Article ID: CBB000410704

Newton for Ladies: Gentility, Gender, and Radical Culture (2004)

unapi

Francesco Algarotti's Newtonianism for Ladies (1737), a series of lively dialogues on optics, was a landmark in the popularization of Newtonian philosophy. In this essay I shall explore Algarotti's sociocultural world, his aims and ambitions, and the meaning he attached to his own work. In particular I shall focus on Algarotti's self-promotional strategies, his deployment of gendered images and his use of popular philosophy within the broader cultural and experimental campaign for the success of Newtonianism. Finally, I shall suggest a radical reading of the dialogues, reconstructing the process that brought them to their religious condemnation. What did Newtonianism mean to Algarotti? In opposition to mainstream apologetic interpretations, he seems to have framed the new experimental methodology in a sensationalistic epistemology derived mainly from Locke, pointing at a series of subversive religious and political implications. Due to the intervention of religious authorities Algarotti's radical Newtonianism became gradually less visible in subsequent editions and translations. It is only through the study of the first - clandestine - edition of the dialogues that one can begin reconstructing the meaning of Algarotti's experiments (real and fictional) and his cultural battle for a regenerated Europe.

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Description On Francesco Algarotti's popular book Newtonianism for Ladies (1737).


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Authors & Contributors
Iorio, Elena
Hutton, Sarah
Salvadé, Anna Maria
Munno, Cristina
Findlen, Paula
Wigelsworth, Jeffrey Robert
Concepts
Popularization
Newtonianism
Women in science
Science and gender
Science and society
Physics
Time Periods
18th century
17th century
21st century
20th century
19th century
Places
Italy
Europe
Great Britain
England
Leipzig (Germany)
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