Details

Subject(s)

• Observation (Scientific method)—History [Browse]
• Science—Methodology—History [Browse]

Related name

• Daston, Lorraine, 1951- [Browse]
• Lunbeck, Elizabeth [Browse]

Summary note

Observation is the most pervasive and fundamental practice of all the modern sciences, both natural and human. Its instruments include not only the naked senses but also tools such as the telescope and microscope, the questionnaire, the photographic plate, the notebook, the glassed-in beehive, and myriad other ingenious inventions designed to make the invisible visible, the evanescent permanent, the abstract concrete. Yet observation has almost never been considered as an object of historical inquiry in itself. This wide-ranging collection offers the first examination of the history of scientific observation in its own right, as both epistemic category and scientific practice. Histories of Scientific Observation features engaging episodes drawn from across the spectrum of the natural and human sciences, ranging from meteorology, medicine, and natural history to economics, astronomy, and psychology. The contributions spotlight how observers have scrutinized everything-from seaweed to X-ray radiation, household budgets to the emotions-with ingenuity, curiosity, and perseverance verging on obsession. This book makes a compelling case for the significance of the long, surprising, and epistemologically significant history of scientific observation, a history full of innovations that have enlarged the possibilities of perception, judgment, and reason.

Notes

Description based upon print version of record.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Language note

English

Contents

• Front matter
• Contents
• Introduction: Observation Observed
• Introduction
• 1. Observation in the Margins, 500-1500
• 2. Observation Rising: Birth of an Epistemic Genre, 1500-1650
• 3. The Empire of Observation, 1600-1800
• 4. The Color of Blood: Between Sensory Experience and Epistemic Significance
• 5. Seeing Is Believing: Professor Vagner's Wonderful World
• 6. A Visual History of Jean Perrin's Brownian Motion Curves
• 7. Frogs on the Mantelpiece: The Practice of Observation in Daily Life
• 8. Sorting Things Out: The Economist as an Armchair Observer
• 9. "A Number of Scenes in a Badly Cut Film": Observation in the Age of Strobe
• 10. Empathy as a Psychoanalytic Mode of Observation: Between Sentiment and Science
• 11. Reforming Vision: The Engineer Le Play Learns to Observe Society Sagely
• 12. Seeking Parts, Looking for Wholes
• 13. Seeing the Blush: Feeling Emotions
• 14. Visualizing Radiation: The Photographs of Henri Becquerel
• 15. The Geography of Observation: Distance and Visibility in Eighteenth-Century Botanical Travel
• 16. The World on a Page: Making a General Observation in the Eighteenth Century
• 17. Coming to Attention: A Commonwealth of Observers during the Napoleonic Wars
• Contributors
• Index

Show 20 more Contents items

ISBN

0-226-13679-5

OCLC

701719413

Doi

• 10.7208/9780226136790

Statement on language in description

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