The Scientific Revolution in Scotland Revisited

Abstract

This chapter reviews scholarship on the Scientific Revolution in Scotland. A long-ignored manuscript of astronomical, mathematical, and natural philosophical verse and prose commentary provides an invaluable opportunity to explore many of the aspects that have drawn the attention of revisionist studies. A preliminary evaluation of the manuscript’s form, content, and production-context provides the opportunity to gain a far more nuanced understanding of the progress of intellectual change during the long Scientific Revolution as literary, philosophical, and scientific dialectic forged new paths. The manuscript highlights that, contrary to the prevailing scholarly view, not only were the new methodological approaches and phenomenological theories of the Scientific Revolution being taught and debated in early modern Scotland; key educationalists within the realm from the time of Copernicus made significant contributions to scientific progress.