The Social Background of Classical Science
In the Age of Reason—the inductivist era—practically all researchers were amateurs whose interest in discovery was motivated by curiosity and by the love of truth, often also by the love of fame, but by no financial interest. This fact is overlooked by th
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The Social Background of Classical Science
The College Gresham shall hereafter be the whole world’s university. Ode to Gresham College (Anon)
In the Age of Reason—the inductivist era—practically all researchers were amateurs whose interest in discovery was motivated by curiosity and by the love of truth, often also by the love of fame,1 but by no financial interest. This fact is overlooked by the relevant literature that often proposes the opposite impression; so much so that Thomas S. Kuhn declared the typical twentieth-century scientist as the paradigm, thus implying that all researchers were always professional.2 They were not. They acted in an international organization centered round national and local societies and academies, with no ties to universities.3 The traditions and customs of this set of organizations were intentionally fitted for the purpose of recruiting all possible amateurs and directing them to be self-trained researchers. The organizations were open and their members eager to recruit. 1
The expression “love of fame” is due to Bacon who used repeatedly as an expression of contempt for those who publish conjectures instead of taking the trouble to verify them first, thus showing that their love of fame was stronger than their love of the truth. In his autobiographical note David Hume echoed this bravely, admitting that among his motives for publication was his “love of literary fame”, as it was his “ruling passion” (Sabl 2006). Interestingly, he approved of it even though he endorsed Bacon’s doctrine of prejudice. 2 Kuhn said this regarding professionalization, not regarding specialization that he rightly located in the early nineteenth century (not seeing that they came together). The case of periodicals is simpler: he knew that in antiquity there were none, yet all he wrote on them (Kuhn 1996. 30, 50, 177) suggests the opposite. 3 Some researchers were academics—most important of them were Newton and Boscovich. Yet they were amateurs since their job descriptions were traditional, not including research; these days the demand for research is stated in most academic contracts. The nearest to an academic research job proper in the Age of Reason was that of James Watt in the University of Glasgow as an instrument maker. The oldest research institutes that employed professional researchers are the Greenwich Royal Observatory (1675) and the Royal Institution of Great Britain (1799), 139 J. Agassi, The Very Idea of Modern Science: Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science 298, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5351-8_11, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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The Social Background of Classical Science
Researchers as Amateurs
To begin with researchers in the Age of Reason were almost all people of independent income. The rest were university and secondary school personnel, physicians, engineers, navigators, and even some mathematical toolmakers. Were Captain James Cook and Captain William Bligh professional scientists? It is hard to sa
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