Article
ID: CBB532696700

Davy Takes to the Hills: Dialogic Enquiry and the Aesthetics of the Prospect View (2019)

unapi
Certainty; uncertainty Discourse analysis Rhetoric in scientific discourse Facts (philosophy) Methodology of science; scientific method 19th century

I discuss some of the versions of scientific enquiry used and promoted by Davy, arguing that his self-fashioning as a “genius” and “hero of science” in the years 1801–1820, paralleling the self-fashioning of his friend Wordsworth, created a public persona that tended to occlude a practice of group enquiry to which, however, he publicly returned in his last years – significantly revising it so that it became a dialogic form of writing. This form, I suggest, construed knowledge not as the production of facts – or elements – by inductive method and controlled experiment, but as a conversational process between trusted peers, in which it is not just possible but fundamental to express doubt. Requiring no absolute commitment to a single view, dialogic exploration embraced uncertainty to engender new questions and ambivalence to generate new modes of enquiry.

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Article Frank A. J. L. James; Sharon Ruston (2019) New Studies on Humphry Davy: Introduction. Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 95-102). unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Alter, Stephen G.
Boumans, Marcel
Hess, Volker
Hon, Giora
Horstman, Klasien
Kerszberg, Pierre
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology
Foundations of Science
History of Psychology
Journal of Literature and Science
Publishers
Ashgate
MIT Press
Pickering & Chatto
Springer
State University of New York at Buffalo
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Concepts
Methodology of science; scientific method
Rhetoric in scientific discourse
Certainty; uncertainty
Philosophy of science
Epistemology
Discourse analysis
People
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Darwin, Charles Robert
Descartes, René
Latour, Bruno
Newton, Isaac
Whewell, William
Time Periods
19th century
21st century
17th century
18th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
Places
Great Britain
Rome (Italy)
Germany
United States
Americas
England
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