Customer Reviews

Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500-1700

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This book is quite short for the topic. However, its purpose is to familiarize one with the scientific revolution. It does a good job pointing out the system of thought prior to the Scientific Revolution and how it evolved up to Newton. The book is perfect for an upper division course on the scientific revolution. However, due to the concise nature of the book, it should be used as a general background to the era or movement--which it is for the course I am taking. Dear spent some time addressing most key figures during the era, and produced a good starting text for those who do not have any background on the topic. It is well written and easily read.

I would suggest this text to all history majors, and also to those who are interested in the scientific revolution.

Overall, for an introductory work I think Dear presents his aim clearly and handles the subject he deals with well. For the various developments that took place in the physical sciences, he provides ample evidence from the primary texts of various key figures as well as from secondary literature which he references in the endnotes. Also, the fact that he does not treat the subject matter of the book anachronistically is another positive feature of his presentation. However, a few reservations are in order. First, it would have been helpful if Dear had referenced the Aristotelian theses, to which all the various key figures discussed Dear says constantly objected in developing their own ideas, in Aristotle's works themselves. An example of this would be Galileo's criticism of Aristotle's view that heavy bodies fall faster than light ones. There's disagreement about whether or not Galileo even got Aristotle right on this issue. Another example would be the distinction Dear draws (in chapter 4) between pure and mixed mathematics which he attributes to the Aristotelians and against which Galileo and others reacted. Where is exactly is this distinction in Aristotle's works? And if it was drawn by the later (scholastic) Aristotelian tradition, who exactly were they (names?) and where in their works did they uphold it? Another important point which I think Dear should've included in his book (at least even in passing) is whether or not anyone from the Aristotelian tradition responded to these developments in the various sciences which had undermined their doctrines. How, for example, did they receive Galileo's or Francis Bacon's criticisms? Or how did they respond to the mechanistic conception of the world which originated with Descartes? In this regard, perhaps more discussion of Leibniz natural philosophy should've also been included as well since he was one of the only figures during this time period to have attempted to retain elements of scholastic natural philosophy in accounting for the nature of natural phenomena. Given that, as Dear's presentation suggests, Aristotelian ideas were the constant background against which various figures reacted in developing their own thought, one would've of thought that more inclusion of material (in the form of responses) from the Aristotelians (which Dear constantly refers to but never clearly identifies) would have been necessary to get a better overall picture of the intellectual scene during the periods discussed. Besides these view points though, the book overall is helpful in giving one a good introduction to some of the key developments which eventually gave rise to the scientific revolution in the 17th century.

This is a barely adequate survey text. There are many imperfections, of which I shall note a few.

It is claimed that the scientific revolution was based on a resurrection of mathematics from the "pure" and inapplicable. For example: "Galileo and other mathematicians rejected the disciplinary boundary between natural philosophy and mathematics by arguing that mathematics was crucially important in drawing legitimate physical conclusions." (p. 73). "This is where Galileo is such a useful figure" (p. 72). Who ever ever tried to uphold this "disciplinary boundary"? No one is named; there is no quotation or reference, other than generic talk of "Aristotelians," the perpetual villains who are never specified. Similarly, the foolish distinction between "pure" and "mixed" mathematics is also called "Aristotelian" (p. 17). There is no reference to Aristotle for the simple reason that there is none. Aristotle never made such a nonsensical division, nor did anyone with half a brain. The terms in fact originate with Bacon and were invented for his specific propaganda purposes. But Dear swallows it uncritically as absolute truth. Dear is right that "all revolutions are revolution against something" (p. 3), but he fails to consider the possibility that the revolution defines itself against a straw man.

Dear claims that "Kepler responded to the challenge [of Tycho's system] by producing models that could be expressed in Ptolemaic, Copernican, or Tychonic terms" (pp. 76-77). This is complete nonsense. There are no such models. Kepler discussed the three systems only once, in the early part of the Astronomia Nova, solely for the explicit purpose of rejecting the unwanted ones, because the latter parts (to which the first part necessarily leads) of the book are completely inconsistent with those views.

More nonsense occurs in the case of Newton: "Leibniz, Huygens, and other continental philosophers such as Régis had reacted critically when Newton published the Principia in 1687. Their main objections amounted to dismissing the pretensions of Newton's book: rather than presenting a true work on natural philosophy, Newton had simply presented mathematical descriptions dressed up as natural philosophy [in not providing an explanation for gravity]." (p. 164). What are these "pretensions" that are being "dismissed"? Not a single word of the Principia was being so dismissed. In fact Newton shared these views exactly (p. 163). Only a poor historian who is indoctrinated with clichés can manage to see a conflict and "dismissal" where there is in fact perfect agreement.