Science For A Polite Society

Science For A Polite Society PDF Author: Geoffrey V. Sutton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429965966
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
Traditional accounts of the scientific revolution focus on such thinkers as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, and usually portray it as a process of steady, rational progress. There is another side to this story, and its protagonists are more likely to be women than men, dilettante aristocrats than highly educated natural philosophers. The setting is not the laboratory, but rather the literary salons of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, and the action takes place sometime between Europe's last great witch hunts and the emergence of the modern world.Science for a Polite Society is an intriguing reexamination of the social, cultural, and intellectual context of the origins of modern science. The elite of French society accepted science largely because of their personal involvement and fascination with the emerging philosophy of nature. Members of salon society, especially women, were avid readers of works of natural philosophy and active participants in experiments for the edification of their peers. Some of these women went on to champion the new science and played a significant role in securing its acceptance by polite society.As Geoffrey Sutton points out, the sheer entertainment value of startling displays of electricity and chemical explosions would have played an important role in persuading the skeptical. We can only imagine the effects of such drawing-room experiments on an audience that lived in a world illuminated by tallow candles. For many, leaping electrical arcs and window-rattling detonations must have been as convincing as Newton's mathematically elegant description of the motions of the planets.With the acceptance and triumph of the new science came a prestige that made it a model of what rationality should be. The Enlightenment adopted the methods of scientific thought as the model for human progress. To be an ?enlightened? thinker meant believing that the application of scientific methods could reform political and economic life, to the lasting benefit of humanity. We live with the ambiguous results of that legacy even today, although in our own century we are perhaps more impressed by the ability of science to frighten, rather than to awe and entertain.

Polite Society

Polite Society PDF Author: Mahesh Rao
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525539964
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Get Book Here

Book Description
"So funny, smart, sophisticated, and captivating, you just want to spend your whole life with it."--Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians In this modern reimagining of Jane Austen's Emma, Delhi's polite society is often anything but polite. Beautiful, clever, and more than a little bored, Ania Khurana has Delhi wrapped around her finger. Having successfully found love for her spinster aunt, she sets her sights on Dimple: her newest, sweetest, and most helpless friend. But when her aunt's handsome nephew arrives from America, the social tides in Delhi begin to shift. Surrounded by old money and new; relentless currents of gossip; and an unforgettable cast of socialites, journalists, gurus, and heirs, Ania discovers that her good intentions are no match for the whims and intrigues of Delhi's high society--or for her own complicated feelings toward her cherished childhood friend, Dev. Pairing razor-sharp observation and social comedy with moments of true tenderness, this delicious whirl through the mansions of India's dazzling elite celebrates that there's no one route to perfect happiness.

Science For A Polite Society

Science For A Polite Society PDF Author: Geoffrey V. Sutton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429965966
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
Traditional accounts of the scientific revolution focus on such thinkers as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, and usually portray it as a process of steady, rational progress. There is another side to this story, and its protagonists are more likely to be women than men, dilettante aristocrats than highly educated natural philosophers. The setting is not the laboratory, but rather the literary salons of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, and the action takes place sometime between Europe's last great witch hunts and the emergence of the modern world.Science for a Polite Society is an intriguing reexamination of the social, cultural, and intellectual context of the origins of modern science. The elite of French society accepted science largely because of their personal involvement and fascination with the emerging philosophy of nature. Members of salon society, especially women, were avid readers of works of natural philosophy and active participants in experiments for the edification of their peers. Some of these women went on to champion the new science and played a significant role in securing its acceptance by polite society.As Geoffrey Sutton points out, the sheer entertainment value of startling displays of electricity and chemical explosions would have played an important role in persuading the skeptical. We can only imagine the effects of such drawing-room experiments on an audience that lived in a world illuminated by tallow candles. For many, leaping electrical arcs and window-rattling detonations must have been as convincing as Newton's mathematically elegant description of the motions of the planets.With the acceptance and triumph of the new science came a prestige that made it a model of what rationality should be. The Enlightenment adopted the methods of scientific thought as the model for human progress. To be an ?enlightened? thinker meant believing that the application of scientific methods could reform political and economic life, to the lasting benefit of humanity. We live with the ambiguous results of that legacy even today, although in our own century we are perhaps more impressed by the ability of science to frighten, rather than to awe and entertain.

Beyond This Horizon

Beyond This Horizon PDF Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Publisher: Baen Publishing Enterprises
ISBN: 1625793146
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Utopia has been achieved. For centuries, disease, hunger, poverty and war have been things found only in the histories. And applied genetics has given men and women the bodies of athletes and a lifespan of over a century. They should all have been very happy.... But Hamilton Felix is bored. And he is the culmination of a star line; each of his last thirty ancestors chosen for superior genes. Hamilton is, as far as genetics can produce one, the ultimate man. And this ultimate man can see no reason why the human race should survive, and has no intention of continuing the pointless comedy. However, Hamilton's life is about to become less boring. A secret cabal of revolutionaries who find utopia not just boring, but desperately in need of leaders who know just What Needs to be Done, are planning to revolt and put themselves in charge. Knowing of Hamilton's disenchantment with the modern world, they have recruited him to join their Glorious Revolution. Big mistake! The revolutionaries are about to find out that recruiting a superman is definitely not a good idea.... With an all new afterword by Tony Daniel. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Science for a Polite Society

Science for a Polite Society PDF Author: Geoffrey V. Sutton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780429497414
Category : SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description


Social Etiquette

Social Etiquette PDF Author: Maud C. Cooke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Etiquette
Languages : en
Pages : 540

Get Book Here

Book Description


Never Pure

Never Pure PDF Author: Steven Shapin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801894204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 565

Get Book Here

Book Description
Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits. Put simply, science has never been pure. To be human is to err, and we understand science better when we recognize it as the laborious achievement of fallible, imperfect, and historically situated human beings. Shapin’s essays collected here include reflections on the historical relationships between science and common sense, between science and modernity, and between science and the moral order. They explore the relevance of physical and social settings in the making of scientific knowledge, the methods appropriate to understanding science historically, dietetics as a compelling site for historical inquiry, the identity of those who have made scientific knowledge, and the means by which science has acquired credibility and authority. This wide-ranging and intensely interdisciplinary collection by one of the most distinguished historians and sociologists of science represents some of the leading edges of change in the scholarly understanding of science over the past several decades.

Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment

Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment PDF Author: Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780754663706
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description
The essays in this volume consider the interplay of science and spectacle in eighteenth-century Europe, describing the variety of public demonstrations of science in sites ranging from academies and laboratories to shops and streets.

The Prospect Before Her: 1500-1800

The Prospect Before Her: 1500-1800 PDF Author: Olwen H. Hufton
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 688

Get Book Here

Book Description
History of women in western Europe during the years 1500 to 1800, discussing what females of various stations could expect at every stage of life from the time of their birth.

The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness

The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness PDF Author: Florence Hartley
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
In preparing a book of etiquette for ladies, I would lay down as the first rule, "Do unto others as you would others should do to you." You can never be rude if you bear the rule always in mind, for what lady likes to be treated rudely? True Christian politeness will always be the result of an unselfish regard for the feelings of others, and though you may err in the ceremonious points of etiquette, you will never be impolite. Politeness, founded upon such a rule, becomes the expression, in graceful manner, of social virtues. The spirit of politeness consists in a certain attention to forms and ceremonies, which are meant both to please others and ourselves, and to make others pleased with us; a still clearer definition may be given by saying that politeness is goodness of heart put into daily practice; there can be no _true_ politeness without kindness, purity, singleness of heart, and sensibility.

The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 4, Eighteenth-Century Science

The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 4, Eighteenth-Century Science PDF Author: David C. Lindberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521572439
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 956

Get Book Here

Book Description
The fullest and most complete survey of the development of science in the eighteenth century.