Год выпуска: 2008 Автор: J. B. Shank Издательство: Страниц: 464 ISBN: 0226749452
Описание
Nothing is considered more natural than the connection between Isaac Newton’s science and the modernity that came into being during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Terms like “Newtonianism” are routinely taken as synonyms for “Enlightenment” and “moern” thought, yet the particular conjunction of these terms has a history full of accidents and contingencies. Modern physics, for example, was not the determined result of the rational unfolding of Newton’s scientific work in the eighteenth century, nor as the Enlightenment the natural and inevitable consequence of Newton’s eighteenth-century reception. Each of these outcomes, in fact, was a contingent event produced by the particular historical developments of the early eighteenth century. A comprehensie study of public culture, The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment digs below the surface of the commonplace narratives that link Newton with Enlightenment thought to examine the actual historical changes that...
