Date of Completion
2014
Document Type
Honors College Thesis
Department
History
First Advisor
Paul Deslandes
Second Advisor
Randall Harp
Third Advisor
Sean Field
Keywords
France, Royal Academy of Sciences, Cartesianism, Descartes, Malebranche
Abstract
Pre-Newtonian modern science rested upon a Cartesian metaphysical foundation, but that same system had been declared heretical and subversive in France. Working from the intersection of historical scholarship on the normative pressures exerted on Cartesian thinkers in early modern France and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, which was populated by those who were most influenced by Descartes' philosophy, it is argued that religious norms and the goals of absolute monarchy forced the first community of modern scientists into an institutional identity crisis. Those who sought the truth of the "new sciences" in the seventeenth century were met with ostracism if they dared to speak it.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Davis, Daniel M., "Why Does Modern Science Need a Father?: French Cartesianism and the Performance of the Scientific Subject" (2014). UVM Honors College Senior Theses. 47.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses/47
Comments
This work draws most directly on the historical works of Desmond M. Clarke and J.B. Shank.