bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The prefixun- and the metrical grammar ofBeowulf
Authors: Kendall Calvin B.
Published: September 2008

Two rules of the metrical grammar of theBeowulfpoet are the subject of this paper. One concerns the variation of stress on the prefixun-; the other pertains to the alliteration of compounds. The two are correlated. The paper rests on the premise that the ‘metre’ of an Old English poem is only one function of a set of regularities that make it something we call verse rather than prose. Separately these regularities may be described as ‘rules’; taken as a group, the rules comprise a metrical grammar. Each Anglo-Saxon scop absorbed such a grammar during the course of long immersion in the poetic tradition of his culture. No two scops' metrical grammars could have been exactly alike; in addition to individual differences, there must have been regional and dialectal variations, although the poetic tradition ensured remarkable uniformity over a wide area and a considerable period of time, and only at the end of the Old English period, with let us sayThe Battle of Maldon, are significant changes manifest. Further investigation would therefore be needed to determine to what extent the rules here described apply to other grammars.
The laws of Cnut and the history of Anglo-Saxon royal promises
Authors: Stafford Pauline
Published: September 2008

The ‘first’ and ‘second’ law codes of Cnut are the last surviving codes issued in the name of an Anglo-Saxon king.They are the final fruit of the interest in kingship and law and in the inter-relationship of the two which characterized the period following the monastic revival in England and which is especially associated with the name of Wulfstan, archbishop of York. Although they are far from being complete codifications of Anglo-Saxon law, they draw extensively on earlier legislation. They are different in kind from much tenth-century law, which is usually more limited and administrative in content and character, and their nature and purpose invite further consideration.
The formative stages of Beowulf textual scholarship: part II
Authors: Kelly Birte
Published: September 2008

Part II provides a list of all conjectures and emendations accepted in at least one edition of Beowulf published from 1950 onwards. It thus adds to part I the readings which have been proposed since 1857. The list is intended as a survey only. No context is given for readings proposed by 1857, since that was done in part I, at pp. 253–74. For readings proposed since 1857 the immediate context is given where necessary, but it is assumed that an edition of Beowulf will be used in conjunction with the list. Following the main section, tables 1–8 indicate the origin of each reading, identified by its line number. Each table corresponds to one of the categories I–VIII used in part I and defined there at p. 250. Tables 9 and 10 and the figure accompanying table 10 present the statistics on which the conclusions stated in part I, at pp. 250–1, are based. Appendix I lists addenda and corrigenda to part I. Appendix II presents some conjectures or emendations which were proposed by 1857 but which have not found favour with any editor from 1950 onwards. The items concern places in the text where a majority of editors from 1950 onwards believe that there are defects.
Word order and poetic style: auxiliary and verbal inThe Metres of Boethius
Authors: Donoghue Daniel
Published: September 2008

The Metres of Boethiusoffer a unique opportunity to study the complex subject of Old English verse syntax. They enjoy this distinction because of the unusual way in which they were composed. The versifier did not work directly from the original Latinmetraof Boethius'sConsolation of Philosophybut from an Old English prose intermediary, freely translated from the Latin originals. King Alfred was the author of the prose translation and was probably also responsible for turning the parts of the prose corresponding to the Latinmetrainto Old English verse. Since a copy of the prose model survives, it affords us an opportunity to compare the two versions in order to judge the versifier's debt to the prose. He apparently followed it quite faithfully and without referring back to the Latin originals. In many verse passages one can find words and half-lines which are direct transcriptions from the prose. Consequently the Old EnglishMetresare generally considered nothing more than prose expanded into verse, adding only ‘poetic’ embellishments (like repetition and variation) and obvious morals drawn from the passage. The fruit of the versifier's labours may be uninspired poetry, but the way that he rearranged the words of the prose offers a rare glimpse into the more elusive conventions of verse-making. Since the many similarities make the differences quite pronounced, the poetical shortcomings of theMetresmay be a blessing. A mediocre versifier is more likely to compose mechanically and to imitate established patterns than a good poet, whose virtuosity often conceals the rudiments of his craft.
Adaptation andanwealdin the Old English Orosius
Authors: Kretzschmar William A.
Published: September 2008

After Janet Bately's several articles and her recent edition of theOld English Orosiusthere is little need to analyse further what the Anglo-Saxon translator did to his source. The translator made substantial cuts in the Latin text: he deleted much of Orosius's commentary on the events he narrated, made a number of minor, probably accidental, omissions, rather surprisingly left out some details which should have interested the Anglo-Saxon audience, and carried out a wholesale chopping of events and entire sections, reducing his translation to perhaps one-fifth the length of its source. He also made some additions, primarily explanations of institutions and details which would have been obscure to his audience, but also circumstances and rationalizations taken from secondary sources or from his own whimsy. Finally, he made some changes in the organization of his source and altered Orosius's polemical tone to that of a more objective but still Christian world history. Given the large number of changes, it is important now to ask why the translator might have made such a thorough redaction, and to consider how his translation could have been an appropriate vehicle for the transmission of this standard authority to an Anglo-Saxon readership. We are not unfamiliar today with historical revisionism and the motives for it, and the practice reveals the culture of its modern practitioners; the present study seeks similar information about the culture of Alfred's age.
Ælfric's use of etymologies
Authors: Hill Joyce
Published: September 2008

Augustine, Jerome, Bede, Gregory, Smaragdus and Haymo, the exegetical authorities acknowledged by Ælfric in the Latin preface to the Catholic Homilies, frequently used etymologies as one of their techniques for penetrating the words of the biblical text in order to arrive at their spiritual essence. To the modern student of language their interpretations often seem arbitrary, even bizarre, but the idea that there was an intimate connection between the signifying name and the person, place or thing signified was well established within the scriptural canon and was extended and confirmed by the cumulative authority of the exegetes themselves. It was Isidore of Seville, in his Etymologies, who provided the most systematic definition of this tradition of etymologizing. As he explained it, it was a method for determining the true essence of the thing designated by the process of penetrating its appellation, since all things and all activities which were named ‘secundum naturam’ (as opposed to those arbitrarily named ‘secundum placitum’) were designated by those words which had etymologies enshrining the very quality or idea so designated. Given this definition, with its underlying philosophical and linguistic assumptions, it is easy to understand why etymologies were exploited in Christian exegesis and teaching. It was accepted that biblical names were in the category ‘secundum naturam’ since they were God-given or at least divinely sanctioned, and the rationale and method of their penetration had the advantage of harmonizing closely with the general interpretative process that was employed.
A fragment of an Anglo-Saxon liturgical manuscript at the University of Missouri
Authors: Voigts Linda Ehrsam
Published: September 2008

A single leaf may be a valuable witness to an early manuscript that does not otherwise survive, even when it raises as many questions as it answers. Such is the case of the first fragment in a collection of some 217 leaves and fragments of medieval manuscripts owned by the University of Missouri and housed in the Rare Books Department of the Ellis Library on the Columbia, Missouri, campus. This collection, titled Fragmenta Manuscripta, derives largely from that assembled in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century by John Bagford (d. 1716), an eccentric shoemaker-turned-bookseller. Bagford was, however, not responsible for the first two leaves in the collection. They were added to the collection by the trustees of Archbishop Tenison's School in preparation for sale on 3 June 1861. The first fragment and the second, an Insular leaf of not later than tenth-century date containing grammatical excerpts, had both been removed from the binding of another volume owned by the Tenison Library. That manuscript, now London, British Library, Add. 24193, a continental codex containing the poems of Venantius Fortunatus with replacement quires supplied in two tenth-century English Caroline minuscule hands, has attracted the attention of Anglo-Saxon scholarship, but the early Insular binding fragments removed from it have remained largely unknown.
Miracles in architectural settings: Christ Church, Canterbury and St Clement's, Sandwich in the Old English Vision of Leofric
Authors: Gatch Milton McC.
Published: September 2008

The ‘Old English Vision of Leofric, Earl of Mercia’ was first printed in a philological journal in 1908. It contains extremely interesting information about the arrangement and furnishings of two major Anglo-Saxon churches, Christ Church, Canterbury, and St Clement's Church, Sandwich. The Visio Leofrici is the only testimony, written or (apparently) archaeological, to the existence of St Clement's before the Conquest; it confirms and deepens aspects of our exclusively documentary knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon cathedral at Canterbury, which was destroyed by fire in 1067. Thus, it is particularly unfortunate that the Vision of Leofric, which has had but slight attention from students of language, literature or religious visions, has attracted even less notice from archaeologists, art historians and students of medieval liturgy.
The ‘Three Orders’ of society in Anglo-Saxon England
Authors: Powell Timothy E.
Published: September 2008

The first recorded use of the idea of the ‘Three Orders’ of society in an English context, and indeed it has been said, the first use of the idea in medieval Europe, is in King Alfred's ‘translation’ of Boethius'sDe consolatione Philosophiae. It contains a digression on the responsibilities of kingship in which Alfred, speaking as ‘Mind’ in a dialogue with ‘Wisdom’ reflects.

I wished for tools and resources for the task that I was commanded to accomplish, which was that I should virtuously and worthily guide and direct the authority which was entrusted to me. You know of course that no-one can make known any skill, nor direct and guide any enterprise, without tools and resources; a man cannot work on any enterprise without resources. In the case of the king, the resources and tools with which to rule are that he have his land fully manned; he must have praying men, fighting men and working men. You know also that without these tools no king may make his ability known. Another aspect of his resources is that he must have the means of support for his tools, the three classes of men.
English Square minuscule script: the mid-century phases
Authors: Dumville David N.
Published: September 2008

I propose here to continue my exploration and survey of the history of that quintessentially tenth-century script form, English Square minuscule. Since 1987, when my account of the background and earliest phases of the script was published in this journal, new material and new thinking have encouraged continued investigations into Anglo-Saxon script of the 930s and the use of Square minuscule at Canterbury in particular. These factors must serve as a justification for taking a further look at Phase II before proceeding to a preliminary and provisional account of the styles of the 940s, 950s and early 960s. This is a self-contained era which concludes with the origination and propagation of Anglo-Caroline script. The closing phases of Square minuscule will have to await treatment in a third instalment of this essay, as will consideration of some of the larger issues advertised in 1987. However, since it is critically intertwined with the mid-century phases of script history, I shall discuss here (as promised at the outset) the role of the royal chancery in calligraphic developments.
The ‘Dunstan B’ charters
Authors: Keynes Simon
Published: September 2008

Thanks largely to the work of John Mitchell Kemble, it could be said in connection with the publication of a charter of King Edgar in 1984 that ‘the discovery of a new Anglo-Saxon charter is a very rare event’;1yet by a strange and happy coincidence two more charters of the same king have recently come to light, in quite different places. The first was issued in 958, when Edgar was king of the Mercians, and relates to an estate at Coundon in Warwickshire. The second was issued in 974, near the end of Edgar's reign as king of all the English, and relates to an estate at Brickendon in Hertfordshire. In both cases, the charters survive in the form of early modern transcripts made direct from originals now lost; the transcripts are of excellent quality, complete with vernacular boundary-clauses, full witness-lists, and notes of the vernacular endorsements.2Both charters prove, moreover, to belong to a distinctive series known to modern scholarship as the ‘Dunstan B’ charters, which stand apart from the mainstream of diplomatic practices in the tenth century, and which appear to have a particular association as a group with Glastonbury abbey. Provisional editions of the two ‘new’ charters are presented below, pending the fuller treatment which each must receive in its appropriate archival context; the opportunity is then taken to redefine the corpus of ‘Dunstan B’ charters, and to review their significance in diplomatic and historical terms.3
Ælfric's Judith: manipulative or manipulated?
Authors: Clayton Mary
Published: September 2008

Ælfric's Judith is one of the few Anglo-Saxon works for which we have explicit authorial guidance on how it is to be interpreted. In the often-quoted Letter to Sigetveard, Ælfric says:

Iudith seo wuduwe, be oferwann Holofernem pone Siriscan ealdormann, hæfð hire agene boc betwux pisum bocum be hire agenum sige; seo ys eac on Englisc on ure wisan gesett eow mannum to bysne, pæ ge eowerne eard mid wæmnum bewerian wið onwinnendne here.
Sociolinguistic aspects of Old English colour lexemes
Authors: Biggam C. P.
Published: September 2008

This paper presents an experimental attempt to investigate the social contexts of certain Old English vocabulary belonging to a particular semantic field, namely that of colour. Sociolinguistic studies are concerned with language variations between social classes, age groups, the sexes and other social groupings, so it is obvious from the outset that this sort of evidence will be difficult to retrieve from a dead language. However, in the case of this particular semantic field, textual information can often be augmented by comparative evidence from the colour semantics of living languages, and by the theories about colour term acquisition and usage developed by linguists and anthropologists.
The Anglo-Saxon gospelbooks of Judith, countess of Flanders: their text, make-up and function
Authors: McGurk Patrick , Rosenthal Jane
Published: September 2008

The subjects of this paper are four eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon gospel-books and their patron, Judith, countess of Flanders. Two of them, with their distinguished late Anglo-Saxon illuminations and their precious silver-gilt bindings, are among the more celebrated treasures of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. The remaining two, which are now preserved at the Hessische Landesbibliothek in Fulda, and at the Archives of Monte Cassino, may no longer have jewelled covers, but are still luxury books of the highest quality.
Two composite texts from Archbishop Wulfstan's ‘commonplace book’: theDe ecclesiastica consuetudineand theInstitutio beati Amalarii de ecclesiasticis officiis
Authors: Jones Christopher A.
Published: September 2008

The great monument of tenth-century Anglo-Saxon monastic liturgy, theRegularis concordia, has been particularly fortunate in its twentieth-century devotees. The most prominent was Dom Thomas Symons, who published numerous learned articles on the text and, in 1953, an edition and translation that are still immensely valuable. More recently, Lucia Kornexl has re-edited theConcordiawith its continuous Old English gloss from London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. iii, and provided an exhaustive collation against the second Latin copy in London, British Library, Cotton Faustina B. iii. Building on this detailed editorial work, Kornexl's introductory chapters also suggest new and helpful ways of regarding the transmission of this text and the authority of its two extant manuscripts.
Godly Men and Mechanical Philosophers: Souls and Spirits in Restoration Natural Philosophy
Authors: Schaffer Simon
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Recent historiography of the Scientific Revolution has challenged the assumption that the achievements of seventeenth-century natural philosophy can easily be described as the ‘mechanization of the world-picture.’ That assumption licensed a story which took mechanization as self-evidently progressive and so in no need of further historical analysis. The clock-work world was triumphant and inevitably so. However, a close examination of one key group of natural philosophers working in England during the 1670s shows that their program necessarily incorporated souls and spirits, attractions and congruities, within both their ontology and their epistemology. Any natural philosophical strategy which excluded spirits and sympathies from its world was condemned as tending to subversion and irreligion. This examination shows that the term ‘mechanical philosophy’ was a category given its meanings within local contexts and carries no universal sense separate from that accomplished by these natural philosophers. It also shows how the experimental praxis was compelled to treat souls and spirits, to produce them through experimental labor, and then to extend these experimentally developed entities throughout the cosmos, both social and natural. The development of mechanical philosophy cannot be used to explain the cognitive and social structure of this program, nor its success: instead, the historical setting of experimental work shows how a philosophy of matter and spirit was deliberately constructed by the end of the seventeenth century.
A Place of Knowledge Re-Created: The Library of Michel de Montaigne
Authors: Ophir Adi
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Montaigne'sEssayswere an exercise in self-knowledge carried out for more than twenty years in Montaigne's private library located in his mansion near Bordeaux. The library was a place of solitude as well as a place of knowledge, a kind ofheterotopiain which two sets of spatial relations coexisted and interacted: the social and the epistemic. The spatial demarcation and arrangement of the site – in both the physical and the symbolic sense – were necessary elements of the constitution of Montaigne's self as an object of knowledge and as a subject of discourse. The spatial setting of the library made possible and constrained certain discursive patterns through which words were systematically linked to things, authority was correlated with access and visibility, and the epistemological was coordinated with the social. In this sense, Montaigne's library resembled other places of empirical knowledge of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (e.g., early laboratories or observatories) in which subjects of knowledge were constituted, objects were posited in their proper phenomenal fields and the entire structure of intellectual activity was reproduced through various cultural mechanisms. But the initial similarity is only apparent. The private library never became a culturally recognized place for knowledge of the self; its heterotopic structure could not have been reproduced without the concrete presence of an author and of a self, while Montaigne's skepticism systematically undermined the possibility of the author's position and of the identity of the self.
Criticism and Revolutions
Authors: Beller Mara
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In this paper I argue that Kuhn's and Hanson's notion of incommensurable paradigms is rooted in the rhetoric of finality of the Copenhagen dogma — the orthodox philosophical interpretation of quantum physics. I also argue that arguments for holism of a paradigm, on which the notion of the impossibility of its gradual modification is based, misinterpret the Duhem-Quine thesis. The history of science (Copernican, Chemical, and Quantum Revolutions) demonstrates fruitful selective appropriation of ideas from seemingly “incommensurable” paradigms (rather than the impossibility of communication between their representatives). I argue in conclusion that such openness underlies scientific creativity, and that dialogue between different alternatives is indispensable for the growth of knowledge.
Fear and Envy: Sexual Difference and the Economies of Feminist Critique in Psychoanalytic Discourse
Authors: Brunner José
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This essay examines Freud's construction of a mythical moment during early childhood, in which differences between male and female sexual identities are said to originate. It focuses on the way in which Freud divides fear and envy between the sexes, allocating the emotion of (castration) fear to men, and that of (penis) envy to women. On the one hand, the problems of this construction are pointed out, but on the other hand, it is shown that even a much-maligned myth may still provide food for thought.

Then, four critiques of Freud which have been articulated by prominent feminist psychoanalysts – Karen Horney, Nancy Chodorow, Luce Irigaray, and Jessica Benjamin – are presented, as well as the alternative visions of sexual identities which these thinkers have developed. The basic metaphors or economies guiding these visions of sexual difference are appraised in terms of their breadth and depth, with particular reference to their ability to acknowledge and integrate the presence of fear and envy as passions which are evoked but also repressed in the face of sexual difference.

From this angle, the contributions of Nancy Chodorow and Luce Irigaray are found to be more limited than those of Karen Horney and Jessica Benjamin, since the former two theorists allocate fear primarily or exclusively to men, as Freud has done, while they remain completely silent on envy. Differences in the scope or reach of the four feminist approaches are explained as a result of the theorists' differing perceptions of the social, political, and cultural position of women in patriarchal society.
An Account of the Scientific Titles and Works of Pierre Duhem
Authors: Duhem Pierre
Published: September 2008

Certain authors, in speaking of their works, say: My book, my commentary, my history, etc. They smack of these bourgeois homeowners, with “my house” always on their lips. They should rather speak of: our book, our commentary, our history, etc., since, generally speaking, there is far more in them of others than of their own.
On Gurevich
Authors: Gurevich A. J.
Published: September 2008

I felt happy but a little apprehensive when I received the suggestion from the editors of Science in Context to write a comment on my book Categories of Medieval Culture quite a few years after its first publication (1972) and translation. It is always difficult to comment on one's own work, for in such a case there is seldom the necessary degree of “distance” between the author and the commentator. I offer this paper rather as a short account of the direction of my thoughts.
On Pierre Duhem
Authors: Gurevich A. J.
Published: September 2008

Duhem's great contribution to the study of the history of medieval science is indisputable. His book remains an excellent source of information concerning the ideas of the epoch's thinkers about the foundations of the universe. Ariew's painstaking translation of a considerable portion of Duhem's ten-volume work deserves the deep gratitude of all those interested in medieval science. Le Systéme du monde regains its actuality. Nevertheless, to write now about a book produced by this great scholar at the beginning of the century is not an easy undertaking, and involves some risk. Too many changes have taken place in the principles of studying the history of science during the seventy-odd years since the book was written, and some notions that seemed then to be perfectly clear are not so simple and indisputable now. With profound respect for this feat of scholarship, I should like to make some observations in connection with the recent English publication of Duhem's book.
Robert Boyle and Mathematics: Reality, Representation, and Experimental Practice
Authors: Shapin Steven
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This paper is a study of the role of language in scientific activity. It recommends that language be viewed as a community's means of patterning its affairs. Language represents where the boundaries of the community are and who is entitled to speak within it, and it displays the structures of authority in the community. Moreover, language precipitates the community's view of what the world is like, such that linguistic usages can be taken as referring to that world. Thus, language connects on the one side to a community's practical life, and, on the other, to the reality on which it “reports.”

The example treated is Robert Boyle's view of the language proper for experimental practice, and his arguments against the value and legitimacy of mathematical representations within the experimental community. Boyle argued that the use of mathematics was inappropriate because (i) it would restrict the number of potential participants; (ii) it would give rise to unwarranted expectations of the certainty and accuracy to be expected of real physical inquiries; (iii) it would suggest views of natural law and God's relations with the natural world which were incorrect and possibly dangerous; and because (iv) the world upon which the experimentalist operated was not such as was represented by mathematical idealizations. I try to establish that decision about the appropriate language for the experimental community was a moral choice.
Astronomers Mark Time: Discipline and the Personal Equation
Authors: Schaffer Simon
Published: September 2008

The Argument

It is often assumed that all sciences travel the path of increasing precision and quantification. It is also assumed that such processes transcend the boundaries of rival scientific disciplines. The history of the personal equation has been cited as an example: the “personal equation” was the name given by astronomers after Bessel to the differences in measured transit times recorded by observers in the same situation. Later in the nineteenth century Wilhelm Wundt used this phenomenon as a type for his experiments on reaction times. For historians of psychology, this has been taken to be an exemplary case where quantified laboratory science rescued astronomy by showing that this was really a psychological phenomenon measurable only in complication experiments. This paper challenges this story. Astronomers neither ignored, nor despaired of, the personality problem. Instead, the managers of the great observatories developed a new chronometric regime of vigilant surveillance of subordinate observers. The astronomers' solution was thus intimately connected with social and material changes in their way of life: a division of labor in the observatories, a network of observing sites, a mechanization of observation. The paper documents these changes and then presents a study of one case where managers, amateurs, and psychologists clashed for authority over the personality problem. Measurement is given its meaning when situated in specific contexts of styles of work and institutions. Disciplines give meanings to values, and often resist attempts by others to redefine these meanings or to gain authority over measurement. Quantification is not a self-evident nor inevitable process in science's history, but possesses a remarkable cultural history of its own.
From Bentley to the Victorians: The Rise and Fall of British Newtonian Natural Theology
Authors: Gascoigne John
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The article explores the reasons for the rise to prominence of Newtonian natural theology in the period following the publication of thePrincipiain 1687, its continued importance throughout the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries, and possible explanations for its rapid decline in the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues that the career of Newtonian natural theology cannot be explained solely in terms of internal intellectual developments such as the theology of Newton's clerical admirers or the impact of the work of Hume or of Charles Darwin. While such intellectual movements are undoubtedly of considerable importance in accounting for the rise and fall of Newtonian natural theology, they do not of themselves explain why British society was more receptive to particular bodies of thought in some periods rather than in others. Hence this article – in common with a number of recent studies – attempts to draw some connections between the growth of Newtonian natural theology and the character of Augustan society and politics; it also attempts to link the decline of this tradition with such nineteenth-century developments as the growing separation between church and state and the secularization of the universities and of scientific and intellectual life more generally.
Method Instead of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science
Authors: Dingler Hugo
Published: September 2008

The peculiar situation of epistemology has often been remarked upon, meaning that sort of epistemology which issued from English empiricism and whose father is taken to be John Locke. Epistemology in the general sense has existed as long as there has been scientific philosophy, and in truth it has always formed the basis and core of all scientific philosophizing.
The Problem of Apodictic Proof in Early Seventeenth-Century Mechanics. Galileo, Guevara, and the Jesuits
Authors: Wallace William A.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The argument developed herein, a countertheme to the Merton thesis, is that the ideal of science pursued by Galileo and his contemporaries in Italy would be unaffected by their Catholic faith if it could achieve apodictic proof in the subject of its investigations, in which case it would attain truth – the very goal sought by that faith. Unfortunately such proof was hard to come by in early seventeenth-century mechanics. A case study is proposed to show Galileo's difficulty demonstrating the tensile strength of columns in mathematical physics on the basis of improper suppositions, contrasting these with the suppositions of a contemporary, Giovanni de Guevara. The case study casts new light on the subject of Galileo's atomism and its relation to the Eucharist, refuting Redondi's claim that this was the real motive behind Galileo's trial in 1633. A further lesson relating to the Merton thesis can also be drawn, namely, that while challenges to science from religious orthodoxy may appear as temporary obstacles, in the long run they are an aid to science in its efforts to bring mankind closer to the truth.
The Discourse of Pious Science
Authors: Feldhay Rivka , Heyd Michael
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This paper, an attempt at an institutional history of ideas, compares patterns of reproduction of scientific knowledge in Catholic and Protestant educational institutions. Franciscus Eschinardus'Cursus Physico-Mathematicusand Jean-Robert Chouet'sSyntagma Physicumare examined for the strategies which allow for accommodation of new contents and new practices within traditional institutional frameworks. The texts manifest two different styles of inquiry about nature, each adapted to the peculiar constraints implied by its environment. The interpretative drive of Eschinardus and a whole group of “modern astronomers” is here seen as pushing beyond the traditional task of “saving the phenomena,” towards celestial hermeneutics which is thoroughly experimental and mathematical. In spite of the insistence on physical interpretation of celestial phenomena, Eschinardus' astronomical discourse is yet constrained by a complex game of intellectual-political considerations. Commitment to the Thomistic organization of knowledge, which sets a boundary between a science of motion (physica) and the “geometry of heavens” (mathematical astronomy), suppresses any impulse to ask about the mechanical causes of celestial appearances. The Copernican cosmology is thus rejected qua an attempt to cross this guarded boundary. Chouet in Geneva, by contrast, frees himself from these constraints on the organization of natural knowledge. By strictly separating philosophy from theology, he can combine physics and astronomy, favor a Copernican cosmology and adopt a Cartesian mechanistic worldview. Moreover, unlike the Jesuit Eschinardus, Chouet seeks toexplainnatural phenomena in terms of causes, rather than justinterpretthem. Yet he does so within a philosophical discourse largely scholastic in nature, which best suits the conservative institutional framework in which he teaches. Whereas the Jesuit Eschinardus employs a new type of discourse without severing his links with the traditional Thomistic worldview, the Calvinist Chouet adopts a new Cartesian worldview and adapts it to a largely traditional type of discourse.
Style as a Historical Category
Authors: Otte Michael
Published: September 2008

The Argument

In writing the history of science, the fluctuations between two meanings of the concept of style are of special interest: a simple or direct meaning of this concept referring to a means of expression and of presentation, and a philosophical interpretation of this term referring to “a world of objective spiritual order.” The last two chapters of this paper consider the perspective of the simple meaning of the concept, the first two chapters take the philosophical meaning as their starting point.

The concept of style in its general epistemological meaning emerges within a conceptual space that becomes effective as a totality at the end of the eighteenth century and which is built up of further notions such as: individual, genius, expression, symbol, education, creativity, and others.

The individual and, as believed, the nevertheless infinitely creative subject has taken the place that the concept of god had occupied within rationalism. But it is not only the subject as construction and will, but also the subject who reflected in a new way about the objective foundations of his conscience and tried to bring the object and the means of knowledge into a new relation.
Transposing “Style” from the History of Art to the History of Science
Authors: Wessely Anna
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The paper argues for the restricted viability of the concept of style in the history of science. Since historians of science borrow this term from art history or the sociology of knowledge, the paper outlines its emergence and function in these disciplines, in order to show that the need for ever subtler stylistic distinctions in historical description inevitably leads to the dissolution of the concept of style itself.

“Style” will be defined in predominantly cognitive or technical terms when imputed to an individual; in social or moral terms when thought to be carried by some collective entity. Both descriptions are given normative interpretations. A good individual style, then, is regarded as the pledge for valid knowledge or insights of a “higher order,” while a collective style, understood as the vehicle of successful intra group communication, involves the acceptance of certain rhetorical norms and/or socially shared values that are supposed to structure that style. “National styles” belong to the latter category; the emergence of this dubious notion can best be explained in sociological terms.

If historians of science insist on adopting the concept of style, they will have to agree on its meaning. The paper concludes, therefore, with a rough typology of its most frequent meanings and uses.
Rigor and Clarity: Foundations of Mathematics in France and England, 1800–1840
Authors: Richards Joan L.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

It has long been apparent that in the nineteenth century, mathematics in France and England developed along different lines. The differences, which might well be labelled stylistic, are most easy to see on the foundational level. At first this may seem surprising because it is such a fundamental area, but, upon reflection, it is to be expected. Ultimately discussions about the foundations of mathematics turn on views about what mathematics is, and this is a question which is answered by a variety of different groups including mathematicians, students, curricular planners, parents, etc. Mathematical practice rests on some kind of mixture of the answers to this fundamental question which come from these diverse groups. Comparing the cultural matrices which supported mathematics in France and Britain in the first decades of the nineteenth century sheds light on the real though often subtle differences in the ways the subject was pursued in the two countries.
The Sociology of Scientific Disciplines: On the Genesis and Stability of the Disciplinary Structure of Modern Science
Authors: Stichweh Rudolf
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This essay attempts to show the decisive importance of the “scientific discipline” for any historical or sociological analysis of modern science. There are two reasons for this:

1. A discontinuity can be observed at the beginning of modern science: the “discipline,” which up until that time had been a classificatorily generated unit of the ordering of knowledge for purposes of instruction in schools and universities, develops into a genuine and concrete social system of scientific communication. Scientific disciplines as concrete systems (Realsysteme) arise as a result of (a) the communicative stabilization of “scientific communities” at the end of the eighteenth century and the formation of “appropriate” roles and organizational structures (in universities); (b) the structural differentiation of the new scientific disciplines from the established professions (law, theology, medicine) in Europe; (c) the formation of scientific communication in the standardized form of scientific publication; the distinction of the separate action-type “scientific research” and the differentiation of these two elementary acts of all future scientific endeavor in relation to each other.

2. The scientific discipline as primary unit of the internal differentiation of science has, since its genesis, been stabilized by two conditions: (a) The fact of a science differentiated into a plurality of (competing, mutually stimulating) disciplinary perspectives becomes the chief causal factor underlying the developmental dynamism of modern science; (b) Similar to the way in which the discipline functions as a cognitive address within the system of science, science also links the discipline up as a structural unit (utilized in both systems) with curricular structures in the system of education — i.e., it is stabilized by the central system/environment relation of science.
Mass-Energy and the Neutron in the Early Thirties
Authors: Stuewer Roger H.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

Einstein's mass-energy relationship was not confirmed experimentally until 1933 when Bainbridge showed that the Cockcroft-Walton experiment afforded a test of it. Earlier, however, it had been used constantly in the analysis of nuclear reactions, as can be seen in those involved in the determination of the mass of the neutron. Chadwick in 1932 was convinced that the neutron mass was about 1.0067 amu (atomic mass units), indicating that the neutron was a proton-electron compound, since that figure was less than the sum of the proton and electron masses. Chadwick's value was challenged in 1933 by Lawrence, who proposed a much lower value of 1.0006 amu, and by Curie and Joliot, who proposed a much higher value of 1.011 amu.Much controversy ensued; eventually, Chadwick and Goldhaber showed in 1934 that the neutron mass was about 1.0080 amu, greater than the sum of the proton and electron masses, proving that the neutron was a new elementary particle (which could decay spontaneously), and providing conclusive experimental support for excluding electrons from the nucleus. These results remained unchanged with further refinements in the last decimal place, the entire pursuit of which provided still further vindication of Einstein's massenergy relationship.
Cultural Origins and Environmental Implications of Large Technological Systems
Authors: Williams Rosalind
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This essay argues that a prime source of contemporary technological pessimism is the loss of place that accompanied the conquest of space through the construction of large technological systems of transportation and communication. This loss may involve physical destruction, or it may involve the more subtle withdrawal of economic, political, and cultural meaning and power from localities in favor of these far-flung systems.

The argument proceeds in five stages. First, key terms are defined, notably “environmental damage” and “technological system.” Second, the origins of the modern ideology of circulation are traced in the development of a capitalist world-economy, and in the historical theories of Enlightenmentphilosophes(with special attention to Turgot and Condorcet). Third, possible relations between that ideology and nineteenth-century systems-building are briefly sketched. Fourth, the ambiguous political character of these systems — at once liberating and constraining — is noted. Finally, the cultural challenge of overcoming spatial alienation is described with reference to some late nineteenth-century writers who sought to trace new pathways both spatially and linguistically.
The ingénieur savant, 1800–1830 A Neglected Figure in the History of French Mathematics and Science
Authors: Grattan-Guinness I.
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This paper deals with the achievements of those French mathematicians active in the period 1800–1830 who oriented their work specifically around the needs of engineering and technology. In addition to a review of their achievements, the principal organizations and institutions are noted, as is their importance as sources of employment and influence.

The argument is centered on the word ‘neglected“ in the title. A case is made that a mass of work was produced which made considerable impact at the time but has been overlooked or even completely ignored by historians since. The paper begins with a general discussion of the notion of context, both for the historical figures and for their supposed historians, and several examples of historical distortion are given.

Regarding France itself, we see a professional and research profile rather different from that in other countries. The question of national differences in the organization and prosecution of science is thereby sharply exposed.
The Emergence of Biomathematics and the Case of Population Dynamics A Revival of Mechanical Reductionism and Darwinism
Authors: Israel Giorgio
Published: September 2008

The Argument

The development of modern mathematical biology took place in the 1920s in three main directions: population dynamics, population genetics, and mathematical theory of epidemics. This paper focuses on the first trend which is considered the most significant. Modern mathematical theory of population dynamics is characterized by three aspects (the first two being in a somewhat critical relationship): the emergence of the mathematical modeling approach, the attempt at establishing it in a reductionist-mechanist conceptual framework, and the revival of Darwinism. The first section is devoted to the analysis of the concept of mathematical model and the second one presents an example of a mathematical model (Van der Pol's model of heartbeat) which is a good prototype of that concept. In section 3 the main trends of mathematization of biology and the cultural and scientific contexts in which they found their development are discussed. Sections 4 and 5 are devoted to the contributions of V. Volterra and A. J. Lotka, to the analysis of the differences of their scientific conceptions, and to a discussion of a case study: the priority dispute concerning the discovery of the Volterra-Lotka equations. The historical analysis developed in this paper is also intended to detect the roots of some recent trends of mathematization of biology.
Filling the Space of Possibilities: Eighteenth-Century Chemistry's Transition from Art to Science
Authors: Roberts Lissa
Published: September 2008

The Argument

This paper charts eighteenth-century chemistry's transition from its definition as an art to its proclaimed status as a science. Both the general concept of art and specific practices of eighteenth-century chemists are explored to account for this transition. As a disciplined activity, art orients practitioners' attention toward particular directions and away from others, providing a structured space of possibilities within which their discipline develops. Consequently, while chemists throughout the eighteenth century aspired to reveal nature's “true voice,” the path of their investigations was directed by and toward their laboratory manipulations. So long as the chemical community maintained an ethos of polite cooperation and eschewed theoretical wrangling, this point was hidden by a rhetoric of “matter of fact” reporting. But as “facts” mounted in the 1770s and 1780s, especially in pneumatic chemistry, cooperation gave way to contention as chemists sought to name and organize their findings without the guidance of a communally accepted “natural” system. Lavoisier and his fellow “new” chemists offered a forceful solution to this dilemma by introducing a revolutionary network of theories, nomenclature, and instruments that unabashedly fused the productive manipulation of their laboratory work with what they claimed as the structure and activity of nature.