The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution was written in 1996 by Steven Shapin. Book was composed of three chapters. The thema of the book is the history of the Scientific Revolution and its progress. These chapters are “What was known?”, “How was it known?” and “What was the knowledge for?”. The book gives information about the Scientific Revolution and the philosophers of that movement as Galileo, Descartes, Huygens, Newton and so on.

In the first chapter, writer focused on mostly the achievements of the philosophers who are the inducers of the scientific revolution. He mostly mention about the success and progress of Copernicus, Galileo, Boyle, Descartes, Kepler and Newton. In addition to these, he mentions about the known and unknown concepts that accelerate the philosophers to think.

In the second chapter, he mostly tells about the experiences and how do the philosophers started to invent something and how do they use their knowledges for handling some concrete things. It can be said that, this chapter tells about the starting point of the experiments and empricism. At that period, philosophers accepted the idea of skeptisism. The philosophers started to observe the nature and what happens in the nature. This chapter underlies the fact that observation was so important step for the Scientific Revolution. After observation the nature, they tried to understand the truth and the reason. Fot that chapter, he gives the experiments of Boyle for air pump as an example.

In the third chapter, the writer mention the cultural uses of the natural sciences. He told about the oppositions between science and religion. Thus, at that times developing of the sciences result as a problems in the context of religion. In addition to that, the progressing of the sciences became a treat for the state power and the authority. The writer mention about the paradox that concerns the relation between the objective and disinterested identity of the natural sciences and the everyday world of the subjectivity, passions and interests. In that chapter, he underlies the idea that developments of the science becomes a problem in the society due to the idea of the strict religion.

He concludes the book with mentioning the effects of the society on the science and the relationship between sciences and the values. The Scientific Revolution is the result of the distinctiveness in the culture. However, the most respected component of the modern culture becomes as the science.

After the third chapter, there is a bibliographic essay that gives the information about the selective essays to lead the people learn more about the history of the Scientific Revolution.

To sum up, Shapin tell the history of the Scientific Revolution as social context and social outcomes of the movement. He arranges the book as three chapters as questions that are related the progress of the Scientific Revolution. The subthema of the Scientific Revolution that is mechanical philosophy which is emphasized mostly in the book. Scientific Revolution can not be well uderstood in the society however it is the most respected thema in the society.

REVIEW

The book of “The Scientific Revolution” is a kind of book that is focusing on the Scientific Revolution from three different views. Thus, there are three chapters and the chapters names indicates that the themas of the chapters. The chapter names are a kind of question. There are many questions in the book that makes people to read carefully. The book includes many pictures that makes the reader to read in a good way. In addition to that, there are some footnotes in the book which makes reading easy.

The negative feature of the book is citation. At the end of the book, writer gives many essays that he used when he wrote the book. However, there is not any in text citation or he did not indicate directly which essay was used at which part of the book. In my opinion, this book can be read as a spare time reading. Its language can be understood easily for the people whose mother language is not English.

The positive feature of the book is it gives many perspectives about the Scientific Revolution and also tells about many philosophers. Firstly, it gives ideas about the Scientific Revolution and the name of chaper is “What was known?”. And then, it tells about the experiments. In the last chapter, it gives the results of the Scientific Revolution. When I was reading that, I thought that the book is going as a scientific research. Firstly, the datas are collected. After that, with the light of the datas experiments can be done. Finally, results can be evaluated. And then, all the bibliographic essay are gives as the resources. In addition to that, at the beginning of the book, there is a part that is “introduction”. The shape of the book and components of the book is designed as a report of an scientific experiment that makes the period of reading enjoyable.