Stephen Gaukroger presents an original account of the development of empirical science and the understanding of human behavior from the mid-eighteenth century. Since the seventeenth century, science in the west has undergone a unique form of cumulative development in which it has been consolidated through integration into and shaping of a culture. But in the eighteenth century, science was cut loose from the legitimating culture in which it had found a public rationale as a fruitful and worthwhile form of inquiry. What kept it afloat between the middle of the eighteenth and middle of the nineteenth centuries, when its legitimacy began to hinge on an intimate link with technology? The answer lies in large part in an abrupt but fundamental shift in how the tasks of scientific inquiry were conceived, from the natural realm to the human realm. At the core of this development lies the naturalization of the human, that is, attempts to understand human behavior and motivations no longer in theological and metaphysical terms, but in empirical terms. one of the most striking features of this development is the variety of forms it took, and the book explores anthropological medicine, philosophical anthropology, the "natural history of man," and social arithmetic. Each of these disciplines re-formulated basic questions so that empirical investigation could be drawn upon in answering them, but the empirical dimension was conceived very differently in each case, with the result that the naturalization of the human took the form of competing, and in some respects mutually exclusive, projects
...MoreReview J. B. Shank (2017) Review of "The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841". American Historical Review (pp. 1678-1679).
Review John H. Zammito (2017) Review of "The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 3-6).
Review Jan Golinski (2017) Review of "The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 13-16).
Review Michael R. Lynn (2017) Review of "The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 7-12).
Review Stephen Gaukroger (2017) Review of "The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 17-20).
Review H. Floris Cohen (2021) Review of "The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210--1685". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 156-163).
Review Fernando Vidal (2017) Review of "The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841". Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (pp. 211-214).
Review Catherine Abou-Nemeh (2017) Review of "The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 198-199).
Review Christoffer Basse Eriksen (2016) Review of "The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841". Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (pp. 605-608).
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