Since antiquity, "disembodied knowledge" has often been taken as synonomous with "objective truth". Yet we also have very specific mental images of the kinds of bodies that house great minds - the ascetic philosopher versus the hearty surgeon, for example. Does truth have anything to do with the bel[...]

This work contains Steven Shapin's historical exploration into the origins of the modern scientific worldview. What historians have traditionally called the Scientific Revolution was, in Shapin's view, a diversity of practices and ideas that developed over the course of nearly two centuries. Rejecti[...]

Who are scientists? What kind of people are they? What capacities and virtues are thought to stand behind their considerable authority? "The Scientific Life" is historian Steven Shapin's story about who scientists are, who we think they are, and why our sensibilities about such things matter. From t[...]

Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits. Put simply, science has never been pure. To be human is to err, and we understand science better when we recognize it as the laborious achievem[...]