Book ID: CBB364186891

Science without Leisure: Practical Naturalism in Istanbul, 1660-1732 (2019)

unapi

Küçük, B. Harun (Author)


University of Pittsburgh Press


Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 324 pp.
Language: English

Science in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Istanbul, Harun Küçük argues, was without leisure, a phenomenon spurred by the hyperinflation a century earlier when scientific texts all but disappeared from the college curriculum and inflation reduced the wages of professors to one-tenth of what they were in the sixteenth century. It was during this tumultuous period that philosophy and theory, the more leisurely aspects of naturalism—and the pursuit of “knowledge for knowledge’s sake”—vanished altogether from the city. But rather than put an end to science in Istanbul, this economic crisis was transformative, turning science into a practical matter, into something one learned through apprenticeship and provided as a service. In Science without Leisure, Küçük reveals how Ottoman science, when measured against familiar narratives of the Scientific Revolution, was remarkably far less scholastic and philosophical and far more cosmopolitan and practical. His book explains why as practical naturalists deployed natural knowledge to lucrative ends without regard for scientific theories, science in the Ottoman Empire over the long term ultimately became the domain of physicians, bureaucrats, and engineers rather than of scholars and philosophers.

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Reviewed By

Review Ovanes Akopyan (2021) Review of "Science without Leisure: Practical Naturalism in Istanbul, 1660-1732". Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (pp. 416-418). unapi

Review Peter Good (2020) Review of "Science without Leisure: Practical Naturalism in Istanbul, 1660-1732". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 408-410). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB364186891/

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Authors & Contributors
Davids, Karel A.
de Jong, Theo
Andraschke, Udo
Raith, Erich
James, Kirsten
Haidvogl, Gertrud
Journals
History of Technology
Studium: Tijdschrift voor Wetenschaps- en Universiteitgeschiedenis
International Journal of Middle East Studies
French Historical Studies
Environmental History
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Publishers
Tinta da China
Edizioni Firenze
Hirmer Verlag
Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers
Reaktion Books
MIT Press
Concepts
Urban history
Science and society
Applied science
Engineers
Science and culture
Naturalism (philosophy)
People
Fortes, Manuel de Azevedo
Hißmann, Michael
Hudde, Johannes
Andermüller, Bernhard Georg
Knoblauch, Karl von
Herstal de la Tache, Michel
Time Periods
18th century
17th century
19th century
20th century
16th century
Early modern
Places
Italy
Europe
London (England)
Netherlands
Germany
France
Institutions
Académie Royale des Sciences (France)
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