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This is the second selection of articles by Rupert Hall to be published by Variorum. Whereas the first volume focused on Newton and his work, the present one ranges more widely over the interactions between 'pure' science, 'applied' science, and craftsmanship, but with an emphasis on the period from the 17th century to the Industrial Revolution. The second and third sections look in particular at the relations between science and warfare, and science and medicine, and the position of the Royal Society forms the focus of several papers. Throughout Professor Hall argues for the need to keep in mind that the distinction between the practical or professional and the intellectual was not then valid in the same way as now; that the problems of the interaction and interdependence between 'knowing' and 'doing' are not invariant, but rather historically determined and with defined historical contexts.
List of contents
Contents: Introduction; The scholar and the craftsman in the Scientific Revolution; Engineering and the Scientific Revolution; What did the Industrial Revolution in Britain owe to science?; On knowing, and knowing how to....; Isaac Newton's steamer; Homo Fabricator: a new species; The Royal Society of Arts: two centuries of progress in science and technology; Guido's Textaurus, 1335; Science, technology and warfare, 1400-1700; Gunnery, science and the Royal Society; Architectura navalis; Hooke's Micrographia, 1665-1965; English medicine in the Royal Society's correspondence, 1660-1677; Medicine and the Royal Society; The first human blood transfusion: priority disputes; Index.
Summary
This is the second selection of articles by Rupert Hall to be published by Variorum. Whereas the first volume focused on Newton and his work, the present one ranges more widely over the interactions between ’pure’ science, ’applied’ science, and craftsmanship, but with an emphasis on the period from the 17th century to the Industrial Revolution. The second and third sections look in particular at the relations between science and warfare, and science and medicine, and the position of the Royal Society forms the focus of several papers. Throughout Professor Hall argues for the need to keep in mind that the distinction between the practical or professional and the intellectual was not then valid in the same way as now; that the problems of the interaction and interdependence between ’knowing’ and ’doing’ are not invariant, but rather historically determined and with defined historical contexts.
