Autori: Dana Jalobeanu

Editorial: Zeitsprunge, Forschungen zur Fruher Neuzeit, 10/2006, p.386-400, 2006.

Rezumat:

The formation and consolidation of the English Royal Society in the second part of the seventeenth century has been widely regarded as one of the major points in the spreading the “scientific revolution”. This was partly because of the major success of the Early Royal Society in developing and disseminating a public discourse of science. Two were the major pillars upon which the public discourse of science was constructed: the common set of values for the new scientific community and the activity of creating (and imposing) rules and norms of conduct within the community. Numerous attempts have been made recently to discuss the latter aspect. My paper argues against the attempt of reducing the common values of the modern scientific community to the question of rules of behavior. By discussing several examples, I try to show that what has been called the Republic of Letters was aggregated around a model of epistemological and moral behavior and moral rules associated with science. Such rules, however, and the moral model so created, were not, as has been claimed, purely social in character, but originated within a larger specific program for the reformation of knowledge, Bacon’s attempt to achieve a general reformation of both human learning and the moral self. I am also showing in what way, the techniques for building consensus within the Royal Society (and within the early modern science at large) have been shaped by such moral and religious values connected with the larger issue of the general reformation of the human being.

Cuvinte cheie: political stiintei, stiinta moderna, Societatea Regala, Francis Bacon, Thomas Sprat, Joseph Glanvill // politics of science, early modern science, early modern philosophy, Early Royal Society, Francis Bacon, Thomas Sprat, Joseph Glanvill