Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-5r2nc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-06T06:22:02.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - The Pursuit of the Prosopography of Science

from Part I - Science and Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
William Clark
Edited by
Roy Porter
Roy Porter
Affiliation:
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, University College London
Get access

Summary

The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions … is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of the division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education. … By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound

David Sabean remarked a few years ago that Anglo-American sociology faced a crisis, as it had based itself fundamentally on the structures of “social class” – a concept that has now given way nearly completely to the concept of “identity.” So many ask now about the historical identity or persona of the scientist but do not seem to want the prosopographer’s answer, for that answer has tended to be given in terms of social class and its related sociological notions, such as the division of labor in the scientific community: a Smithian political economy of knowledge. It is interesting, moreover, that, although a prosopography of the subjects or “heroes” of knowledge may be at once a rather ancient and a very modern pursuit, its true age, from which it traces its provenance, is the eighteenth century. Our prosopography is kith and kin with the liberal, materialistic, and positivistic social and political philosophy of the eighteenth century.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Science , pp. 211 - 238
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, Keith, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975)Google Scholar
Brockliss, L. W. B., French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Cultural History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)Google Scholar
Chitnis, A., The Scottish Enlightenment: A Social History (London: Croom Helm, 1976).Google Scholar
Christie, John R. R., “The Origins and Development of the Scottish Scientific Community, 1680–1760,” History of Science, 12 (1974).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, William, “On the Dialectical Origins of the Research Seminar,” History of Science, 27 (1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, William, Golinski, Jan, and Schaffer, Simon, “Introduction,” in Clark, , Golinski, , and Schaffer, (eds.), The Sciences in Enlightened Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Clark, , “On the Ironic Specimen of the Doctor of Philosophy,” Science in Context, 5/1 (1992)Google Scholar
Clark, , “On the Ministerial Archive of Academic Acts,” Science in Context, 9/4 (1996).Google Scholar
Daston, Lorraine, “The Ideal and the Reality of the Republic of Letters in the Enlightenment,” Science in Context, 4/2 (1991)Google Scholar
Daston, Lorraine, “Rational Individuals versus Laws of Society: From Probability to Statistics,” in Krüger, Lorenz et al. (eds.), The Probabilistic Revolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 2 vols., 1Google Scholar
Daston, , Classical Probability in the Enlightenment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).Google Scholar
Decker-Hauff, H. et al. (eds.), 500 Jahre Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Universität Tübingen, 3 vols. (Tübingen, 1977), 3.Google Scholar
Dumont, Louis, From Mandeville to Marx: The Genesis and Triumph of Economic Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977)Google Scholar
Eulenburg, Franz, Die Frequenz der deutschen Universitäten von ihrer Gründung bis zur Gegenwart (1904; reprint Berlin: Akademie, 1994).Google Scholar
Euler, Friedrich W., “Entstehung und Entwicklung deutscher Gelehrtengeschlechter,” in Rössler, Helmuth and Franz, Günther (eds.), Universität und Gelehrtenstand 1400–1800, (Deutsche Führungsschichten in der Neuzeit, 4) (Limburg/Lahn: Stärke, 1970).Google Scholar
Feil, Josef, “Versuche zur Gründung einer Akademie der Wissenschaften unter Maria Theresa,” Jahrbuch für vaterländische Geschichte, 1 (1861).Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon, 1980)Google Scholar
Frijhoff, Willem, “Surplus ou deficit? Hypothèses sur le nombre réel des étudiants en Allemagne à l’époque moderne (1576–1815),” Francia: Forschungen zur westeuropäischer Geschichte, 7 (1980)Google Scholar
Gascoigne, John, Cambridge in the Age of Enlightenment: Science, Religion and Politics from the Restoration to the French Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gascoigne, John, “The Eighteenth Century Scientific Community: A Prosopographical Study,” Social Studies of Science, 25 (1995).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodman, Dena, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Hahn, Roger, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971)Google Scholar
Hahn, , “Scientific Research as an Occupation in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” Minerva, 13 (1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammermayer, Ludwig, Gründungs- und Frühgeschichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Münchener Historische Studien, Abt. Bayerische Geschichte, 4) (Kallmünz: Lassleben, 1959).Google Scholar
Harnack, Adolf, Geschichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1900).Google Scholar
Harris, Steven, “Transposing the Merton Thesis: Apostolic Spirituality and the Establishment of the Jesuit Scientific Tradition,” Science in Context, 3/1 (1989)Google Scholar
Heilbron, John, Elements of Early Modern Physics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Hertz, Deborah, Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hufbauer, Karl, The Formation of the German Chemical Community (1720–1795) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Hunter, Michael, The Royal Society and Its Fellows, 1660–1700: The Morphology of an Early Scientific Institution (London: British Society for the History of Science, 1982–5; 2nd ed. 1994)Google Scholar
Jones, Peter, “The Scottish Professoriate and the Polite Academy, 1720–46,” in Hont, Istvan and Ignatieff, Michael (eds.), Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar
Julia, Dominique and Revel, Jacques, “Les étudiants et leurs études dans la France moderne,” in Julia, Dominique, Revel, Jacques, and Chartier, Roger (eds.), Les Universités Européennes du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle. Histoire sociale des populations étudiantes, 2 vols. (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1986–9), 2.Google Scholar
Knowles, David, From Pachomius to Ignatius: A Study in the Constitutional History of the Religious Orders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966).Google Scholar
Krafft, Fritz, “Jesuiten als Lehrer an Gymnasium und Universität Mainz und ihre Lehrfächer … 1551–1773,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Universität Mainz, 2 (1977).Google Scholar
La Vopa, Anthony, Grace, Talent, and Merit: Poor Students, Clerical Careers, and Professional Ideology in Eighteenth Century Germany (Cambridge University Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Logermann, Karl-Heinz, Personalbibliographien von Professoren der philosophischen Fakultät der Alma Mater Julia Wirceburgensis … 1582–1803 (Diss. Med.: Erlangen-Nuremberg, 1972)Google Scholar
Mayr, Otto, Authority, Liberty and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986), part 2Google Scholar
McClellan, James, Science Reorganized: Scientific Societies in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Columbia Unversity Press, 1985).Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K., Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England (Osiris, 4/2, 1938; reprint, New York: Harper, 1970).Google Scholar
Morrell, J. B., “The University of Edinburgh in the Late Eighteenth Century: Its Scientific Eminence and Structure,” Isis, 62 (1971)Google Scholar
Niebuhr, Hermann, Zur Sozialgeschichte der Marburger Professoren, 1653–1806 (Quellen und Forschungen zur hessischen Geschichte, 44) (Darmstadt/Marburg: Hessische Historische Kommission, 1983)Google Scholar
Porter, Theodore, The Rise of Statistical Thinking 1820–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986)Google Scholar
Pyenson, Lewis, “‘Who the Guys Were’: Prosopography in the History of Science,” History of Science, 25 (1977).Google Scholar
Raeff, Marc, The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germanies and Russia, 1600–1800 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Richarz, Monika, Der Eintritt der Juden in die akademischen Berufe. Jüdische Studenten und Akademiker in Deutschland 1678–1848 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1974).Google Scholar
Roche, Daniel, Le siècle des lumières en province: Académies et académiciens provinciaux, 1680–1789 (Civilisations et Sociétes 62), 2 vols. (Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1978), 1Google Scholar
Sabean, David, Kinship in Neckarhausen, 1700–1870 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Schiebinger, Londa, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Schormann, Gerhard, Academia Ernestina. Die schaumburgische Universität zu Rinteln an der Weser (1610/21–1810) (Academia Marburgensis. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philipps-Universität Marburg, 4) (Marburg: Elwert, 1982)Google Scholar
Shapin, Steven and Thackray, Arnold, “Prosopography as a Research Tool in the History of Science: The British Scientific Community 1700–1900,” History of Science, 12 (1974)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shapin, Steven, “The Audience for Science in Eighteenth Century Edinburgh,” History of Science, 12 (1974)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shapin, Steven, “Property, Patronage, and the Politics of Science: The Founding of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,” The British Journal for the History of Science, 7 (1974)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Cannan, Edwin (ed.), 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 1.Google Scholar
Stone, Lawrence, “Prosopography,” Daedalus, 100 (1971).Google Scholar
Stone, Lawrence, “The Size and Composition of the Oxford Student Body 1580–1909,” in Stone, Lawrence (ed.), The University in Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 2 vols., 1Google Scholar
Stone, Lawrence and Stone, Jeanne F., An Open Elite? England 1540–1800 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Stosiek, Winfried, Die Personalbibliographien der Professoren der aristotelischen Physik in der philosophischen Fakultät der Alma Mater Julia Wirceburgensis von 1582–1773 (Diss. Med.: Erlangen-Nuremberg, 1972)Google Scholar
Sturdy, David, Science and Social Status: The Members of the Académie des Sciences, 1666–1750 (Bury St. Edmunds: Boydell Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Sutherland, L. S. and Mitchell, L. G. (eds.), The Eighteenth Century, vol. 5 of The History of the University of Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Thackray, Arnold, “Natural Knowledge in Cultural Context: The Manchester Model,” American Historical Review, 79 (1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uhlenbrock, Gudrun, Personalbibliographien von Professoren der philosophischen Fakultät der Alma Mater Julia Wirceburgensis von 1582 bis 1803 (Diss. Med.: Erlangen-Nuremberg, 1973).Google Scholar
Wegner, Georg (ed.), Die Königliche Böhmische Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1784–1884. Verzeichnis der Mitglieder (Prague, 1884).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×