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laurie_griesinger's review
5.0
"Our present-day problems of defining our knowledge, our society, and the relationships between them centre on the same dichotomies between the public and the private, between authority and expertise, that structured the disputes we have examined in this book. We regard our scientific knowledge as open and accessible in principle, but the public does not understand it. Scientific journals are in our public libraries, but they are written in a language alien to the citizenry. We say that our laboratories constitute some of our most open professional spaces, yet the public does not enter them. Our society is said to be democratic, but the public cannot call to account what they cannot comprehend. A form of knowledge that is the most open in principle has become the most closed in practice. To entertain these doubts about our science is to question the constitution of our society. It is no wonder that scientific knowledge is so difficult to hold up to scrutiny."
harisadurrani's review against another edition
5.0
This was a fantastic, insightful read that combines elements of moral philosophy, science, epistemology, ontology, empiricism, social order, assent. Absolutely loved this. The last few pages draw home the takeaway nicely - that the debates between Hobbes and Boyle reflect social and scientific issues -- issues relating knowledge, philosophy, religion, experiment, and governance -- that remain pressing today. The attention to historical detail combined with the attention to intellectual insight was particularly admirable.
mburnamfink's review against another edition
4.0
Today Boyle is considered the forefather of the experimental method, and Hobbes a titan of political philosophy. This is an artifact of history, as the two were contemporaries and competitors in that strange space called 'Natural Philosophy.' One of the most important books in the history of science and in STS, Leviathan and the Air-Pump looks at the early days of the Royal Society as a constitutional moment. In the controversy over the air experiments, the integrity of the machine, the nature of the substances contained within, and the practices of witnessing used to attest to its results, Shapin and Schaffer find the start of both science and liberalism.
This is an immense and deeply researched work of scholarship, that vividly imagines the politics and practices of the time; a very difference world where technological dissension could imply the chaos of civil war, and the idea of perfect philosophical system was still attainable. My only quibbles are that this book is denser than the subject warrants, and despite protestations to the contrary, has just the small whiff of whiggishness, as the authors are descendants of Boyle's cultural tradition rather than Hobbes, and Boyle is described as 'speaking for nature' whereas Hobbes is merely 'social'.
This is an immense and deeply researched work of scholarship, that vividly imagines the politics and practices of the time; a very difference world where technological dissension could imply the chaos of civil war, and the idea of perfect philosophical system was still attainable. My only quibbles are that this book is denser than the subject warrants, and despite protestations to the contrary, has just the small whiff of whiggishness, as the authors are descendants of Boyle's cultural tradition rather than Hobbes, and Boyle is described as 'speaking for nature' whereas Hobbes is merely 'social'.
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