Inventive Intersections: Sites, Artifacts and the Rise of Modern Science and Technology

科学革命和工业革命通常被认为是欧洲历史上最重要的两个里程碑。传统上，历史学家通过发展将它们联系在一起。更广泛地说，科学史和技术史之间的关系长期以来一直被用类似的二元术语来看待：技术是独立发展的，还是应该被视为“应用科学”？这里提议的研讨会提供了一个不同的视角。它首先用对所谓的科学革命和工业革命之间的自然探索和发明的历史考察，取代了在历史上物化的科学和技术之间的区别。“自然探索”和“发明”这两个术语不仅在历史上是中立的，而且它们允许这样一个事实，即探索和发明能够而且确实导致了科学和技术的发展。换句话说，自然探索并不属于技术史下的科学史和发明史的范畴；它们之间的动态互动帮助产生了制度上演变为两个领域的东西。拟议中的研讨会将侧重于关键地点和文物，这些遗址和文物为探索自然和艺术并创造性地参与其中的广泛参与者提供了交叉点。与会者将分析哲学家、医生、商人、朝臣、政府和私人赞助人、工匠、药剂师和工程师的各种兴趣和活动是如何通过这些物化的十字路口融合在一起的，从而促进技术发展和科学形成。在此，科学革命和工业革命被重组为一个历史进程中的插曲，在这个历史进程中，自然探索和发明的过程和结果获得了日益正规化和制度化的形式，最终导致了我们后来认识到的现代科学技术。这个项目是科学技术史上正在进行的对话的一部分，为该领域的一些核心问题提供了一个具有挑战性的答案。我们如何解释这两个最重要和重要的(后)现代文化元素之间的发展和相互作用？我们所说的“科学革命”、“工业革命”是什么意思？是什么历史发展把这两场“革命”联系在一起？历史的教训如何使我们意识到我们目前作为科学家、技术人员和公民的身份？这一研讨会将于2004年9月在阿姆斯特丹举行，其主要赞助商是荷兰皇家科学院。这项提案要求资金完全用于资助美国学者的参与。

The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions are usually regarded as two of the most important landmarks of European history. Traditionally, historians have connected them by developments. More generally, the relationship between the history of science and technology has long been viewed in similar binary terms: did technology develop independently or should it be viewed as "applied science"? The workshop proposed here offers a different perspective. It begins by replacing the historiographically reified distinction between science and technology with an historical examination of natural inquiry and invention during the period between the so-called Scientific and IndustrialRevolutions. Not only are the terms "natural inquiry" and "invention" historiographically neutral, they allow for the fact that inquiry and invention could and did lead to both scientific and technological development. In other words, it is not the case that natural inquiry falls under the domain of the history of science and invention under the history of technology; their dynamic interaction helped give rise to what institutionally evolved as two domains.The proposed workshop will be organized by focusing on key sites and artifacts that provided points of intersection for a broad range of actors who inquired into and inventively engaged with nature and art. Participants will analyze how the various interests and activities of philosophers, doctors, merchants, courtiers, governmental and private patrons, artisans, apothecaries and engineers were fused by their passage through these materialized crossroads to give rise to both technological development and scientific formation. The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions are hereby reconfigured as episodes in an historical process whereby the processes and results of natural inquiry and invention gained increasingly regularized and institutionalized form, culminating in what we have since come to recognize as modern science and technology.This project is part of an ongoing conversation in the history of science and technology, offering a challenging response to some of the field's central questions. How do we account for the development and interaction between these two paramount and important elements of (post-) modern culture? What do we mean when we use terms such as the "Scientific Revolution" and "Industrial Revolution"? What historical developments tied these two "revolutions" together? How can the lessons of history sensitize us to our current identities as scientists, technologists and citizens?The major sponsor of this workshop, to be held in Amsterdam in September 2004, is the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW). This proposal requests funds solely to fund participation by American scholars.