Class 3 (8/30)
Enlightenment ideals
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Science and Enlightenment
Science, method, morality, and progress
The American philosophe
Useful knowledge
An "age of experiments"
The rhetoric of revolution
Jefferson the enthusiast
Science and religion
Newtonian science and Cotton Mather's Christian philosopher
Natural theology
God as master mechanic
Deism, toleration, and freethought
| Primary | Secondary |
| Encyclopedia (published 1751-1765)
scientia potestas est Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American Philosophical Society (orig. fd. 1743) Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) "laws of nature and of nature's God" Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) Cotton Mather (1663-1728) teleology naturalistic explanation |
John Locke (1632–1704)
François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778) Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Denis Diderot (1713–1784) Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717–1783) philosophe sapere aude Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1751-1754) Thomas Paine (1737-1809), The Age of Reason (1794-1795) |
Why was this report written, and for whom?
Would you count this as science today? Why or why not? (What
would it take to write up the results in the style of a lab report?)
What do we learn about the social setting of science? This could
mean: Who were the people doing the experimenting? What resources could
they draw upon?
Benjamin Franklin, "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America," in The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert Henry Smyth, v. 2, 1722-1750 (New York: Macmillan, 1907), 228-232.
Why was this called a philosophical society?
What fields were left out of Franklin's proposal?
Why was Franklin so fixated on organizational matters?