ALBERTO QUILLERIMO naicn Thomas S. Kuhn The Essential Tension ‘and Change “The University of hicago Press Ghieago and Londonsay, the eighteenth century and in which those f the cihteenth ‘cet transend thse of antiquity and the Mile Ages? Tn one Sease the answer is clearly yes. The physical theory of each ot these periods was vastly more powerful and precze than tat of predecestors. Explanatory canons, being integrally associated with, Physical theory sel, must neetsarily have participated nthe Edvance: the development of sence permits the explanation of ver mocertined phenomena Its, however, only the pbenoment, ‘ot the explanations, that are more retned in any obvious sese, Once abstaced from the theory within which i functioned, gravity is only diferent from an innate tendeney toward the center, the concept of a cl is merely diferent from that of a force. Cone Sere by themselves ae explatory devices, without reference 10 ‘what the theories that invoke them ean explain, the permissible Starting points for physical explanation donot seem intrinsically ‘more advanced in alter than i an ear age, There i even one Sense in which revolutions in explanatory modes maybe regressive "Though the evidence ifr frm conclusive it does suggest that, a8 science develops, it employs io explanations an ever increasing umber of ireducibly distin: forms, With respect to explanation the simplicity of science may have deceased over histori time, ‘Examination of that thesis would require another esa, but even the possibility of considesing i sagas concsion that will be sufficient hare Studied by themselves, ideas of explaation and ‘aus provide no obvious evidence of tht progress ofthe inlet, thats 60 clearly eisplayed by the scence from which they deriv, | | Mathematical versus Experimental Traditions in the Development of Physical Science 3 Tiaras sto 138 Anyone who suds the history of sintife development repet- ily enesuniers a question, ane version of which would be, "AS the sciences one or many?” Ordinary that question Is evoked by concrete problens of narative organization, and these become ‘expetlly cite when the Historian of sciences asked to survey his Subject ia lectures in a book of signifeant scope. Sbould he {ake up the sciences one by one, bopinsing, for example, with mathematics, proceeding to astronomy, then to psc, to chem istry 10 anszmy, phyiolgs, botany, and 40 on? Or should he ‘eject the notion that his obec is 2 compesite acount of indvide ‘al Hels and tke it intend to be knowledge of nate fou! cour? ‘Se Anercen hast for he Avance of Se nd the Hier of See Sect A elimi verona been ret 3 Corel Unter Sly dry te prceig man Inte tree yor fot ave ape ease have tected one omest of algo mmo fo meno ‘Sone sec ets wil te stroll lets wht alow Here ‘eco oly ny tans for the evsuagecnn snd ai fo carat ro ior: he Ra nd Quin Sener, The we ae ‘ae fan cng oy sve he odHistonogrphie Sie In that case, he is Bound, safer ab possible, to consider alls émtifc subject mater together, to examine what men knew about ure at each period of ime, and to teace the manner in which changes ia method, in philosophical climate, or in society large have fected the body of scene knowledge conceived one Given « more nuanced description, bth approaches can be <> ognized as long-tadtional and generally nonsommunoating his toriographie modes The fst, which teats scence a at’ most 2 Toase-inked congvis of separate acences, alo charstrized by its practioner’ insistence on examining closely the technical syne, hs ume was iseribed en is sls by royal ordinane. ‘What these isolated cases suggests inicated also by the acade ‘my’ formal organization. A secon for phiique expérimentale was not introduced nl 1785, and ie was then grouped in the ‘mathematia! division (with geometry, asronony. and techies) riher than in tho division for the more manipulative slences Physique (anatomy, chemistry and metluny, botany nd agi fale, and nateral history and mineralogy). After 1815, when the new secoa's namo wae changed to pipique générale the ex: perimental among i members were for some tne very few Looking atthe eighteenth century as 2 whole, the conibatons of academicians to the Bacon physialslences were minor eon pred with thor of doctor, pactaciss, adults, instrument makes, lnerant lester, and men of independent mess, Again the exception is England, wer the Royal Soci wes large pop Uulted by such amateurs, rater than by men whose cieers were frst and foremost inthe since, Tho Origins of Modern Science eum now tie from the ead of the eghtonth century tothe idle of the seventeenth. The Baconian sciences were then in station, the classical being ray transformed. Together ith Concomitant changes in the ile scence, these two sot of events ‘onsiaze what hat come to be called the Scenic Revolution Although no part ofthis say parports to explain is extreordina. Ay complex causes, itis wort noting how diferent the question of causes Becomes when the developments to be expanel ere sub divided “That only the casial sciences were transformed during the Sez cente Revolution snot surprising, Other Heke of physi sence Scarcely existed wt! nein the period. To the extent that they di Turthermore, they lacked any siguifeant body of ened cecal oetine to reconsicuet. Conversely, one ttf transformation of the easial scenes ie within their own pre vis lines of development. Although historian ifr greatly sbous the weight o be atached t tem, few now dou that some med cat reformulations of ancient doctrine, Isamic oe Latin, were of major sigaieance to figures ike Coperica, Gaile, and Kepler. [No simile scholastic roots forthe Hacoian sciences are vse 0 ie, despite the claims sometimes made forthe methodologies tra Alton that descends from Greseese “Many of the other factors now fequenl invoked to explain the ‘Scintiie Revolution di eonsibute to the evolution of both cls fal and Baconian seieess, but olen in illerent ways endo dite ferent degrece, Tho eect of new ineletualIngedients—intlly “emneie and then corpesclar-meckanical—in the environment where early moder science was praticud provide fit example fof such diferences, Within the clessel scence, Hermie move tents sometines promoted the states of mathematic, encouraged ttempts to find mathematical regulares i mtr and oesson= ally Tigesod the simple mathematical forms ths iscovered as for ral eau, the termini ofthe scent cauelchain*” Both Gi Teo and Kepler provide examples of ths increasingly ontological role of mathematic, and te later display a second, more oes, Hermetic induenee as wel. From Kepler and Gilbert to Newton, though by then in en ettenuated form, the natural sympathies and antipathies prominent in Heroic thought hsiod to fl tbe void treated by the cllape ofthe Ariotelian spheres that had pe isl Kept the planets in thelr obi “Ate the fist thi ofthe seventeenth century, when Hectic ayn was increasingly rejected, is place, silo the casi] sciences, was rapidly taken by one or another form f corpscula Philosophy derived from ancient atomism. Forts of aration and repulsion besween either gross of microscopic hadies were. no longer favored, a source of much opposition to Newton. But withinvopaple Stuer ‘he infite universe demanded by corpuscuarsm, tote could be no peferted centers of creations, Nail ending motions cold ‘nly cocar in strnight tines and could only be disturbed bs iter corpuscular colons. From Descartes on, that now perspective Ieads dizelly to Newons fist law of motion aod—throvgh the study of colons, a new prolem-—io his second law as wel: One factor inthe taasformtion ofthe elses seienos was clearly the ‘ew jtllacual limo, st Hermetic aa then corpuscular within which they were practiced after 1500. ‘ences, but often Tor otor reasons nd in diferent ways. Doubsess, the Hermetic emphasis on occult sympathies helps to account for the growing interest in magnetism and electricity afte 1880; si lar iniueoes peomed the status of chemisy trom the time of Paracelsus to that of van Helmont. But cutent researc increas ingly suggests that the mejor contribution of Hermetiism tothe Bacon sciences and perhaps tothe entire Seienti Revlution| vas the Faustian figure af the magus, concerned to manipulate ahd ‘control nature, often with hea of ingenious eontivanes, instr ment, and machines. Recognizing Francis Bacon os tanstion figure between the magus Paracelsus srl the experimental pilor ‘opher Robert Boyle has done more thaa anything else in recent ‘ears to tansorm historical understanding of the manner in which {he new experimental scenes were born" For these Baconia felis, unlike thoi elasicl contemporaries, the eet ofthe transition to corpsularism were equivoedl,a fs reason why Hermticsm endared longer in subjects ike chemistry ‘and magaescr than i, sy, astronomy and mechanic. To declare thar sugar is sweet because Is round partes soothe the tongue it ‘ot obviously advance on atsibuting oi saosberne poten. iyhtceati-cenary experience was to demonstrat thatthe devel- ‘opment of Baconian sciences eften required guidance fom eon ‘eps like afinity and phlogiston, not categorically ulike the nat ‘wal sympathies snd etipathies of the Hermetic movement, But ane Stet Ralonch (London, 968” en corpuscuarom di separate the experimental sciences from magi, thus promoting needed independencc. Even more important, i pro vided a ralonae for experiment, as no form of Arsotisism ot Patni could have done. While the tation governing siete expliomion demanded the speciation of formal causes or es ences, only data provided by the natural course of events could be relevant to i. To experiment ot to constrain aaare was to do it ‘iolenc, thus hiding he role of tho “aataes” oe forms which made things what they were. In 2 corpuscular univers, on the other hhand, expeeimestation had an obvous relevance to the seienoes 1 could not change end might specially iuminate the mechariea copditions and laws fom which taal phenomena followed. Tha ‘wes the lesson Bacon attached repeatedly tothe fable of Copii huis ‘A new intellectual mien was nt, of course, the sole cause of the Scenic Revolution, andthe othe factors moa often invoked im its explanation also guin cogency when examined soparstly in elasical and Bacosian fies. During the Renaissance the medieval ‘university's monopoly on Tearing. was gradually broken, New sources of wealth, new ways of Kf, snd sew values combined 10 promote the stats of » group formerly classed as arsans and ‘afismen, The invention of printing snd the ecavery of addons ancient soures gave its members acces toa sintnc and techno: Tegieal heritage previonslyavalble, i at all, only within the ele cal university sing One result epltomized in the carcees of BBrunellechi and Leonardo, was the entrgence from eatt gus dlring the fileenth and snicenth certures ofthe actis-engneers ‘whose experts included painting, sulpure, architecture, foics tion, water supply, andthe design of engines of war and eomstrue- tion, Spported by an increasingly elaborate sytem of patrensgs, these men were at once employees nd increasingly ako ornaments fof Renaissance courte and Inter somites of he city governments ‘of northern Earope. Some of ter were els informally esotetod ‘with humanist eles, which ineodbeed them to Hesmetic end [Neoplatonic sources. Those sources were nes, however, what Pi rari Tegimated their status as participants in a newly polite Tearng. Rather i was their ability to invoke aod comment cog cally upon such works as Vitrutus’s De archiecara, Euclid’ Geometry and Optics, he pseuie-Aristssian Mechanea! Problems, and, aftr the mid-sixeenth century, both Archimedes! Float ing Bodies and Hero's Preumatca The importance ofthis new sreup to the Selene Revolaon js indisputable. Galileo, in numerous respects, and Simon Stevi, in all, ae among its produc. What requires emphasis, however, is thatthe sources is members wsed andthe Bel they pimarly ine Avene long to the cheter here called else. Whether a ars (perspeatve) of as engineers (construction and water sup ly), they mainly exploited works on mathematics static, and ‘psc, Arronomy, to, cosasonally entered their purview, though {0 lesser exten. One of Vicuvisseoneerns had been the de of precie sundial; the Renaissance artsvengincts sometimes ex- tended ito the design of othr estronomical instruments at wall. “Although only here and there seminal, te concern of the aris cnginers with these slasialfeks was &signiesnt factor in their reconstruction, It probably the soure of Brabe's new instru sents snd catainly of Galile's concern withthe strength of ma- ‘ernls and the limited power of water pamps, the ler leading dlzccy to Tories Barometer. Plausiby, Bet more contovere silly, engineering concerns, promoted especially by gunnery, helped to separate the problern of local motion fromthe larger pilowephi= fal problem of chang, simulancoosy making number ater than somice proportions relevant its further pursuit. These and re lated subjecs are the ones that led to the inclusion of & sein for arts mécniques inthe French academy and that caused that se ta fo be srouped with the ection for geometry anc astronomy. “That ie tberealer provided no natural home forthe Bacon se nee gs its counterpart inthe concors ofthe Renaisance att fengincors, which didnot include the nonmecatice, aonmathe- matical aspects of such crafts ax dyeing weaving, ginseng, and navigation. These were, however, precisely the cfs that played 40 large a role inthe genesis of the new experimental sects, Bacon's programmatic statement called for natural ores of ing berwen te at cn yt ene dn Asset Fr some ipects of da dation, ‘burodued below. 1 amt them all, and some of tows histories of nonmechanical eas were ‘Because the posible uility of even an analytic separation be- tween te machina and nonmechanial eats hes nt previons been sugarsted, what follows must be even more tentative than what precedes. As subjects for learned concern, however, the later ppear to have arrived later than the former, Presumably promoted athe start by Peraccsen aude, thir establishment i demon state in such works ab Biringuccio's Pyroechnla, Agricol’s De re metallica, Robert Normans Newe tractive, and. Bernard Pat's Discours, the ears published in 1540. The sats pe viously achieved by the mechanical arts doubtless helps to explain the appearance of books like thee, but the movement which pro duce them is nevertheless distinct Few practioner ct theo Imeehanieal eats were suppored by patronage or succeeded before the iat seventeenth eery in exaping the confines of erat guilds None could appeal to a significant classicel Ineary tradition, = fact tat probably made the pseudo-lsscal Hermetic Irate apd the gue ofthe magus more important to them than to their ontemporaries in the mathematical mechanical fells Except in ‘hemittry, among pharmacist and doctors, tu practice was sl. fom combines with leaned dtcoure abouts. Doctors doy how ever, igure in disproportionate nambers among those who ote Teurned works not anyon chemistry but also‘on the ote nom mechanical rafts which provided data required for the devslop- iment ofthe Baconian sciences. Agocola and Gilbert ate only the earliest examples These aifleences between the two traditions rooted in prior crate may help explain sll another. Although the Renaissance aistenginers were sovialy useful, knew it, and sometimes based thei lulns upon it the witaran elements in their writings ae far less persstnt and srdent than those in the wating of men who drew upon the nonimechanical crete. Remember how litle