1.3 The History of Science with Eileen Reeves

This week’s episode is based on Eileen Reeves’ session at the summer school in 2018, and a follow-up interview we conducted with her afterwards. Eileen is a professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. She speaks to us about the new ground that natural philosophy was broaching in the 17th century, with an emphasis on Galileo, and questions the usefulness of the monolithic concept of ‘The Scientific Revolution’ in telling that story.

Resources

  • Galilei, Galileo, and Maurice A. Finocchiaro. *The Essential Galileo*. IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2008.

    Lindberg, David C., and Robert S. Westman. *Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

    Reeves, Eileen. “Galileo, Oracle: On the History of Early Modern Science.” *I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance* 18, no. 1 (2015): 7–22. [doi.org/10.1086/680483][1].

    [1]: https://doi.org/10.1086/680483

    Shapin, Steven. *The Scientific Life: a Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation*. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2010.

  • Camerota, Michele, Franco Giudice, and Salvatore Ricciardo. “The Reappearance of Galileos Original Letter to Benedetto Castelli.” *Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science* 73, no. 1 (2018): 11–28. [doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0053][2].

    [2]: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0053

    Galilei, Galileo, and Maurice A. Finocchiaro. *The Essential Galileo*. IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2008.

    Galilei, Galileo, Christoph Scheiner, Galileo Galilei, Eileen Adair. Reeves, and Albert Van Helden. *On Sunspots*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

    Galilei, Galileo, Letter to Benedetto Castelli, 1613. inters.org/Galilei-Benedetto-Castelli

    Sís Peter. *Starry Messenger: a Book Depicting the Life of a Famous Scientist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Philosopher, Physicist, Galileo Galilei*. New York: Square Fish/Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2012.

    Reeves, Eileen. *Painting the Heavens: Art and Science in the Age of Galileo*. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1999.

    Reeves, Eileen Adair. *Evening News: Optics, Astronomy, and Journalism in Early Modern Europe*. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

    Wear, Andrew. “Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution. David C. Lindberg, Robert S. Westman.” *Isis* 83, no. 4 (1992): 652–54. [doi.org/10.1086/356314][3].

    [3]: https://doi.org/10.1086/356314

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