Riskin, Jessica.

Science in the age of sensibility the sentimental empiricists of the French enlightenment / [electronic resource] : Jessica Riskin. - University of Chicago Press, 2002. - 1 online resource (xii, 338 p.) : ill.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-321) and index.

Introduction : sensibility and enlightenment science -- The blind and the mathematically inclined -- Poor Richard's Leyden jar -- From electricity to economy -- The lawyer and the lightning rod -- The mesmerism investigation and the crisis of sensibilist science -- Languages of science and revolution -- Conclusion : the legacy of the sentimental empiricists.

Empiricism today implies the dispassionate scrutiny of facts. But Jessica Riskin finds that in the French Enlightenment, empiricism was intimately bound up with sensibility. In what she calls a "sentimental empiricism," natural knowledge was taken to rest on a blend of experience and emotion. Riskin argues that sentimental empiricism brought together ideas and institutions, practices and politics. She shows, for instance, how the study of blindness, led by ideas about the mental and moral role of vision and by cataract surgeries, shaped the first school for the blind; how Benjamin Fr.

9780226720852 (electronic bk.) 0226720853 (electronic bk.)


Science--History--France--18th century.
Enlightenment--France.
Sensitivity (Personality trait)
Empiricism--History.--France
Science--History.--France
Science.
SCIENCE--History.
Wetenschapsbeoefening.
Verlichting (cultuurgeschiedenis)
Aufklärung.
Empirie.
Sensibilität.
Wissenschaft.


Frankreich.


Electronic books.

Q127.F8 / R57 2002eb

509.44/09/033

2003 A-236 Q 127.F8 / R595s 2002