![]() However, the integrity of the pump was far from perfect and this leaking is central to the arguments both for and against experimentalism. When the pump was set in motion, the air would be evacuated from the glass bulb thus creating what we now consider to be a vacuum, but what for contemporaries was a space of great debate (explained below). Importantly, Shapin and Schaffer give a description of the "material technology," the air-pump itself, essentially a suction pump attached to a replaceable glass bulb. Boyle made use of three knowledge-producing technologies in order to produce knowledge: "a material technology embedded in the construction and operation of the air-pump a literary technology by means of which the phenomena produced by the pump were made known to those who were not direct witnesses and a social technology that incorporated the conventions that experimental philosophers should use in dealing with each other and considering knowledge-claims". Thus, because "matters of fact" did not have to be absolute, universal assent was not necessary for the production of knowledge. In the eyes of Boyle and his colleagues, the abandonment of absolute certainty was not "a regrettable retreat from more ambitious goals it was celebrated as a wise rejection of a failed project". This is in direct opposition to Hobbes (discussed in chapter 3), who required "absolute certainty" based on "logic and geometry" to consider a phenomenon a fact. This refers to an experimentally generated piece of knowledge separate from a universal theory and that was based on probability. Chapter II: Seeing and Believing: The Experimental Production of Pneumatic Facts Ĭhapter Two outlines Boyle's theory of knowledge production, which revolves around the creation of the "matter of fact". They aim to show that the debate between these two contemporaries had political fallout beyond the intellectual sphere, and that accepting Hobbes or Boyle's method of knowledge production was also to accept a social philosophy. In addition, they comment on the social instability of Restoration society post-1660. Thus, in Leviathan and the Air-Pump, Shapin and Schaffer aim to avoid bias and consider both sides' arguments with equal weight. They explain that, traditionally, Hobbes's position on natural philosophy has been dismissed by historians because historians perceived Hobbes as "misunderstanding" Boyle's work. They wish to take a "stranger's" viewpoint when examining the debate between Hobbes and Boyle because, in the 1660s, both methods of knowledge production were well respected in the academic community and the reasons that Boyle's experimentalism prevailed over Hobbes's natural philosophy would not have been obvious to contemporaries. The authors wish to avoid "'The self-evident'" method, which (they explain) is when historians project the values of their current culture onto the time period that they are studying (in this case valuing the benefits of empiricism). Shapin and Schaffer state in their first chapter, "Understanding Experiment", that they wish to answer the question, "Why does one do experiments in order to arrive at scientific truth?" Their aim is to use a historical account of the debate over the validity of Boyle's air pump experiments, and by extension his experimental method, to discover the origins of the credibility that we give experimentally produced facts today. It attacked Boyle and others who founded the society for experimental research, soon known as the Royal Society. ![]() The book also contains a translation by Schaffer of Hobbes's Dialogus physicus de natura aeris. The "Leviathan" in the title is Hobbes's book on the structure of society, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil and the "Air-Pump" is Robert Boyle's mechanical instrument. On a theoretical level, the book explores the acceptable methods of knowledge production, and societal factors related to the different knowledge systems promoted by Boyle and Hobbes. In 2005, Shapin and Schaffer were awarded the Erasmus Prize for this work. ![]() It examines the debate between Robert Boyle and Thomas Hobbes over Boyle's air-pump experiments in the 1660s. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (published 1985) is a book by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer. ![]() Identifiers refer to the 1989 First Princeton Paperback Edition unless otherwise noted
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |