CMEMS: Reviel Netz presents, "The Shaping of Modern Science"

Organized and hosted by the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS).

Reviel Netz (Classics, Stanford) presents, "The Shaping of Modern Science: Paper Practices in the 17th Century"

Event Sponsor: Program in History and Philosophy of Science

With a response from Yoav Levinson-Sela (History, Stanford). See the abstract below.

Koyré, discovering that Galileo and Descartes both moved in parallel towards the discovery of the law of free fall – but that only Galileo made it – used this to identify Galileo’s originality as the first to form the specifically dynamic concepts of modern physics. The more recent realization - that Thomas Harriot, too, made the same discovery as Galileo, following a similar path, and a similarly protracted campaign – should help us see the historical originality not in terms of shared concepts, but instead of shared practices. Everyone involved – Descartes, Galileo, Harriot – pursued protracted campaigns based on curating paper archives for which there were no ancient or medieval antecedents. The thesis proposed by the talk, then, is bold: that modern science was shaped by its new paper practices.

The CMEMS Workshop series meets most Wednesdays during the academic year. Lunch is provided. See the CMEMS website for the list of upcoming speakers.