Annals of Science最新文献

{"title":"Mechanism. A visual, lexical and conceptual history","authors":"S. Roux","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2078506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2078506","url":null,"abstract":"Domenico Bertoloni Meli’sMechanism. A Visual, Lexical and Conceptual History began as the A. W. Mellon Distinguished Lectures in the History of Science presented at the University of Pittsburgh in 2006. It is focused on the emergence, development, and systematization of the notion of mechanism in the seventeenth century, particularly in anatomy, medicine and the life sciences. The first chapter is devoted to defining mechanism by comparison with allied notions – e.g. machines or artificial devices – and by contrast with others – e.g. faculties of the soul, vital properties or teleological explanations – but also to underlining the ambivalence of ferments, active principles, seminal principles and plastic virtues, all of which could refer to something immaterial yet also be ‘mechanized’. An excursus on Galen opposes mechanisms to the immaterial faculties of the soul, and some of the tensions involved in the search for mechanisms are revealed – the tension between the notions that intervene in the explanations of macroscopic phenomena and the ambition to reduce these phenomena to the motions of microscopic corpuscles endowed with merely quantitative properties, but also the tension between imperfect machines made by us and the perfect machines of nature made by God. The second chapter explores the affinity between visual representations and mechanisms, which consist of spatial arrangements of moving parts: after a nuanced view of the historiographical controversy between David Edgerton and Michael Mahoney about the effect new forms of representation might have had on the transformation of knowledge during the Scientific Revolution, the bulk of this chapter analyses anatomical representations in the long century between Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) and Robert Hooke (1635–1703). The third chapter studies the emergence of the term ‘mechanism’ at the beginnings of the Royal Society, whether it intervened in the explanations of specific natural phenomena or in discussions of philosophical and theological issues; two theses, quite correct in my opinion, are defended: first, the thesis that what is mechanical is defined by contrast with what is not mechanical, and, second, the thesis that what is not mechanical has varied in history. The main figure of the fourth and last chapter is Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694), to whom Bertoloni Meli had already devoted two books; the present chapter focuses on the generation of animals, which brings together different threads previously encountered. This brief book (142 pages, including a number of black and white illustrations, plus notes, bibliography and index) is very rich in detailed analyses. It is sure to impress even the most critical of readers in the history of science and medicine. More generally, it is also incisive and thought-provoking because of some of its methodological commitments, which were already present in Bertoloni Meli’s previous books. First, as in Thinking with Objects, the reader is invited ","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 1","pages":"411 - 413"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41329262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Kindred fatalisms: debating science, Islam, and free will in the Darwinian era","authors":"M. A. Yalcinkaya","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2075938","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2075938","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT An important aspect of the nineteenth century debate on the relationship between science and religion concerned the popularity of deterministic views among scientists. An integral part of Comte's positivism, the idea of immutable laws that determined natural and social phenomena became an increasingly prevalent component of scientific perspectives in the Darwinian era. Referring to this tendency as ‘scientific fatalism,’ critics likened it to Calvinist predestination, which transformed the debate into one involving polemics about different branches of Christianity as well. This paper focuses on a neglected aspect of this debate, namely, the role that references to Islam and Turks played in it. ‘Mohammedan fatalism,’ already a common theme in justifications of colonialism, promptly became a tool with which to condemn new scientific views. Comparing French, British, and American writings on the topic, the paper illustrates that while there emerged approaches that praised the fatalism of Muslims while making a case for scientific determinism, most scientists and thinkers resorted to condemning the fatalism of Muslims in order to distinguish their views from it. In this respect, the paper demonstrates how political and religious discourses played a significant part in the shaping of scientific discourse in the Victorian era.","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 1","pages":"364 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47034460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Inefficient Attentional Control Explains Verbal-Memory Deficits Among Military Veterans With Posttraumatic Reexperiencing Symptoms.","authors":"Craig A Marquardt, Victor J Pokorny, Seth G Disner, Nathaniel W Nelson, Kathryn A McGuire, Scott R Sponheim","doi":"10.1177/21677026211025018","DOIUrl":"10.1177/21677026211025018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Among individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), verbal learning and memory are areas of weakness compared with other cognitive domains (e.g., visuospatial memory). In this study, previously deployed military veterans completed clinical assessments of word memory and vocabulary (<i>n</i> = 243) and a laboratory task measuring encoding, free recall, repetition priming, and recognition of words (<i>n</i> = 147). Impaired verbal memory was selectively related to reexperiencing symptoms of PTSD but was not associated with other symptom groupings or blast-induced traumatic brain injury. Implicit priming of response times following word repetition was also unrelated to clinical symptoms. Instead, slowed response times during encoding explained associations between reexperiencing and memory performance. These findings are consistent with alterations in attentional control explaining PTSD-related verbal-memory deficits. Such findings have implications for understanding trauma-focused psychotherapy and recovery, which may depend on efficient attentional processing of words to alter posttraumatic reexperiencing symptoms.</p>","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"21 1","pages":"499-513"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10663645/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80645474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Minerva’s French Sisters: Women of Science in Enlightenment France","authors":"M. Carlyle","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2066178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2066178","url":null,"abstract":"cal analysis he proposes is ‘as complex and intellectually challenging as a philosophical one’ (p. 139). Third, to view the sciences as conceptual and theoretical structures does not commit one to conceptual or theoretical purity. The epistemic reliability of the sciences, but also their capacity to evolve in time while presenting a certain stability, derives from the way in which the sciences weave together diverse procedures into a coherent whole: mathematical models and computer simulations, observations and experiments, images, narratives andmetaphors, arguments and thought experiments, etc. From this point of view too, it is tempting to compare Mechanism with Thinking with Objects, even though the former concerns the life sciences, while the later deals with mechanics. Both books succeed in showing that at their best the sciences activate all the resources of our cognitive faculties, albeit in different ways according to the scientific fields. Mechanism thus shows that early modern mechanisms involved textual comparisons (for example to textiles, p. 21, or to musical instruments, pp. 57, 60, 68–69, 136, 141), visual illustrations (pp. 25–78), observations and experiments, whether it be the use of microscopes (pp. 21, 67–71, 77–78, 85–93, 119–120), the practice of ligatures (pp. 48–52, 140– 141), dissections and vivisections (pp. 12–15, 39–40, 59, 67) or injections (pp. 54, 60). It is this richness, complexity and flexibility that made the enterprise of searching for mechanisms a fruitful one. It helps correcting any misperception of mechanical philosophy as a grandiose, but somewhat vain, programme of reducing all natural phenomena to the motions of corpuscles endowed with merely quantitative properties. We can be grateful to Bertoloni Meli for having not only clarified the notion of mechanism, but also for having opened new perspectives on the mechanical philosophy. To conclude, I will make two general remarks. First, it is interesting that the same historian worked alternatively on early modern mechanics and on early modern life sciences, whereas today these disciplines are totally separated: Bertoloni Meli makes manifest the strong conceptual links that existed between mechanics and the life sciences in the early modern period, beyond their differences in style. Second,Mechanism is an important book not only for those working on the early modern period: the three methodological commitments I have just outlined form a discourse on method that will be useful to all those, philosophers and historians alike, who wish to make sense of the sciences as conceptual and theoretical structures.","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 1","pages":"413 - 415"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47602795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The poison trials: wonder drugs, experiment, and the battle for authority in renaissance science","authors":"Georgiana D. Hedesan","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2063388","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2063388","url":null,"abstract":"readership as an introduction to the history of the chemical elements and, more broadly, the history of chemistry. The brief length of sections would make for appropriate supplementary reading in history of science survey courses or science classes at secondary and university levels. Or just put it on a coffee table in home, office, or department, where visitors can peruse it for a new favourite element.","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 1","pages":"408 - 410"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46866803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Conceptualizing paradigms: on reading Kuhn’s history of the quantum","authors":"Jan Potters","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2063945","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2063945","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this article, I discuss the criticisms raised against Thomas Kuhn’s Black-Body Theory. These criticisms concern two issues: how to understand Planck’s position with regards to the quantization of energy in 1901, and how to understand the book’s relation to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Both criticisms, I argue, concern the notion of a paradigm: the first concerns how Boltzmann acted as an exemplar for Planck, and the second whether the book provides a paradigm change. I will then argue that both criticisms presume a conceptualization of paradigms that does not align well with Kuhn’s conceptualization of it in both Structure and later work: they assume, more specifically, that sharing a paradigm presupposes sharing an interpretation of it, and that paradigm changes are essentially identical to gestalt switches. On the basis of this, I will then argue that the criticisms are misguided, that Kuhn’s position regarding Planck’s work is in fact quite close to the indetermination-view developed by some of his critics, and that the book fits Structure quite well. In conclusion, I will then reflect on how the narrative provided in Black-Body Theory connects with Kuhn’s views on the relation between history and philosophy of science.","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 1","pages":"386 - 405"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43441680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Monteiro da Rocha and the international debate in the 1760s on astronomical methods to find the longitude at sea: his proposals and criticisms to Lacaille’s lunar-distance method","authors":"F. Figueiredo, G. Boistel","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2059567","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2059567","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the 1760s, the international debate on the solution to determining longitude at sea is at its acme. Two solutions emerge, the mechanical and the astronomical ones. The Portuguese mathematician and astronomer José Monteiro da Rocha (1734–1819) is well aware of that debate. For him, Harrison’s No. 4 marine timekeeper cannot be seen as a solution. The desirable solution could only be astronomical. In a manuscript from c. 1765, which unfortunately he fails to publish, Monteiro da Rocha is very critical of Lacaille's lunar-distance method (1759) and proposes another one. In this paper, we intend to analyse Monteiro da Rocha’s criticisms and proposals, trying to understand how this manuscript fits into the international longitude debate and the Portuguese scientific scenario at the time. Concurrently, we will re-examine the classical historiography around the English vs. French priority proposal of the lunar-distance method, purging it from its mythologies to shift it towards a more open, less linear history.","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 1","pages":"215 - 258"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43369472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The M de Jussieu's 'mirror of the Incas': an ecuadorian archaeological artefact in the mineralogical collection of René-Just Haüy (1743-1822).","authors":"François Gendron","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2028900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2028900","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article reports on a historical investigation carried out on the conical object MIN000-3519 preserved in the mineralogy collections of the <i>Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle</i> at Paris (France). The mineralogist René-Just Haüy (1743-1822) included this object, cut in a single pyrite (FeS₂) crystal, in his working collection with the references 'Sulphured iron, mirror of the Incas, of Peru, M. de Jussieu'. All of the research lines followed lead the author to Joseph de Jussieu (1704-1779) and his shipments of botanical specimens and various other samples from South America. As a member of the Godin-La Condamine-Bouguer geodesic expedition on the equator (1735-1743), he returned to France only after 36 years (1771), ill, exhausted and dispossessed of the scientific product of his Andean collections. This pyrite mirror is important because, in addition to appearing to be the only archaeological object that can be linked to Joseph's peregrinations in America, it resembles other specimens found at sites of the Cañaris culture (500-1500 AD) in Ecuador. Preserved within the de Jussieu family, this object would presumably have been given to Haüy by Joseph's heirs, his nephews Antoine-Laurent (1748-1836) or Laurent-Pierre (1792-1866), with whom he had close ties.</p>","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 2","pages":"259-273"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39846128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Astrology in the crossfire: the stormy debate after the comet of 1577.","authors":"Gábor Almási","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2030409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2030409","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The new star of 1572 and the comet of 1577 had a major impact on the ways in which astronomical research developed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Behind this gradual but significant change there was an extended epistemological reform which placed increasing emphasis on reason and experience and strove to exclude arguments from Scripture and authority from scientific debate. This paper argues that the humanist debate on astrology after 1577, which was initiated by highly prestigious members of a supraconfessional Republic of Letters, can be seen as an element of this process. Unlike earlier detractors of astrology, these new critics chiefly employed philosophical and scientific arguments concerning the legitimation of the entire art. By analysing a variety of accounts, this paper will reveal how great and complex the stakes in the debate over astrology were. They concerned not only the crucial problem of predestination and God's interventionalism (hence also the possibility of miracles), but also the idea of science, the concept of the human mind, and ultimately the humanist ideal of the virtuous, rational, and responsible citizen.</p>","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 2","pages":"137-163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39910011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Harvest of Optics: Descartes, Mydorge, and their paths to a theory of refraction","authors":"Robert Goulding","doi":"10.1080/00033790.2022.2026479","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2022.2026479","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In 1626, René Descartes and Claude Mydorge worked closely together on the problem of refraction, apparently discovering what is now known as the sine law of refraction. They constructed a plano-hyperbolic lens in order to test out the truth of this mathematical relationship. In 1637, Descartes finally published the sine method of determining refractions in his Dioptrique, which also demonstrated, on the basis of this relationship, that the hyperbola and ellipse were anaclastic lines (that is, that a lens with their profile would refract rays perfectly to a single point) without mentioning Mydorge. Mydorge himself wrote a short manuscript on the subject of refraction and lenses, which is found in a copy among Mersenne’s papers. Scholars have usually assumed that this treatise was written as Mydorge and Descartes worked together in 1626. However, other evidence shows that only the first part of the treatise records the two men’s early collaboration. Subsequently, Mydorge and Descartes completed their arguments separately, Descartes with the help of Isaac Beeckman.","PeriodicalId":8086,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Science","volume":"79 1","pages":"164 - 214"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44867459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}