiguities. For too long science in Britain was regarded as no more than a private hobby for the well-to-do. As late as 1856 an official government statement seemed to make this attitude official. The English attitude to pensions differed remarkably from the French, who established a precedent in the reward of savants, sometimes quoted enviously by British men of science. In 1837 Robert Peel virtually admitted that, in awarding pensions to ‘cultivators of science’, he was following the French practice. It may also be useful to emphasise the contrast between the English (often led by Cambridge professors) and the Scots, mostly from Edinburgh, mainly represented here by Whewell and Brewster, respectively. Babbage had a different role in this story from that usually told. A large part in supporting men of science of modest means could have been played by the British Association for the Advancement of Science but it consistently refused to do so, although it supported an elite among its own members.     

The International Association of Refrigeration through the correspondence of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and Charles-Édouard Guillaume, 1908–1914

Summary In 1908 the First International Congress of Refrigeration took place in Paris, organised by a score of French industrialists and supported by some of the major railway and shipping companies. A few months later, in January 1909, the International Association of Refrigeration was founded with the aim of encouraging the general progress of the science and industries of artificial cold. The aim of this paper consists in examining the early years of the Association with a particular focus on its scientific character. The research is based on the documents published by the Association from 1908 to 1914, and on private correspondence between two of the main scientists, both Nobel Prize recipients, who played an important role in its establishment: the Swiss physicist Édouard Guillaume (1861–1938) and the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853–1926). Both scientists had a specific vision for their own role in the Association and for the Association itself. Their correspondence reveals a great range of tensions between the various nation-state members of the Association, its various spheres of activity, but also tensions due to personal ambitions and conflicts of interest.     

I am knowledge. Get me out of here! On localism and the universality of science

It has become increasingly common in historiography of science to understand science and its products as inherently local. However, this orientation is faced with three problems. First, how can one explain the seeming universality of contemporary science? Second, if science is so reflective of its local conditions of production, how can it travel so effortlessly to other localities and even globally? And third, how can scientific knowledge attain validity outside its context of origin? I will argue that the notion of standardization and theories of delocalization manage to explain the ‘globality’ of science, but that localism denies ‘universality’ if it is understood non-spatially. Further, localism limits the validity of scientific knowledge unacceptably inside the laboratory walls or other boundaries of knowledge creation. This is not consistent with scientific practice. I will consider on what grounds extra-local knowledge inferences that transcend the boundaries of locality could be seen as justified.     

Essay Review: Looking for the Rhetoric of Science

The characteristics of inductivist historiography of science, as practised by earlier scientist/historians, and Whig historiography, as practised by earlier political historians, are described, according to the accounts of Agassi and Butterfield. It is suggested that the writings of Geikie on the history of geology allow us to characterize him as a Whig/inductivist historian of science who formulated anachronistic judgements. It is further suggested that his writings have had a considerable long-term effect on interpretations of the history of geology. The character of Geikie's historiography is related to his social, political and religious views, his historicism, and his romantic enthusiasm for Nature. His methodological pronouncements are examined: he believed that the present is the key to the past, and also that the past is the key to the present. He was an empiricist and inductivist. These epistemological and methodological views impinged on his historiography of science. If one attempts to criticize Geikie's historiography, though one may try to judge his work according to the norms of his own day and age, historical anachronism cannot be avoided entirely and one may oneself be charged with acting ‘Whiggishly’. Historians of science, in the process of professionalization, have accepted the historiographical norms of general historians (perhaps for socio-economic reasons), but in so doing have inherited a problem that arises whenever they contemplate earlier historical writings. It is suggested that there may be more room for Whiggish historiography of science than is presently deemed acceptable. Alternatively, one may wish to draw a careful distinction between science and its meta-discipline, the historiography of science. Whig historiography conflates the two, and the work of Geikie (a scientist/historian par excellence) provides a good illustration of this.     

The platinum pyrometers of Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau,F.R.S. (1737–1816)

As we have seen, it was clearly Guyton's intention, in 1808, to supply details of his improved platinum pyrometer, and he did submit a drawing of the instrument at the meeting of the Class in December 1810. It would seem that on that occasion he did not supply those details which are to be found in the fourth, unpublished, part of the ‘Essay’. The existence of a text fit to be sent to the printer, and the execution of a drawing relating to the improved version of his platinum pyrometer, might be taken as evidence that Guyton intended to publish. His paper of 1810 did not appear until 1814, however, so that publication of the fourth part of the ‘Essay’ could scarcely have occurred until 1815 or later. Guyton probably hoped to be able to read it to the Class of Physical and Mathematical Sciences before publishing it in the Annales de Chimie, but his death on 2 January 1816 robbed him of the opportunity.     

Medical representations of the body in Japan: gender, class, and discourse in the eighteenth century

This paper examines the introduction of European anatomy to Japan via translated medical texts in the eighteenth century. It argues how detailed illustrations of the body found in the texts presented a new discourse by which to objectify and control the body, and new metaphors and analogies by which to view society. Inspection of bodily parts through dissection and the reading of anatomical texts marked a transition to Western forms of science, to 'reliable' knowledge which was certified by the social status of the author. By looking at one important text, the Kaitai shinsho [A New Book of Anatomy] (1774), it will be shown that changes in representations of the body reflect the social construction of gender.     

Measurement,coordination, and the relativized a priori

The problem of measurement is a central issue in the epistemology and methodology of the physical sciences. In recent literature on scientific representation, large emphasis has been put on the “constitutive role” played by measurement procedures as forms of representation. Despite its importance, this issue hardly finds any mention in writings on constitutive principles, viz. in Michael Friedman׳s account of relativized a priori principles. This issue, instead, was at the heart of Reichenbach׳s analysis of coordinating principles that has inspired Friedman׳s interpretation. This paper suggests that these procedures should have a part in an account of constitutive principles of science, and that they could be interpreted following the intuition originally present (but ultimately not fully developed) in Reichenbach׳s early work.     

John Dewey's pragmatist alternative to the belief-acceptance dichotomy

Defenders of value-free science appeal to cognitive attitudes as part of a wedge strategy, to mark a distinction between science proper and the uses of science for decision-making, policy, etc. Distinctions between attitudes like belief and acceptance have played an important role in defending the value-free ideal. In this paper, I will explore John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy of science as an alternative to the philosophical framework the wedge strategy rests on. Dewey does draw significant and useful distinctions between different sorts of cognitive attitudes taken by inquirers, but none can be used to support the wedge strategy.     

Crustal layering, simplicity, and the oil industry: The alteration of an epistemic paradigm by a commercial environment

This paper proposes that the gradual alteration of the predominant epistemic paradigm in crustal seismology in the interwar period—namely, simplicity—came about because of the strong influence of a particular commercial environment, i.e. the oil industry. I begin by demonstrating the interwar predominance of Jeffreys’ ‘simplicity postulate’ and his probabilistic epistemology, highlighting the espousal by several seismologists (Bullen, Stoneley, Byerly), whose crustal models drew on mathematical idealisations. Next, I demonstrate that the renunciation of simplicity in the 1930s came about too quickly, and, above all, too heterodoxically to have been the result of new geological evidence. Rather, I argue, the paradigm shift among seismologists was a result of the significant rise in seismic exploration generated by the oil industry. Driven by market demands, American petroleum companies pioneered new technologies, organised research initiatives, and trained young geophysicists who, through the fusion of experimentalism and field experience, brought about fundamental progress in earthquake seismology. Remarkably, historians of science have almost entirely failed to recognise the interwar primacy of the simplicity paradigm as well as its subsequent renunciation. More importantly, they have failed to acknowledge the role the oil industry played in contributing to this renunciation and to the development of new paradigms in seismology.     

Minds, machines and economic agents: Cambridge receptions of Boole and Babbage

In the 1860s and 1870s the logic of Boole and the calculating machines of Babbage were key resources in W. S. Jevons’s attempt to construct a mechanical model of the mind, and both therefore played an important role in Jevons’s attempted revolution in economic theory. In this same period both Boole and Babbage were studied within the Cambridge Moral Sciences Tripos, but the Cambridge reading of Boole and Babbage was much more circumspect. Implicitly following the division of the moral sciences into material and ‘real’ as established by the Rev. Grote, John Venn treated Boole’s logic as a purely formal science, while Alfred Marshall based his psychological model of the mechanical part of the human mind upon Babbage’s two-level machine. From the different perspectives of logic and psychology, Venn and Marshall did not simply incorporate their readings of Boole and Babbage, but also attempted to establish the limits to any mechanical explanation of the mind. This comparison of the attitudes to mental science of Jevons and Marshall provides a foundation from which the differing conceptions of economic theory of the two men can be established.     

On the Virtues and Disadvantage of Quantification for Democratic Life

In this paper, a response to Ed Levy's discussion of medical quantification, I reflect on the ambitions of my book Trust in Numbers. I explore the idealized method of randomized clinical trials, revealed in his case study, as a social technology, one endowed with a persuasive scientific rationale but shaped also by political and social demands. The scholarly study of quantification requires not a choice between blind admiration and sweeping rejection, but a nuanced understanding. This should take into account not only the cognitive aspects of science, but also its role in relation to institutions and customs, examined with some specificity. While history is narrowed and distorted when it is written to support a position on some present issue, historical and social studies of science should at least provide tools of criticism. For this, the historian of science must look beyond narrow communities of specialists, and seek a wider perspective on science as an administrative tool and a bearer of cultural and political values.     

Science and philosophy in early modern Europe: The historiographical significance of the work of Charles B. Schmitt

In his many contributions to the history of science and the history of philosophy, the late Charles Schmitt demonstrated the interdependence of these two spheres of thought in early modern Europe. Schmitt was particularly insistent on a large and positive role for Aristotelian philosophy in the development of early modern science.     

A word of the Empirics: the ancient concept of observation and its recovery in early modern medicine

The genealogy of observation as a philosophical term goes back to the ancient Greek astronomical and medical traditions, and the revival of the concept in the Renaissance also happened in the astronomical and medical context. This essay focuses primarily on the medical genealogy of the concept of observation. In ancient Greek culture, an elaboration of the concept of observation (tērēsis) first emerged in the Hellenistic age with the medical sect of the Empirics, to be further developed by the ancient Sceptics. Basically unknown in the Middle Ages, the Empirics' conceptualisation of tērēsis trickled back into Western medicine in the fourteenth century, but its meaning seems to have been fully recovered by European scholars only in the 1560s, concomitantly with the first Latin translation of the works of Sextus Empiricus. As a category originally associated with medical Scepticism, observatio was a new entry in early modern philosophy. Although the term gained wide currency in general scholarly usage in the seventeenth century, its assimilation into standard philosophical language was very slow. In fact, observatio does not even appear as an entry in the philosophical dictionaries until the eighteenth century--with one significant exception, the medical lexica, which featured the lemma, reporting its ancient Empiric definition, as early as 1564.     

State of the field: Latin American decolonial philosophies of science

Today, new histories of science are producing skeptical questions about the supposedly international philosophies of science that prevail in the North. The conceptual resources of such philosophies seem inadequate to enable them to interact effectively with how sciences and their philosophies do, could, and should function in today's economic, political, social and cultural, local and global contexts. How international, or universal, are these philosophies of science in reality? Here the focus will be on just one strain of these challenges. This one has emerged from Latin Americans who are creating anti-colonial histories and philosophies of knowledge production. They have named it modernity/coloniality/decolonial theory (MCD). They intend to develop a philosophy of science adequate for its own, Latin American needs. In the process, they transform typical Northern assumptions about modernity, its origins and its effects on Northern philosophies of science, as these are understood in both Latin America and around the globe.Five aspects of the MCD accounts will be discussed here. The first is historical differences between the worlds of the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of the Americas in the sixteenth century and of the worlds of the mostly British colonization of India and Africa in the ‘long nineteenth century’. Second is feminist and anti-racist issues in these Latin American histories. Third is the neglect of these histories in the North. Fourth is the continuing effects of the rise and fall of a positivist philosophy of science in Latin America. The fifth is two progressive post-positivist tensions for Northern philosophy of science produced in this work.     

化学发光分析技术在生命科学研究中的一些应用

生命过程是一个错综复杂的过程，人类对生命现象的探索由来己久。随着现代检测诊断技术，如X射线照影，B超，电子显微和CT技术等的出现，人类对生命活动的认识以及疾病的诊断取得了突飞猛进的发展。在应用这些方法观察生命过程中的宏观现象的同时，人们也把目光投向隐藏在这些宏观现象背后的微观过程，渴望从分子级别上认识生命的各种过程，即对参与生命过程的物质进行定性、定量和活性测试。核酸和蛋白质是在生命活动中最重要的两类物质，而要分析它们在生命体系中的活动并非易事，因为生命体系大都十分复杂。所以针对不同的分析对象建立有效的核酸和蛋白质分析方法已成为生命科学研究中的前沿和热门课题。目前世界上许多研究机构和商业企业在这方面投入大量的人力和财力，以期建立有效的方法和推出相应的商业试剂和仪器。纵观这方面的发展现状，我们不难发现许多当前流行的核酸和蛋白质分析方法中采用了化学发光体系。本文就化学发光法在分析核酸和蛋白质方面的发展现状做一些介绍。