Day: April 5, 2017

Walton Co-Editor and Chapter Author in New Book on the Connection Between Practitioners and Scholars of Natural Philosophy and Science

Steve Walton
Steve Walton

Steve Walton co-edited and authored a chapter in the book “Mathematical Practitioners and the Transformation of Natural Knowledge in Early Modern Europe” published by Springer.

Abstract:  “The book argues that we can only understand transformations of nature studies in the Scientific Revolution if we take seriously the interaction between practitioners (those who know by doing) and scholars (those who know by thinking). These are not in opposition, however. Theory and practice are end points on a continuum, with some participants interested only in the practical, others only in the theoretical, and most in the murky intellectual and material world in between. It is this borderland where influence, appropriation, and collaboration have the potential to lead to new methods, new subjects of enquiry, and new social structures of natural philosophy and science.”