Proof and Persuasion

Abstract

Questions of proof and persuasion are important in the history of the sciences of any period, but they are particularly pressing in the case of early modern Europe. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw more self-conscious theoretical reflection on how to discover and confirm the truths of nature than any period before or since; the same period also manifested a huge range of practical strategies by which investigators of the natural world set about demonstrating their findings and convincing their audiences of their claims. Studying these strategies of proof and persuasion has opened up vistas of opportunity for historians of the sciences in early modern Europe. In a range of disciplines, from the social history of medicine to the history of philosophy, historians of the period have argued for the ineradicable significance of forms of proof and persuasion in understanding their various objects of inquiry. The rhetorical form of texts and even objects has come to be seen as constitutive of their meaning, not separable from it. Furthermore, an increasing number of studies have shown how early modern physicians, mathematical practitioners, and natural philosophers all exploited the different and historically specific resources of proof and persuasion that they had at their disposal. The study of proof and persuasion provides a further opportunity to the historian: It offers a means of bridging the gap between a text (or a practice) and its reception. As the reception, rather than the genesis, of developments in the sciences has become an increasingly important aspect of historiography, it has also become increasingly apparent that this reception history is often extremely difficult to reconstruct.