Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution: : From Copernicus to Newton
Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution: : From Copernicus to Newton
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科学革命百科全书：：从哥白尼到牛顿
DOI：
10.1108/rr.2001.15.1.35.32
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发表时间：
2013
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
M. Guha
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Guha
我很自豪地拥有一套《大英百科全书》(1910年第11版)的最后一套好版本。把这本书放在床边会让我看不起其他的百科全书。作为一个历史概念，将十六世纪和十七世纪人们对科学知识的态度变化称为“科学革命”，实际上是一个二十世纪中叶的概念，出现在我的百科全书之后。然而，这是一本事实信息百科全书，而不是一本历史学概念百科全书，我在其中找不到90年前没有涵盖的、往往更详细的事实信息。然而，对于装备不如我的图书馆(和个人)来说，这可能是一项有用的工作。重点是传记--谁想到了什么，什么时候想到的，而不是思想史上的。这些条目相当完整，平均约一页，严肃的事实，以及简短的补充阅读参考书目。这一时期从1514年哥白尼的《注解》到1715年牛顿的《自然哲学数学原理》涵盖了很广的范围。在这两点范围内，有几项与科学史有关的次要事项，或许可以提及，但我看不到有任何重大遗漏。不需要高水平的科学、技术或数学知识--目标读者显然是高中或本科的人文专业学生。这有时令人恼火。因此，例如，星盘上的条目告诉你它是做什么的，它看起来像什么，它的用途是如何传播的，但并没有真正告诉你如何使用它，如果你碰巧有一个星盘的话。我的百科全书和乔叟的《星盘论》(1391年)都提供了更多的信息，也更具技术性。科学史，特别是这本书所涵盖的时期，现在是历史课程的重要部分--与过去相比，这是一个巨大的变化，当时国王和战斗是唯一值得记录的东西。因此，为一般历史课程服务的学校和大学图书馆，以及那些为科学史的特定课程服务的学校和大学图书馆，可能会发现这本书值得考虑。大多数科学家仍然倾向于口头上支持科学史，而不是认真对待它：我发现，我经常被哈维或加伦要求引用一篇论文的引言段落，我知道，这篇论文不太可能包含任何其他超过几年的引用。因此，这本书可能会成为科学图书馆此类信息的来源，尽管我怀疑它是否会得到很大的使用。哲学家们会找到许多比这更好的思想史百科全书资源。
I am the proud possessor of a set of the last good edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica (11th edition 1910). Having this by my bedside rather leads me to look down on other encylopaedias. As a historical concept, the labelling of the change in attitude towards scientific knowledge in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as “the scientific revolution” is really a mid‐twentieth century concept, post‐dating my encyclopaedia. This is, however, an encyclopaedia of factual information rather than an encyclopaedia of historiographical concepts, and I have not been able to find much in the way of factual information in it that was not covered, often in greater detail, 90 years ago. Nevertheless, for libraries (and individuals) less well‐equipped than I with the best reference tools, this could be a useful work. The emphasis is on the biographical‐who thought of what, when, rather than on the history of ideas. The entries are reasonably full, averaging about a page, severely factual, with brief bibliographies of supplementary reading. The period covered stretches, broadly, from Copernicus’ Commentariolus in 1514, to Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1715. There are a few minor items relating to the history of science falling within these two points which could, perhaps, have been mentioned, but I cannot see any major omissions. A high level of scientific, technical or mathematical knowledge is not required‐the target readership is clearly the high school or undergraduate humanities student. This is, occasionally, irritating. Thus, for example, the entry on the astrolabe tells you what it is for, what it looked like, and how its use spread, but does not really tell you how to use one, if you happen to have one. My encyclopaedia, and Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe (1391) are both far more informative, and more technically demanding.The history of science, and, in particular, the period covered in this book, is now an important part of the historical curriculum‐a great change from the old days when kings and battles were the only things thought worthy of record. School and university libraries catering for general history courses, as well as those catering for specific courses in the history of science may, therefore, find this book worth considering. Most scientists still tend to pay lip service to the history of science, rather than take it seriously: I find myself, quite often, being asked for a quote from Harvey or Galen for the introductory paragraph of a paper which is, I know, unlikely to contain any other reference to anything more than a couple of years old. This book might, therefore, be a source of such information for scientific libraries, though I doubt it would receive an awful lot of use. Philosophers will find a number of better encylopaedic resources for the history of ideas than this.