Artisan/practitioners and the rise of the new sciences, 1400-1600

by Pamela O. Long

"This book provides the historical background for a central issue in the history of science: the influence of artisans, craftsmen, and other practitioners on the emergent empirical methodologies that characterized the "new sciences" of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Long offers a coherent account and critical revision of the "Zilsel thesis," an influential etiological narrative which argues that such craftsmen were instrumental in bringing about the "Scientific Revolution." Artisan/Practitioners reassesses the issue of artisanal influence from three different perspectives:...