Science For A Polite Society
Traditional accounts of the scientific revolution focus on such thinkers as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, and usually portray it as a process of steady, rational progress. There is another side to this story, and its protagonists are more likely to be women than men, dilettante aristocrats than highly educated natural philosophers. The setting is not the laboratory, but rather the literary salons of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, and the action takes place sometime between...
Search in google:
Science for a Polite Society is an intriguing reexamination of the social, cultural, and intellectual context of the origins of modern science. Focusing on how elite salon society of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France played a pivotal role in the acceptance of the new science, Geoffrey Sutton paints a vivid picture of drawing-room experiments that persuaded the skeptical to believe through leaping electrical arcs and chemical explosions. Aristocratic women, as well as men, pursued the wonders of scientific exploration and were among the strongest proponents of its worth to society. Booknews A re-examination of the social, cultural, and intellectual context of the origins of modern science which finds its basis was not the laboratory, but the literary salons of 17th- and 18th-century France. Members of salon society--particularly women--were avid readers of works of natural philosophy and active participants in experiments for the edification of their peers. Some went on to champion the new science and played a significant role in securing its acceptance by polite society, bringing a prestige that made science a model of what rationality should be. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
List of FiguresPreface1The Introduction, in which the Author offers two tales of the Scientific Revolution12Pawning off the New Science; Theophraste Renaudot and the Conferences of the Bureau d'adresse193Of Black Sheep, False Suns, and Systematic Thought: Rene Descartes and His World534A Science for a Polite Society: the Crown as the second most Philosophical Hat in Paris1035A Pretty Novel of Physics, in which Cogito, ergo sum meets l'Etat, c'est moi1436The Demonstration of Enlightenment1917The Discovery of the Newtonian World; or, Flattening the Poles if not the Cartesians2418Electricity in the Eighteenth Century; or, The Philosophy of Shocks and Sparks2879The Conclusion, in which the Author Draws a Moral337Notes349Bibliography375About the Book and Author383Index385
\ BooknewsA re-examination of the social, cultural, and intellectual context of the origins of modern science which finds its basis was not the laboratory, but the literary salons of 17th- and 18th-century France. Members of salon society--particularly women--were avid readers of works of natural philosophy and active participants in experiments for the edification of their peers. Some went on to champion the new science and played a significant role in securing its acceptance by polite society, bringing a prestige that made science a model of what rationality should be. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
