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Knowledge, Power and Nature 1500-1700 - Term 2 Week 7

Seminar Reading


Shapin, Steven, ‘A Social History of Truth-Telling: Knowledge, Social Practice, and the Creditibility of Gentlemen’, in ibid, The Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago, 1994), pp. 65-125.

-- ‘Invisible Technicians: Master, Servants, and the Making of Experimental Knowledge’, in ibid., The Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England, (Chicago, 1994), pp. 355-407.

Seminar/Essay Questions

  • ‘Authority and testamony are central to making scientific facts.’ Discuss.
  • ‘There is not such thing as universal truth in science.’ Discuss.

Further Reading

TBA