Experiencing Nature: Proceedings of a Conference in Honor of Allen G. Debus

By P. Theerman

This volume, honoring the renowned historian of science, Allen G Debus, explores ideas of science - experiences of nature' - from within a historiographical tradition that Debus has done much to define. As his work shows, the sciences do not develop exclusively as a result of a progressive and inexorable logic of discovery. A wide variety of extra-scientific factors, deriving from changing intellectual contexts and differing social millieus, play crucial roles in the overall development of scientific thought. These essays represent case studies in a broad range of scientific settings - from sixteenth-century astronomy and medicine, through nineteenth-century biology and mathematics, to the social sciences in the twentieth-century - that show the impact of both social settings and the cross-fertilization of ideas on the formation of science. Aimed at a general audience interested in the history of science, this book closes with Debus's personal perspective on the development of the field.
Audience: This book will appeal especially to historians of science, of chemistry, and of medicine.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0792344774
• ISBN13: 9780792344773
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"