Yeo, Richard R. (Author)
University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 2014
Language: English
Physical Details: xviii + 398 pp.; ill.
In Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science, Richard Yeo interprets a relatively unexplored set of primary archival sources: the notes and notebooks of some of the leading figures of the Scientific Revolution. Notebooks were important to several key members of the Royal Society of London, including Robert Boyle, John Evelyn, Robert Hooke, John Locke, and others, who drew on Renaissance humanist techniques of excerpting from texts to build storehouses of proverbs, maxims, quotations, and other material in personal notebooks, or commonplace books. Yeo shows that these men appreciated the value of their own notes both as powerful tools for personal recollection, and, following Francis Bacon, as a system of precise record keeping from which they could retrieve large quantities of detailed information for collaboration. The virtuosi of the seventeenth century were also able to reach beyond Bacon and the humanists, drawing inspiration from the ancient Hippocratic medical tradition and its emphasis on the gradual accumulation of information over time. By reflecting on the interaction of memory, notebooks, and other records, Yeo argues, the English virtuosi shaped an ethos of long-term empirical scientific inquiry. Introduction -- Capacious memory and copious notebooks -- Information and empirical sensibility -- Taking notes in Samuel Hartlib's circle -- Rival memories: John Beale and Robert Boyle on empirical information -- Robert Boyle's loose notes -- John Locke, master note-taker -- Collective note-taking and Robert Hooke's dynamic archive -- Conclusion. Science -- England -- History. Scientists -- England. Science -- history. Naturwissenschaftler. Notizbuch. Named Person: Hartlib, Samuel, -1662. Beale, John, 1603-1683? Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691. Locke, John, 1632-1704. Hooke, Robert, 1635-1703.
...MoreReview Noah Moxham (2018) Review of "Knowledge and the Public Interest, 1575-1725". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 83-87).
Review Evelyn Tribble (2016) Review of "Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 409-411).
Review Rose-Mary Sargent (2017) Review of "Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science". HOPOS (pp. 167-169).
Review Sven Dupré (2016) Review of "Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 839-840).
Review Williams, Kelsey Jackson (2015) Review of "Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science". Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology (pp. 409-411).
Review Roos, Anna Marie Eleanor (2015) Review of "Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 360-361).
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Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
Circumscribere: International Journal for the History of Science
Historical Journal
History and Technology
History of Science
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