Michael Bycroft
Biographic Data
| ID | 1240409 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Bycroft |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Bycroft |
| SIGNATURE | BYCROFT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Warwick |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3743-5740 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
A neo-positivist theory of scientific change
Historians of science appear to agree on two things. There is a shortage of large-scale histories of science, and positivism is best avoided. In fact, we have many big-picture histories of science. The problem is not the lack of such histories but the lack of agreement between them. They differ with respect to chronology, geography, narrative structure, favoured disciplines, recent revisionism and epistemology. To make the most of these differenc…
Introduction
The eighteenth century has long been a problem for historians of science. The century suffers from an apparent lack of towering individuals and unifying theories, as Geoffrey Cantor observed in an essay published in 1982. Much good work has been done in the forty years since then, most of it aimed at locating science in the Enlightenment. But the Enlightenment is just one of several themes that can help to make sense of eighteenth-century science…
Introduction
A major theme of the European Enlightenment was the rationalization of value, the use of reason to determine the value of things, from diamonds to civilizations. This view of the Enlightenment is well-established in the human sciences. It is ripe for extension to the natural sciences, given the rich recent literature on affect, evaluation, and subjectivity in early modern science. Meanwhile, in art history, the new history of connoisseurship prov…
The hand of the connoisseur
Historians of natural history have shown that the study of plants, animals, and minerals was a form of connoisseurship in the eighteenth century. Historians of early modern experiments have linked scientific knowledge to the manual skills of artisans. I combine these two insights, arguing that connoisseurship in the sciences meant learning to touch, not just learning to look. The focus is on gems and mineralogy in eighteenth-century France. I sho…
Medicine, Religion, and Magic in Early Stuart England
The largest collection of early modern English medical records is held in sixty volumes in the Ashmole Collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. These volumes contain detailed records of 70,000 encounters between a doctor, Richard Napier (1559–1634), and his patients. Most of these records contain astrological charts, each of which is a trellis-like pattern of straight lines interwoven with symbols representing the sun, the moon and the planets…
Gems in the Early Modern World
This edited collection is an interdisciplinary study of gems in the early modern world. It examines the relations between the art, science, and technology of gems, and it does so against the backdrop of an expanding global trade in gems. The eleven chapters are organised into three parts. The first part sets the scene by describing how gems moved around the early modern world, how they were set in motion, and how they were pulled together in the …
Hindsight, Tradition, and National Styles in the Prehistory of the Leyden Jar
The Leyden jar surprised natural philosophers when it was invented in 1746 because it showed the paradoxical behaviour of glass. But similar experiments had been done before, such as those by the Frenchman Charles Dufay. Why was Dufay oblivious to the paradox? The answer involves three kinds of historical explanation that are controversial but fruitful: hindsight, tradition, and national styles
Gems in the Early Modern World
Regulation and Intellectual Change at the Paris Goldsmiths’ Guild, 1660-1740
Economic historians have shown that the regulations of craft guilds were a source of innovation rather than inertia in the economy of early modern Europe. Historians of science have shown that craftsmen contributed to the scientific revolution in the same time and place. But very little is known about the role of guild regulation in intellectual (as opposed to social, political and economic) change. This paper shows that regulation went hand-in-h…
Iatrochemistry and the Evaluation of Mineral Waters in France, 1600-1750
Existing literature on mineral springs in early modern France suggests that composition played a minor role in the evaluation of those springs. In fact it played a major role from at least the beginning of the seventeenth century. Composition was studied by a wide range of actors, from physicians in the provinces to chemists at the Paris Academy of Science, with a view to establishing the efficacy of particular springs against particular diseases…
Impressions de Chine
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Style and Substance in Rococo Science
Rococo art and Enlightenment science, both of which flourished in Paris from 1710 to 1740, appear to have embodied two different sets of values. But the stylistic differences between them dissolve in their common concern with making and manipulating substances. Scientists at the Paris Academy of Science, especially René Réaumur and Charles Dufay, experimented on many of the same substances that artists used, often exploiting the same properties. …
Kuhn’s evolutionary social epistemology
The trials of theory
The rise of the institutionalist school of economics, in the 1910s and 1920s, has recently been given the historical attention it deserves. However, historical studies of the school have left two questions unanswered. First, to what extent was the institutionalist's interest in academic psychology (frequently declared in their meta-economic writings) realized in their economic writings? Second, what evidence of a fruitful collaboration with insti…
Style and Substance in Rococo Science
Rococo art and Enlightenment science, both of which flourished in Paris from 1710 to 1740, appear to have embodied two different sets of values. But the stylistic differences between them dissolve in their common concern with making and manipulating substances. Scientists at the Paris Academy of Science, especially René Réaumur and Charles Dufay, experimented on many of the same substances that artists used, often exploiting the same properties. …
The trials of theory
The rise of the institutionalist school of economics, in the 1910s and 1920s, has recently been given the historical attention it deserves. However, historical studies of the school have left two questions unanswered. First, to what extent was the institutionalist's interest in academic psychology (frequently declared in their meta-economic writings) realized in their economic writings? Second, what evidence of a fruitful collaboration with insti…
Kuhn’s evolutionary social epistemology
Iatrochemistry and the Evaluation of Mineral Waters in France, 1600-1750
Existing literature on mineral springs in early modern France suggests that composition played a minor role in the evaluation of those springs. In fact it played a major role from at least the beginning of the seventeenth century. Composition was studied by a wide range of actors, from physicians in the provinces to chemists at the Paris Academy of Science, with a view to establishing the efficacy of particular springs against particular diseases…
Impressions de Chine
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Style and Substance in Rococo Science
Rococo art and Enlightenment science, both of which flourished in Paris from 1710 to 1740, appear to have embodied two different sets of values. But the stylistic differences between them dissolve in their common concern with making and manipulating substances. Scientists at the Paris Academy of Science, especially René Réaumur and Charles Dufay, experimented on many of the same substances that artists used, often exploiting the same properties. …
Gems in the Early Modern World
Regulation and Intellectual Change at the Paris Goldsmiths’ Guild, 1660-1740
Economic historians have shown that the regulations of craft guilds were a source of innovation rather than inertia in the economy of early modern Europe. Historians of science have shown that craftsmen contributed to the scientific revolution in the same time and place. But very little is known about the role of guild regulation in intellectual (as opposed to social, political and economic) change. This paper shows that regulation went hand-in-h…
Gems in the Early Modern World
This edited collection is an interdisciplinary study of gems in the early modern world. It examines the relations between the art, science, and technology of gems, and it does so against the backdrop of an expanding global trade in gems. The eleven chapters are organised into three parts. The first part sets the scene by describing how gems moved around the early modern world, how they were set in motion, and how they were pulled together in the …
Hindsight, Tradition, and National Styles in the Prehistory of the Leyden Jar
The Leyden jar surprised natural philosophers when it was invented in 1746 because it showed the paradoxical behaviour of glass. But similar experiments had been done before, such as those by the Frenchman Charles Dufay. Why was Dufay oblivious to the paradox? The answer involves three kinds of historical explanation that are controversial but fruitful: hindsight, tradition, and national styles
Medicine, Religion, and Magic in Early Stuart England
The largest collection of early modern English medical records is held in sixty volumes in the Ashmole Collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. These volumes contain detailed records of 70,000 encounters between a doctor, Richard Napier (1559–1634), and his patients. Most of these records contain astrological charts, each of which is a trellis-like pattern of straight lines interwoven with symbols representing the sun, the moon and the planets…
Introduction
A major theme of the European Enlightenment was the rationalization of value, the use of reason to determine the value of things, from diamonds to civilizations. This view of the Enlightenment is well-established in the human sciences. It is ripe for extension to the natural sciences, given the rich recent literature on affect, evaluation, and subjectivity in early modern science. Meanwhile, in art history, the new history of connoisseurship prov…
The hand of the connoisseur
Historians of natural history have shown that the study of plants, animals, and minerals was a form of connoisseurship in the eighteenth century. Historians of early modern experiments have linked scientific knowledge to the manual skills of artisans. I combine these two insights, arguing that connoisseurship in the sciences meant learning to touch, not just learning to look. The focus is on gems and mineralogy in eighteenth-century France. I sho…
Introduction
The eighteenth century has long been a problem for historians of science. The century suffers from an apparent lack of towering individuals and unifying theories, as Geoffrey Cantor observed in an essay published in 1982. Much good work has been done in the forty years since then, most of it aimed at locating science in the Enlightenment. But the Enlightenment is just one of several themes that can help to make sense of eighteenth-century science…
A neo-positivist theory of scientific change
Historians of science appear to agree on two things. There is a shortage of large-scale histories of science, and positivism is best avoided. In fact, we have many big-picture histories of science. The problem is not the lack of such histories but the lack of agreement between them. They differ with respect to chronology, geography, narrative structure, favoured disciplines, recent revisionism and epistemology. To make the most of these differenc…
Philosophy (8 works) · Art (7 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · History (5 works) · History (4 works) · History of Science and Medicine (4 works) · Enlightenment (3 works) · Historical and Literary Studies (3 works) · Historical Philosophy and Science (3 works)