The Scottish Crucible: John Walker and the Chemistry of Geology in Enlightenment Edinburgh

苏格兰坩埚：约翰·沃克和启蒙运动中的地质化学爱丁堡

• 批准号: AH/F005849/1
• 负责人: Matthew Daniel Eddy
• 金额: $ 2.64万
• 依托单位: Durham University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FF005849%2F1
• 关键词: Scottish; Crucible; John; Walker; Chemistry

During the late eighteenth-century, the word 'system' was used by Scots and other Northern Europeans to describe a coherent arrangement of information that served a practical purpose (pedagogical, intellectual or otherwise). Although a few studies have been devoted to this subject in recent years, the specific methods (or 'systematics') that Enlightenment naturalists used to create arrangements of natural history specimens have proven to be problematic in studies of eighteenth-century culture. For social historians, the institutional placement of systematics was privileged and its utilitarian definition of nature was simplistic. For historians of science, its long classification lists were intellectually static and impeded the development proto-evolutionary theories. For historians of philosophy, it failed to conform to reified notions of 'natural kinds' and causation that modern thinkers have attributed to early modern philosophers like René Descartes, John Locke and David Hume. Moreover, even for intrepid scholars willing to set aside these assumptions, there is the insipid matter of primary sources. More specifically, the day-to-day arrangement practices of Enlightenment naturalists were most often confined to manuscript notebooks, that is, singular objects that, if extant, can only be viewed in archives. Bearing these liabilities in mind, why would anyone want to write about the history of systematic natural history? The answer, as this project argues, is that the above stereotypes are misguided and that the classification of natural objects was a central concern for professors who taught in Enlightenment universities.One of the reasons that systematic classification has received such little attention can be attributed to fact that natural history was an extremely diverse subject that appealed to a wide range of practitioners. At the top of the social scale, there were wealthy patrons whose collections and perceptions of nature were based upon notions of the natural order that reinforced their perception of the social order. Yet, there were also professionals and educators whose occupational well-being necessitated the use of pragmatically orientated classification practices. One such group was medical professionals, especially physicians, and throughout Europe medical schools taught students how to fit natural history specimens into classification categories that harmonised with the methods and practices being developed in indigenous experimental communities. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Medical School of the University of Edinburgh, one of Europe's leading medical programmes. It is the goal of my book to use this community to sketch an alternative account of how the classification practices of a defined institutional setting enabled naturalists to create systems of natural history. In particular, I argue that medical chemistry played a central role in this process. Furthermore, by excavating Professor John Walker's dynamic understanding of the fabric of the globe, I provide a unique view of the intellectual milieu that led his contemporaries and students to refashion geology into its own discipline during the early nineteenth century. Although I will draw comparisons to published natural history books, the evidentiary foundation of my argument rests firmly on manuscripts, especially those written by Walker, his students and his colleagues. It is interdisciplinary in spirit and draws from historically orientated works on the cultural placement of language, the impact of texts (printed and manuscript) and the formation of collections. Finally, since many of Walker's students would go on to become influential industrialists, scientists, physicians and politicians, this book provides unique insight into how many of Britain's leading Regency and Victorian intellectuals were taught to think about the composition and structure of the material world.

在18世纪后期，苏格兰人和其他北方欧洲人使用“系统”一词来描述一种为实际目的（教学、智力或其他）服务的连贯的信息安排。尽管近年来有一些研究致力于这一主题，但启蒙运动博物学家用于创建自然历史标本排列的具体方法（或“系统论”）已被证明在十八世纪文化研究中存在问题。对于社会历史学家来说，系统分类学的制度安排是有特权的，它对自然的功利主义定义是简单化的。对于科学史家来说，它那长长的分类列表在智力上是静态的，阻碍了原始进化理论的发展。对于哲学史家来说，它不符合现代思想家认为是由早期现代哲学家如勒内·笛卡尔、约翰·洛克和大卫·休谟提出的“自然种类”和因果关系的物化概念。此外，即使对于那些勇敢的学者来说，他们愿意把这些假设放在一边，但原始资料也是一个乏味的问题。更具体地说，启蒙运动博物学家的日常整理实践通常局限于手稿笔记本，也就是说，如果现存，只能在档案中查看的单一对象。考虑到这些不利因素，为什么还有人想写系统的自然史呢？正如本项目所指出的，答案是，上述刻板印象是误导性的，自然物体的分类是启蒙运动时期大学教授们关注的中心问题，系统分类很少受到关注的原因之一可以归因于自然历史是一门非常多样化的学科，吸引了广泛的从业者。在社会等级的顶端，有富有的赞助人，他们的收藏和对自然的看法是基于自然秩序的概念，这加强了他们对社会秩序的看法。然而，也有一些专业人员和教育工作者，他们的职业福利需要使用注重实用的分类做法。其中一个群体是医学专业人员，特别是医生，整个欧洲的医学院都在教学生如何将自然历史标本纳入分类类别，这些分类类别与土著实验社区正在开发的方法和实践相协调。这一点在爱丁堡大学医学院表现得最为明显，爱丁堡大学是欧洲领先的医学项目之一。本书的目的是利用这一群体来勾勒出另一种解释，即在一个确定的制度环境中，分类实践是如何使博物学家能够创建自然史系统的。特别是，我认为，医学化学在这一过程中发挥了核心作用。此外，通过挖掘教授约翰步行者的动态理解的结构的地球仪，我提供了一个独特的观点的知识环境，导致他的同时代人和学生重新塑造地质学到自己的学科在19世纪初。虽然我将与出版的自然历史书籍进行比较，但我的论点的证据基础坚定地依赖于手稿，特别是那些由步行者、他的学生和同事撰写的手稿。它在精神上是跨学科的，并借鉴了历史导向的语言文化安置，文本（印刷和手稿）的影响和收藏品的形成的作品。最后，由于许多步行者的学生将继续成为有影响力的实业家，科学家，医生和政治家，这本书提供了独特的见解，有多少英国领先的摄政时期和维多利亚时代的知识分子被教导思考物质世界的组成和结构。