Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life
    Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life
    Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life
    Ebook710 pages12 hours

    Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life

    By Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Leviathan and the Air-Pump examines the conflicts over the value and propriety of experimental methods between two major seventeenth-century thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, author of the political treatise Leviathan and vehement critic of systematic experimentation in natural philosophy, and Robert Boyle, mechanical philosopher and owner of the newly invented air-pump. The issues at stake in their disputes ranged from the physical integrity of the air-pump to the intellectual integrity of the knowledge it might yield. Both Boyle and Hobbes were looking for ways of establishing knowledge that did not decay into ad hominem attacks and political division. Boyle proposed the experiment as cure. He argued that facts should be manufactured by machines like the air-pump so that gentlemen could witness the experiments and produce knowledge that everyone agreed on. Hobbes, by contrast, looked for natural law and viewed experiments as the artificial, unreliable products of an exclusive guild.


    The new approaches taken in Leviathan and the Air-Pump have been enormously influential on historical studies of science. Shapin and Schaffer found a moment of scientific revolution and showed how key scientific givens--facts, interpretations, experiment, truth--were fundamental to a new political order. Shapin and Schaffer were also innovative in their ethnographic approach. Attempting to understand the work habits, rituals, and social structures of a remote, unfamiliar group, they argued that politics were tied up in what scientists did, rather than what they said. Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer use the confrontation between Hobbes and Boyle as a way of understanding what was at stake in the early history of scientific experimentation. They describe the protagonists' divergent views of natural knowledge, and situate the Hobbes-Boyle disputes within contemporary debates over the role of intellectuals in public life and the problems of social order and assent in Restoration England. In a new introduction, the authors describe how science and its social context were understood when this book was first published, and how the study of the history of science has changed since then.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateAug 15, 2011
    ISBN9781400838493
    Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life

    Read more from Steven Shapin

    Related to Leviathan and the Air-Pump

    Titles in the series (45)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Science & Mathematics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      If Not Darwin, Who?: An alternative history of the great ideas of science.

      Dec 15, 2016

      What would physics look like if Einstein had never existed, or biology without Darwin? In one view, nothing much would change—the discoveries they made and theories they devised would have materialized anyway sooner or later. That’s the odd thing abo

      13 min read

    • Article

      Punk It Up

      Jun 4, 2020

      Punk It Up
      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘Parallel Botany’ In The Age Of Alternative Facts

      Jan 29, 2018

      Author and illustrator Leo Lionni is best known for fitting together translucent, tissue shapes into children’s narratives—the first to do so, although his mouse Frederick (1967) was soon joined by Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969). Lik

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Popular Creation Story of Astronomy Is Wrong

      May 17, 2018

      In the early years of the 17th century, Johannes Kepler argued that the universe contained thousands of mighty bodies, bodies so huge that they could be universes themselves. These giant bodies, said Kepler, testified to the immense power of, as well

      9 min read

    • Article

      Marxist Mechanics

      Jun 19, 2022

      Marxist Mechanics
      2 min read

    • Article

      This Philosopher Helped Ensure There Was No Nobel for Relativity: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein reached and swayed the 1921 Nobel committee.

      Apr 21, 2016

      On April 6, 1922, Einstein met a man he would never forget. He was one of the most celebrated philosophers of the century, widely known for espousing a theory of time that explained what clocks did not: memories, premonitions, expectations, and antic

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Human League

      May 28, 2021

      The Human League
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Roots Of Science Fiction

      Sep 2, 2021

      The Roots Of Science Fiction
      6 min read

    • Article

      The World Of Writing

      Dec 2, 2021

      The World Of Writing
      4 min read

    • Article

      British Sounds

      Sep 12, 2022

      British Sounds
      10 min read

    • Article

      A Tantalizing Promise

      Aug 4, 2023

      A Tantalizing Promise
      4 min read

    • Article

      Do You Know These Scientific Pioneers?

      Nov 25, 2020

      It’s easy to name science and math geniuses. I can just flip open my old book from the 1960s, which lists “100 Great Scientists”; it contains all the names you’d find on most popular lists of scientific geniuses: Einstein, Newton, Maxwell, Gauss, Boh

      5 min read

    • Article

      Simply Phenomenal!

      Jul 14, 2022

      Hunt Emerson Knockabout Press 2022 Pb, 224pp, £22.99, ISBN 9780861662906 Even after working on FT for well over two decades, some things never, as they say, get old. One of those things is the arrival, every four weeks, of a new “Phenomenomix” strip

      8 min read

    • Article

      When Theft Was Worse Than Murder: Hundreds of years of trial documents reveal our changing attitudes to violent crime.

      Apr 24, 2014

      The records of the Old Bailey, London’s central criminal court, tell the tale of one John Randal, who was tried on Sept. 9, 1674. He was charged “with two Indictments, one for Fellony for stealing several pieces of Plate, and other Goods…, and the ot

      10 min read

    • Article

      Top Ten Unsung Geniuses: For these scientists, success and fame did not come in equal measure.

      Oct 16, 2014

      It’s easy to name science and math geniuses. I can just flip open my old book from the 1960s, which lists “100 Great Scientists”; it contains all the names you’d find on most popular lists of scientific geniuses: Einstein, Newton, Maxwell, Gauss, Boh

      5 min read

    • Article

      RECOMMENDED READ: Read All About It

      Sep 20, 2022

      IN 1968, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA hosted a banquet in London’s Guildhall to celebrate its 200th birthday, with Prime Minister Harold Wilson among the 500 guests, and the Queen sending a telegram of congratulations. Not surprisingly, there was utter co

      3 min read

    • Article

      Who Said Nobody Read Isaac Newton?

      Jan 20, 2021

      The central university library at Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, is an imposing, towered building known affectionately for being called a “magnificent erection” by, before he became prime minister, Neville Chamberlain.1 When I was a graduate stude

      7 min read

    • Article

      Intriguing And Diverse

      Jun 16, 2022

      Genius of the Fern Loved Gully Amy Hale Strange Attractor Press 2020 Pb, 336pp, £20, ISBN 9781907222863 Ithell Colquhoun’s star is in the ascendant. Born in India in 1906, she lived a life amongst the Surrealists in the Thirties and early Forties, ha

      9 min read

    • Article

      SCIENCE & INVENTION

      Jan 28, 2021

      SCIENCE & INVENTION
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Leviathan and the Air-Pump

    4/5

    32 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is a narrowly focused, dense, scholarly book. It's about Robert Boyle and his air pump, how the air pump was a paradigmatic example for Boyle's goal of establishing an experimental community, a community dedicated to coming to understand nature via laboratory experiments. Of course Boyle was successful - we live today in the world he built.This book focuses mostly on the challenges to Boyle from Thomas Hobbes, but we hear about a few other challenges too. I must say, this book was a slog for me. I studied physics in college, but there is not much recognizable physics here. This is all before Newton published! The ideas here are pretty strange! It's fascinating really to see how folks struggled with ideas that by now we have worked through quite thoroughly... but actually to come at the puzzles freshly through these early modern eyes... it reinvigorates my curiosity! A key aspect of the time of these debates - these unfolded in the early years of the reign of Charles II, the monarchy restored after the civil war and the republic of Cromwell etc. People were really looking for stability after a time of extreme turmoil. Hobbes advocated a kind of extreme stability, rigidity really, modeled on Euclidean geometry. Physics should be basic on logic and axioms. Boyle advocated a middle way. Folks could agree to disagree on theories about why things happened, but they could agree on what things happened - experimentally observed facts. How can you tell if your equipment is working? You need to be able to reproduce the results others have observed. But then, how can you independently confirm those observations by others? This is a nice conundrum. This book takes us through the story of hmmm anomalous suspension... darned if I know... it's like water or mercury in a barometer can get stuck at the top of the tube somehow, not pushed up by air pressure but maybe it's the van der Waals force or something. It's really true, experimental equipment tends to be temperamental and real experience tends to be messier than the nice pretty picture that gets presented in the textbooks. I don't know how politics and science were tangling in 1985 when this book came out. It sure seems a lot more crucial today in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic! Science requires a suitable degree of political support and freedom. Science can in turn support society. This symbiotic relationship grew out of early modern times, especially after the Thirty Years War on the continent and the English Civil War. Can it survive the turbulence of the early 21st Century?

    Book preview

    Leviathan and the Air-Pump - Steven Shapin

    cx ^book_preview_excerpt.html}˒W4Cf*H$K>$"LؚZ @LVջjj1}/fL?ї@"IlZLׯ?wdG==yiqaz^||GO'O\nӯɟ<>G/ݽ&&gmUBuuڮuZ9f}%_ꛢ_[oa^o~N>LU 7?ĿU^W8Iդx./waWosU{oz9o6w~^/vi]'IPчwn{>eez,_AٗF{yTG<3JFP>)(/j]N/r%6y*?BilNIU7P;q v8 i9G n]VY/;a9N6zm:G\G}pnߺ>xOM[4C[zR|q?IɋAN31ϏZ7lϚu0R \e!uD Ϋz>#ʫua]"1bv_A$$ع?_WpOޗcWbv]#@<ڢ\Err^7iKq; gR~UR#_ ie{(roy1NEi|JL5 eRΪw3/s"j@5K2KQvvw_e*2 yY Iq_=|K&C_{,GiwFk3 hUz~[B-q+8n^K<֟}ɕ>ڈ'/[TmW_i(7|K,]_·7|=})Y!mW:L?}rzxyqg/_ @t1]~=P^>cBS]/Ggbg_x IE"_D'~٫'~M\N_G݃xO[7~|g!~_A};]Iy_ gtF?l wX-E-`D5]]&AeOamZB17Al%3 )'Ͼxq7>|o6T>qH/y aYL`W6le$;7-Ev:>ԁ˾W|1UM,FJR#whvogj&'Ej.Sye-OZ@E\[BW{j6bWl3__5_ۏ>z۞+K ]Gwc⧔6F~?l%h'Yۈ<.:.^)r$᝷Ƈe=<*-Qs.bgrw$9lG^W@}T ;i;dW^(%8}& >bxo};8r6m%׻-Ndi=qe6 Q^JrZ㢩l俏Z7ʁy U5sU$C_zM>UG=> 2ѴMl7vɷ1*s!Q̽^s_2FtW%; EY=lk$_fz폯p #_Qȱ qޯ߾bw{+b?6QI{&*yznwim~&/`M^K@[by *+Ӄf-rH3ۅų^VBsXA{KG*wgjQ\ݻcodz"_>oQY|`fYM`!~Srxmt kϬ4!լږ {f ᒼD$~a=8ے'Q|$>e"KۭB XAM3q bșB# }AT1 W1\隍\\45>$VNr%(ʹc30J.z5QhS-6O:f$aA4;n֬ܖ e֕N|y25@U8rDM'8GǕI ";sܨk=ijCU7[o Ѿ|j=z-oTb e!dm}Rir""*~kajMZta9M ϊܐAU۝<(Bah7eM5?Uө3وatGi!n \EV Uc .{Aֺ/'|nA?Hf$JF.C{]UHQ⡔lE)M3U1{jh'?;;}'SbnwhV.V%єNRRA`i1$<~gTEêt 賛4@|͉֡,f\3@ᤪrr LɚnXR\cN{g&]|X=Y΍ QdoV! _o=֡ bՑ \a Mll|S*t/e ס^_}JlVn6ek\bHlT;3y' <іQ[8 t{`Q6Us J ّ߶*Uv̪-..1x.٤0T6"駧 ;&K*8'a˳!_$fq.шnDY(=4Ŀ^TI4n,՞%7'D6C@" kه )g+ RxpHDYK3w&n>r5HIgO5&ɘ-f> 2 "? 0Ku@JTa趕 YNaIB]D3}.Qgւ9A|K8&q=BO~-t+Lm(e!_:理a" idb( ڐ*mIX]" T`khlgg/,x$+$ؾkFP6nȟ4D\˧俐pEK@QhcsEVV8k>j얦Z:GDc@6X};=Hf3MOdoˍ_̔EAgG|EuYmU?U[]E =E#+3ףꁓGCNm/(1EM\,@l_7A] ;wn!B?Шe{JvCI:V 7 {ū9JAoFm|@,;5#R?>~PՔcA@.1*o+>'H`U\_FlEv9)QE?w fon54:E1@yC}dƽܷHp%˵Dr:YnQ«ze $GDL^gZD"vzp#7}3< oWA)'u@oskRi4#GOSBÆZ}aDڮ/!nAeP4sw!}V lRY80 k/ӝec5$ N h ^:ٿ`Q |#lx\d&c)%&=:0:]-iڵM0͔H*H\Ԉҏ^2?(acl=b/c|2haJVBj('Wávo۔%٪ e&ja5Zٓn$\Tn9GB"Z)ԡ'3}FMjP)Hю;w3e`**([3{h<7aRȁT!ò}F#nT m.^ȡ#a\qkJz_`zgjb.IC]f Wn5[$t3fzXj;&0Ů\ @ܰnU(FA⹸fkE‡GI8f22{^C&r)Qm)YFMS G3/!b"oU^۠qs X>Nh{-&ߢ"E2cx%2Ũw5+'[9s$\oHm {&#[uip)xX7f>Wlۖ޲y0:_]sQL(ZfqF7ԋy&?ဋNDAB7SCO K׋~COh4f<ʹ_fflXi)ѵc [j-c}\娍:mmi$л7/P\B}&Ha"-\ch-ir~'Y+w=%tUt0]~]m.ЦGƺ>ǚnhE <#l+n"I)KqAiPug3(X~,aM62"Vm3yü0Q;'?"z͛ѸyŚ${e^GfڝK_ FT "v(2!s4M|a-{ՂmsIJ{K0[6nϊ烹`>%\+:Kih^4qTPye?y 3N?W$ $:G#-*[vZh\ni*?@oHKIIAQ=*{0cLH'h!qk8s$;EJ\2Q+ȅco`i@%2;ʝa:jf+V>EpRV!G[W7/)wf|m[ܩw[p [d,$~\J΋IΑ^#ED2{5]fڻڇȃ4l6#cdO5P'PNM_7I 1LX7EhKh(sj7J*!Չ>Iy:ָNiM@ך iTq 1aE-~f Q!qB̺y諦n8_Av4~.䑼oP&Jmd2 Ǘ"#P*r_5`+z~! Ϗ Β} *3ZQ|%w>b~\ 1s0oAHQ\cyxU& O{r͕1 IbMӳ/Iqӧ_ei,B׿#_{ 2ceɌʬ[3{ōn^Yq9AȄzIhjy3j m$ل0LSzkW0w4y7=;,.aTՅC%@":#usrPXv}7:r$Fe3,j͇J C Qu^n`2_ϷK,w 7ȖhwejȒcE`۶˔G*/)~%Y&&ߪ]wc $G1FNW r^ J&L'jVZ-<򠩓K/A$ʝWu/vt@h8}Rl*ğ+sHx Q+D]-CխRS irV!#[##LZIL[]\q=|b@SP:DP;[^!}b97 J0O]V}tFAa5#DM}g-*SDmR>(El@ktd7"+&ּXQ*HIkf";OTɺӪkgpیihOWC?}_0kyA5<LjvYcX}=[#D4s~טFee9W}NX}=P Cd ng͐l!O Y+ TTܨ~7}ކ$M%`Dq(1S @~Ħ\t"eފiHd< " {9 %_KBJ`PGm${>QW>-(lDu<9Xkf a,دA#_$'8=&߀߈xkBF'${#(R|P'iSacD ZN,'_ŀO\ޣ6bz/VƞZ3GbE^gԕ6AS=J'JVBVhmQ2V-ږI{992+֫(6}LQJ69JCzl|?S|U"Gކu^sUXmnë́9zZOz$*̳Ѝw/?9\I"1kmKhq X]anT ֵgCb1!Sr`"v(I 5{)8y3O\q8K֋hvfٖPkIEhO:`ĠM|raSЗrQTT,e\N30(wR;݀EXPlB'^d7&y)`tؔZvuF2r xɑU*<{cJBR^3qbءm};MCY1ya dNJ*nJZ."n[@5Z*1CX%)=:QRg_6&`|| A[}󰔀1V6=v~^K xQ <f'KdP7l!D>2By5Qot5}8q!r9e\Kod9^a4`[-UhU?,qY"a$IN W"s3]9ބڄŴ'2Sh bk`qF´b-|eB2g=ʯʄ{ZXYW\%&'#@[j\xH P% ^hP1,ߍƺsz 'ewxDz!g3? 50o#i6y&kŇ6z_ /ΐIĬxg>:Jϛ9w#p! 1\?؁ʋf^o|˨h \R>}qoɏ:ms-'#zJSGJ~ b}UǑծA"Sh==̣@]6ѠyLji0R'ysN(ņScԊsQ a0Pql*R IKF?QcыWR Ed4֏B fp= , Ĩi46,Q+m7NчxکF" (z=rA]JsLO?dN]9=ثU@s$d+bUqBT)+U]LfOh{e"Dɼ*g+NNo,)gLG]X8Z8ѭnD?kzGXگaw0ʢ]폊Mwɉ}Pzes\SI\內^*W@+:Bw #Nc\e,7pJ}^2SR<2CRRi`.%*,Bd?YGs\%a?BِHZ}UWWF`>#2h>O0U({^!Jbc6gQ7"6Y; xmsj o +OLu!\Smq6DDqsSl "eU0h#K%e ՠ7"j1X|63zc 0A˱jAL5_&$id) OJxj2{S[n^hV0+ŷ媒 *ѹ<.:VFCI.b>ʷr#Ƕh(y<}_jM=iVɮ#lAbz hqv UiL.H .^}ԉcr=JԀ׳RhAn5Ǿ/qo!CP9Ra{qHHJD-K_5ڰ+SXEiQ=:!sXQ[q#2+*F|(6R^/&CNX0ɷ_>MV9J-a|7U*[hxAm7 ~[իrZG}$xnG{c -DEUI<1 =tKx5|K<#IWJUn89gzvP(a}n>#dr=r w9LuKqpErlؖOf{v J9,A6>/dݼt}\\;ֺF f_Ϫ߉muFG`"[Ku v|d#)h4 &.9ˬ7-kb3i7πz'0WfQ#8{UN۲GU\Vt2e?G8+id֥ H@]&̡}Qt)z~$6ƨLl%{,b4}~Ҡ*8f4H%ڑ=rЏ=mbNrMb|~ 'ߥeQ,vw =&7P&͔y6rD|q"Ys#Q{Uu9ϜpX4 D/KE u,﹋N05UJݕMY뤉"ad˾m^׏sdpծ1FyҜ8kZD]~ :ȆYh1g$/`aM`ҹy#WͤMά&qq"̵6|_[wG8Ĵ&= %y4 7xՊj|L&@z CI|?3Q_3</-j܇Dk.MHJ[KrZ Wo-7}y7,:&9ڧViCs1,7S%7z%?۟5 $u#~e A}Aڌ~ȨkkꧮO!,2Σ^tĊ3Bb>]d-,m.B6ǚTC۳ǞN9,sJZ?!ʼnnոb߉Wp0iM"wG"kvCXSZDqN Z=9~:b 1V{C~hQ9>+t6&ln,z{p mtf;&6HK ~6{}*t:EZ4b*OdccqMk+S9IKl?5,rhYFi7z6򳰗ڕPCRS.[6?TI[#3rU[V 谗ɕ9֬ ;oxk48 %7V8 SLV`͊]9?}/ Q(AE7`?vo/6c/ bhƹy&$06Ud#+=HB#v:;ePNM3x,Lu'xEw~ٵ,RLmx-Dbz}_꽯C|Z 8}n:APu |C.[Iz;15NG?j 1Նv-&A_l/uH3WhS.ɗB,<=ElZeӑq T=wDj:YYMdlj4E$L'9#w}ƽޫ3;0;ޕs:$CŬ!>JBGFSLffskkύ&G"q[#lU6پ.MTᜣtewŇ<;WI`/-glҿJ;zBchng[ZLg}UDLp J*|yJ+][3@U \u(KxpSv/m%*NC,w;] Ҫ$uVA.۷uT=W-ա/}2 @/kF7q[B(gYv{2@Vpb Q6JIZa2M$M3Ku4<jv)-tC//v#FRĒ`FgCekslmY<'jQ1*dK:(T.dMz9l-VF&MGOOXĠ $Qt'dwPYU ly@l&'3N킜m wOȾRH)Y17^b,G6gtO991/d>o|(o#}CY`EE|nsGgnJ,ċ܂P=$W%̎AGJSZy Ytt|,E#m>O&W.nƒl ٬ך&4ZyP$w TlQm#x:%_=Nz`. 귢e+1y"Ù7YɄo_>QDiO_ dc)j_9pV'#(16t=p)w'cP1~{>((f v~`dDŽD~KF7ʴڍ1&'59X`̿FGkj`>V~zըu#W.Vi  nz M (9k>ʪE\FFNwʳ -'+r#sHx-w＜>-sjPjkx:R*+pU9J6ruɓ99 aYrI0#BV^ȹ,2+E]JOjiѧI_I_8}YqGO_'.g@ƃvw]g%ro`MI_f!1=d僝Nhip> UB&l1O|x@Xٴ ^_kiku5JÁ=5ou>('"tPV-RYYBu*)Ԉ")C(}}u90:ř|UF%^QYأIcjQfzEh#Z"xO!U4<6d8-1c d3™,#޺qTjbQY h8IB@+!9Y::-Z"A'b8Ӎ]K^,ѮAFhDnfֺ5Ax I7C;sCNklٜm}g^"KZ{Y͔: dgόLcPd=qI(Dڈk=qقLҫ,_/Wl$WlYL ԅ_"D|C.^,DtQ^nOb|ۘxW2Xn KbV|DJX?#@E'Q[2ku+(fYdhU|cԃ&g4NR-Oʜ+~wQFj,QHT8hꗖkOI_1!hG}x!~8VB:@7e5QBo"KL1ݨ񵁎jS] a; E4C19T wqI{bKL4(\V.1ڦɺր{eȫNUO̴G5סo›qǶS od/uy) Dؗvxnֻ Z@6(ņBYz#Yi3k59VmPWe[݋X6N7Ү Lъ65 ƻMkLd4zFp;.U?M8Ԭlۛ>'2du.ʥ8-˶An'I1Y O.O8C'eD/r\'m,1H$O#q3S;\pstذq ˮ ,Z>'ɢ&}L.)i+(j Q*O.KWVIi:H2}ݺ8{ocYИWXR3Z3*t^ WK%d g# /^F`&pݣM1tqK̯,j㏺a@K%F+Nv,m}ݸ}nNi]Qz)ysU8R5{kkH0C/%Juh D"Ph[PA;E+5 J-zN n)SGj k&35ėjt*|N{͈&ܭT cw~ϔ\"blܑ.ړs/b%^ʬ笻&u;o(7zܧpx 4Wv8a_06ͺ!D J4'!zm2剤0#G@I=RyoEV|Ռyz++faG.:) H5SjﲅQp#Rg٘ωw`a>!Qn ?jl(ɱ)TWd3~7K}{gE*(_R6Bp G0/e"Jr-WHZ7jyfngcbVa{ҒN ~YA{=7x艙&;|ت37F
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1