Experiment and Natural Philosophy in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (eBook)

The History of the Accademia del Cimento

Luciano Boschiero (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2007 | 2007
XI, 251 Seiten
Springer Netherland (Verlag)
978-1-4020-6246-9 (ISBN)

Infos

This work counters historiographies that search for the origins of modern science within the experimental practices of Europe's first scientific institutions, such as the Cimento. It proposes that we should look beyond the experimental rhetoric found in published works, to find that the Cimento academicians were participants in a culture of natural philosophical theorising that existed throughout Europe.

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The aim of this book is to explore and understand the activities undertaken by the Florentine Accademia del Cimento, one of Europe's first scientific societies. The Cimento operated for ten years, between 1657 and 1667, and during that time performed many experiments and observations in physics and astronomy, rivalling the achievements of the Royal Society of London and the Parisian Academie Royale des Sciences. This book will attempt to sift through the ava- able primary evidence, as well as secondary accounts of the Cimento's activities, in order to examine the intellectual concerns that the individual academicians acquired throughout their careers and that they pursued while carrying out and interpreting their experiments for the Cimento and the Tuscan Court. Those interests will also shed some light on the ways in which the academicians performed and used experiments. Inspired by Galileo's success with experiments and instruments during the first half of the seventeenth century, the Cimento academicians developed an experimentalist approach to their natural inquiry that attempted to eliminate any dependence on theoretical presuppositions and preconceptions. The group's p- ported aim was to rely solely on the senses to accumulate knowledge of nature. This experimental philosophy framed the way in which historians have since viewed the Cimento's practices.

Inhalt

TABLE OF CONTENTS 6
LIST OF FIGURES 9
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11
INTRODUCTION 12
GALILEO AND BEYOND 21
350 YEARS OF COMING TO GRIPS WITH THE EXPERIMENTAL ACTIVITIES OF GALILEO AND HIS FOLLOWERS 22
VINCENZIO VIVIANI (1622-1703): GALILEO'S LAST DISCIPLE 45
GIOVANNI ALFONSO BORELLI (1608-1679) 66
WHAT IT MEANT TO BE A CIMENTO ACADEMICIAN 99
THE ACCADEMIA DEL CIMENTO: 1657- 1662 116
EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING AIR PRESSURE AND THE VOID AND A LOOK AT THE ACCADEMIA'S INTERNAL WORKINGS 119
THE ARTIFICIAL FREEZING PROCESS OF LIQUIDS, AND THE PROPERTIES AND EFFECTS OF HEAT AND COLD 145
THE ACCADEMIA DEL CIMENTO: 1662- 1667 182
THE CIMENTO'S PUBLICATION PROCESS AND PRESENTATIONAL TECHNIQUES: FORMULATING A POLICY OF SELF- CENSORSHIP 184
THE SATURN PROBLEM AND THE PATH OF COMETS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ACADEMICIANS' THEORETICAL AND OBSERVATIONAL ASTRONOMY 197
CONCLUSION 234
BIBLIOGRAPHY 241
INDEX 246

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.9.2007
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
• Zusatzinfo: XI, 251 p.
• Verlagsort: Dordrecht
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Geschichte der Mathematik
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: Experiment • Galilean studies • Galileo Galilei • History of Mathematics • Natural Philosophy • Science history • Scientific Revolution
• ISBN-10: 1-4020-6246-X / 140206246X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4020-6246-9 / 9781402062469