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Bruce T. Moran - Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution - 9780674022492 - V9780674022492
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Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution

€ 42.94
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Description for Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution Paperback. Looks past contemporary assumptions and prejudices to determine what alchemists were actually doing in the context of early modern science. This book examines the ways alchemy and chemistry were studied and practiced between 1400 and 1700. It shows how these approaches influenced their respective practitioners' ideas about nature and the world. Series: New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine. Num Pages: 224 pages, 8 halftones. BIC Classification: PDX. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 149 x 203 x 14. Weight in Grams: 244.
Alchemy can't be science--common sense tells us as much. But perhaps common sense is not the best measure of what science is, or was. In this book, Bruce Moran looks past contemporary assumptions and prejudices to determine what alchemists were actually doing in the context of early modern science. Examining the ways alchemy and chemistry were studied and practiced between 1400 and 1700, he shows how these approaches influenced their respective practitioners' ideas about nature and shaped their inquiries into the workings of the natural world. His work sets up a dialogue between what historians have usually presented as separate spheres; here we see how alchemists and early chemists exchanged ideas and methods and in fact shared a territory between their two disciplines. Distilling Knowledge suggests that scientific revolution may wear a different appearance in different cultural contexts. The metaphor of the Scientific Revolution, Moran argues, can be expanded to make sense of alchemy and other so-called pseudo-sciences--by including a new framework in which process can count as an object, in which making leads to learning, and in which the messiness of conflict leads to discernment. Seen on its own terms, alchemy can stand within the bounds of demonstrative science.

Product Details

Publisher
Harvard University Press United States
Number of pages
224
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2006
Series
New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Condition
New
Weight
314g
Number of Pages
224
Place of Publication
Cambridge, Mass, United States
ISBN
9780674022492
SKU
V9780674022492
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Bruce T. Moran
Bruce T. Moran is Professor of History, University of Nevada at Reno.

Reviews for Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution
In his accessible and absorbing book, [Moran] explores the intellectual framework of alchemy and seeks to identify the extent to which alchemy was a science and how it contributed positively to the scientific revolution...I can recommend this elegant book without hesitation to anyone who wishes to understand the practices and motivations of the alchemists as they sank over the horizon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the true chemists rose to take their place. - Peter Atkins, Times Higher Education Supplement

Goodreads reviews for Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution


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