Women in the Scientific Revolution

Women in the Scientific Revolution The scientific revolution is generally considered part of the broader intellectual revolution that began with the Italian Renaissance and the rediscovery and translation of the classical writers, particularly Aristotle, sometime during the fourteenth century. It is only in retrospect that one can understand broad movements, such as this, but one can assert with confidence that the scientific revolution resulted from a confluence of several factors, most particularly the rejection of the Ptolemaic model of planetary movement combined with an increased interest in Aristotelian science (Grant, 1996). Thus, the scientific revolution, insofar as it was a revolution rather than a developing, continuous process, may be claimed to have begun in 1543 with the publication of Copernicus De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, though establishing this as a boundary is as much a matter of convenience as anything else (Linton, 2004). As an intellectual and cultural phenomenon, the scientific revoluti on continues to the present, moving through such advances as Newtonian mechanics, the experimental method of chemistry, advanced in anatomy and medicine, Darwinian evolution, relativity and quantum mechanics, with myriad offshoots at every stage along the way of this development. At the present, there is much dispute about how, or whether, the scientific revolution will end: some think it will continue forever, while others believe it will culminate with grand unification, a theory of everything that explains both gravity and subatomic forces, in effect capable of describing all phenomena (Westfall, 1971). That woman have played pivotal roles in the advancement of science is undeniable; as with male figures, it is possible to isolate selected examples of women who made significant contributions. There is no reason to believe that such contributions were made because of their gender, but given the nature of society at the time of the scientific revolution, one may assert that the contributions were made in spite of their gender. As the scientific revolution may be said to continue to the present day, so too, does the gender bias in the sciences, though there is evidence this is getting better. Women in the Scientific Revolution Margaret Cavendish Perhaps Margaret Cavendish is the best example of such a woman in the midst of the scientific revolution. While biographies of her once concentrated on her eccentric behavior and the more florid aspects of her life (Grant, 1957, Whitaker, 2003), we are the beneficiaries of a recent flurry of scholarly interest in her philosophical and scientific undertakings. She engaged with, and apparently held her own against Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, Renà © Descartes and others in the early Royal Society, though she herself was denied fellowship in that exalted body (Walters, 2014). Margaret Cavendish rejected Aristotelianism and the mechanist philosophies that prevailed through much of that time, adopting a vitalist view instead, holding that living things are different from nonliving things in that they possess a spark of life that subjects them to different physical rules; this is now an obsolete scientific theory (Sarasohn, 2010). ONeill in Cavendish (2001) characterizes Cavendishs natura l philosophy as an outright rejection of Aristotle while adopting stoic doctrines; ONeill (2001) also notes that while women rarely wrote on scientific matters at this time, Margaret Cavendish published six scientific books, two of which are currently in print; it is also worth noting that Margaret Cavendish was a duchess and, as such, had certain social and economic advantages most other women would not have shared. Cavendishs main scientific work was Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy (2001), written in the vernacular, rather than the Latin that was typical of scientific books until well into the nineteenth century, which itself reflects the scientific revolutions origin in the Greek and Latin classics. She had already undertaken earnest study of contemporary scientific and philosophical works and this book of hers clearly shows the influence of Thomas Hobbes, who had instructed her brother Sir Charles Lucas in philosophy; in fact, she was one of the few of her time who accepted Hobbes ideas that incorporeal souls do not exist in nature (Sarasohn, 2010). She certainly expresses herself well in her book, even discussing in the preface whether her excessive writing is a disease (Mendelson, 1987), a question that still plagues modern practitioners (e.g., Flaherty, 2004). As she points out, she wrote primarily for herself and if it was a disease, then it was a wonderful disease suffered by A ristotle, Homer and Cicero, among others (Cavendish, 2001). Women in the Scientific Revolution Maria Winckelmann In Germany, circumstances for women in science were different; few independently pursed their scientific interests. The astronomer Maria Winckelmann Kirsch is perhaps the best and certainly the best remembered example. She married the astronomer and mathematician Gottfried Kirsch and while they functioned as equals, the prevailing attitude of their time was that she was his assistant; Kirsch himself was a product of a scientific family and there is no reason to believe he did not appreciate his wifes collaboration. In any event, we know she wrote of the conjunctions of the planets and, in 1702 became the first woman to discover a comet; she also published the most erudite observations of the aurora borealis to that time (Schiebinger, 1987). Unfortunately, Maria Winckelmann Kirsch has yet to benefit from a revival of scholarly interest in her life and activities that has benefited Margaret Cavendish. Women in the Scientific Revolution Maria Gaetana Agnesi In Italy, traditionally regarded as the birthplace of the Renaissance, the situation for women was different still, and is best exemplified by Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who, like Margaret Cavendish, had the advantages of wealth and social position and also pursued her interests independently. Her father was a professor of mathematics at Bologna and Maria showed intellectual gifts from an early age (Osen, 1975). Throughout her life, he was a very religious person and constantly found herself in the verge of spiritual revelation; fortunately for the history of science, she was a person of rare intellectual energy and she undertook the study of calculus when that was still cutting edge mathematics. Her most important work is Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventà ¹ italiana, which uncharitably translates to Analytic Institutions for Use by Italian Youths an excellent introduction to Euclid and the first work to include both differential and integral calculus; in fact, Struik (1987) refers to her at the first important woman mathematician since Hypatia, some thirteen centuries before; Struik (1987) also calls this work the model for all subsequent calculus textbooks. As it was intended as a textbook for use by students, like Cavendish, Agnesi wrote in the vernacular Italian, and wrote very well, though lacked the Margaret Cavendishs literary charm. Agnesi became a professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna, the first woman to achieve this, anywhere. As noted, she spent much of her life in religious contemplation, though it should also be noted that she devoted much of her she considerable wealth to helping the poor and infirm, to the point that she converted at least part of her home into a charity hospital. She was recognized in her lifetime and was praised by many, including Pope Benedict XIV, himself no intellectual lightweight (Mazzotti, 1987). If Maria Agnesi is remembered for anything now, curiously it is for something she did not discover: the Witch of Agnesi, a curve whose mathematical properties lie somewhat outside the scope of this paper. While others had previously considered this curve, Agnesi was the first to give it a rigorous analytical treatment in her textbook; that it is called a witch is the product of an unfortunate early mistranslation into English that stuck. The curve, however, has one property worth mentioning: it almost exactly resembles an isolated water wave (Mazzotti, 1987). These three are just examples of women who took part in the scientific revolution. There were many others worthy of mention and many others still whose contributions are either lost or unrecognized, in some cases, to this day. The Status of Women in Science Now It is safe to say that of all the scientists ever, an overwhelming percentage are professionally active now, and among there, there are more women than ever before. This notwithstanding, women face serious obstacles in the sciences. Statistics indicate that women do less well than men in terms of degree, tenure and salary. In a field such as nursing, that has traditionally been dominated by women, men hold four percent of the professorships; by contrast women have never held as much as four percent of the professorships in any field dominated by men; even in psychology, were women obtain the majority of doctorates, women do not yet fill the majority of professorships (Schiebinger, 2001). Even so, there have been many noteworthy women scientists at present. To cite just one such example, the American Barbara McClintock discovered the transposition of genes and this explained how certain physical characteristics are turned on or off (Comfort, 1999). For this, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1944 and in 1983 won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine and, in fact, remains the only woman to win that prize, unshared. There is some contention over the exact nature and precedence of her discoveries, but even her critics concede her pivotal role in genetics research (Comfort, 2001). Reducing Barbara McClintock and her contributions to a single paragraph is hardly fair to her, or to women in science today. It is, however, important to recognize that woman have made important contributions to science from the earliest times and while many of these contributions remain unrecognized, this is finally being addressed. Given current demographic and educational trends, it is clear that the influence of women in science will only increase with time. Conclusion As noted, women have played important roles in science from antiquity to the present, though their roles and their contributions have often been lost or gone unrecognized. This paper has examined three such figures from the time of the scientific revolution, as well as one from the postwar era in the United States to demonstrate that their contributions can be meaningful and as important as those of their male counterparts. It is to be understood that if science is to be a truly democratic and fair institution, it must welcome contributions and criticism from everyone and while tremendous strides have been made, the institution of science as a whole still has a long way to go to achieve this egalitarian goal. References Cavendish, M. (2001). Observations upon experimental philosophy. E. ONeill (ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Comfort, N. (1999). The real point is control: The reception of Barbara McClintocks controlling elements. Journal of the History of Biology, 32 (1): 133–62 Comfort, N. (2001). The tangled field. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Flaherty, A. (2004). The midnight disease: The drive to write, writers block, and the creative brain. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace. Grant, D. (1957). Margaret the first: A biography of Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle 1623–1673. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Grant, E. (1996). The foundations of modern science in the Middle Ages: Their religious, institutional, and intellectual contexts. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Linton, C. (2004). From Eudoxus to Einstein: A history of mathematical astronomy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Mazzotti, M. (2007). The world of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Mathematician of God. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Mendelson, S. (1987). Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. In The mental world of three Stuart women. Brighton, UK: Harvester, pp. 12–61. Osen, L. (1975). Women in Mathematics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sarasohn, L. (2010) The natural philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and fancy during the scientific revolution. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Schiebinger, L. (1987). Maria Winckelmann at the Berlin Academy: A turning point for women in science. Isis, Journal of the History of Science Society, 78 (292): 174–200. Schiebinger, L. (2001). Has Feminism Changed Science? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Struik, D. (1987). A Concise history of mathematics (4th rev. ed.). New York, NY: Dover Publications. Walters, L. (2014). Margaret Cavendish: Gender, science and politics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Westfall, R. (1971). The construction of modern science. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons. Whitaker, K. (2003). Mad Madge: Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, royalist, writer and romantic. London: Chatto and Windus.

Immanuel Kant’s theories

Kant’s theories are in great contrast with other philosophers. He was a retributivist who believed that punishing wrongdoers though they are rational beings, is right, as long as the crime they did fits such penalty. Punishment without reasons or jailing someone for petty theft is unjust. He spoke about punishment on the critique of practical reasons which contrast with Jeremy Benthan a utilitarian theorist who considers punishment as evil and advocates for punishment to cause more positive impacts on the person punished. (Robert, 2000).As Betham supports rehabilitation efforts in prisons Kant found such efforts immoral as they acted against ones personal rational choices. Kant rejects manipulation of people even when the causes and reasons are just. People should be allowed to reason for themselves and their decisions should be respected. Kant criticized other theories on the grounds that they were only hypothetical and could not be applicable in the real world. Some theories argue that the greater good ought to be considered when acting but such would be irrelevant to someone whose interest is not on maintaining the common good.Hypothetical moral systems should not be used to determine the moral action as they are very subjective while in the real sense people’s interests vary. He rejected Hume’s theory on the ideal theory of the mind. To Kant analytical methods should not be used to explain what is physically evident. To him, synthetic reasoning involves relating concepts that are not directly related to the subject concept. A prior knowledge can be used in the metaphysics study. (Bayne, 2000) Kant criticizes the utilitarian view that happiness is the highest goal.He opposes this view as it created loopholes where people would be used simply as means to achieve or attain happiness. This would be disrespecting the fact that all human beings are rational and can choose or plan and anticipate their future. Kant portrays the categorical impe rative approach where he sees all human beings as occupants of a special place in creation. People have different needs which ought to be satisfied using certain means. He uses the term maxim to refer to intentions or principle of action. Human beings should not act in a way that portrays other people simply as means to an end but as an end to itself.In working to attain the maxim people should not use others simply as means to an end. People used should benefit from the arrangement and their consent should be sought. To him, duties should be beneficial to people used in the process of attaining the goals. I agree with Kant’s theory as all people should be treated with equality and with respect. There are two types of imperatives. The hypothetical imperative tells of what we ought to do to achieve a goal. The categorical imperative leads to absoluteness since human beings are rational and can govern their actions. People should only act on maxims that can become universal law .To Kant, there are universal moral laws that are logically necessary. People’s actions should therefore be performed according to the acceptable universal laws of morality. Individuals should act according to the same general, future and moral laws. (Robert, 2000). All people should be treated with moral respect. Deception should not be considered even when being applied for wrongdoers. To Kant, duties can be perfect or imperfect. Imperfect duties entail working to develop our talents since they are given to us for a purpose while perfect duties entail a duty to others.Kant rejected the ethical force brought about by tradition and coined the modern idea of autonomy. He brought about the idea of centrality of rational thought. Each person can make free and autonomous choices and they are compelled by rationality and the categorical imperative in their decisions. Adherence to categorical imperative provides for autonomous ethical choice since people make their decisions ration ally. In pursuit for various maxims all parties involved benefit from the arrangement. Autonomous means self legislating.Autonomy of the will is the ability of the will to be a will in itself while the will refers to the means by which a maxim can become a universal law. Heteronomy means the capacity to follow law other than itself to produce a universal law of morality. (Collins, 2000) To Kant, objects do not have value but man gives them value through their rational goals and desires. Human beings have an intrinsic worth or dignity. They should therefore act in good will out of a sense of duty and use the categorical imperative. What we give to society comes back to us and we ought not to harm others but work in ensuring that they benefit from out actions.

Analysis Of The Poem Preludes A Modern Craft Essay

Preludes: A Modern Craft Thomas Stearn Eliot (T.S. Eliot), an all-American writer was born into a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri in 1888. His father, Henry Ware Eliot, was the president of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company, and his mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns, wrote poetry and volunteered at the Humanity Club (Bush). Also, his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, founded the Unitarian church who contributed to his most outstanding poem, Preludes, a 4 stanza poem(Bush). Being under the meticulous eye of his mother, he was exposed to a different lifestyles including poverty(Bush). Becoming aware of the routines in a poor society, he becomes conscious of a dull, repetitive reality of one’s life. That’s what makes Preludes his most prominent work, is his perspective on a poor society. Upon reading Preludes, by T.S. Eliot, I was very excited to study his work especially since I have knowledge of his previous work’s style in â€Å"The Wasteland†. I expected for this poem to be dispirited and morbid. The title itself holds a significant meaning to the poem. A prelude characterizes an introduction that precedes a more important movement (dictionary.com). The title indicates that the poem holds more meaning than what’s on the surface. Within his 4 stanza poem, Eliot shows life throughout a day: how it ends and starts on a new day. Eliot’s use of modernism, tone, personification, imagery metaphors and alliterations attributes to the overall theme of suffering. LiteraryShow MoreRelatedAnalysis of The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot Essay1367 Words   |  6 PagesAnalysis of The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot Eliot, a master of the written craft, carefully thought out each aspect of his 1925 poem The Hollow Men. Many differences in interpretation exist for Eliots complex poetry. One issue never debated is the extensive range of things to consider in his TS Eliots writing. Because TS Eliot often intertwined his writing by having one piece relate to another The Hollow Men is sometimes considered a mere appendage to The Waste Land. The Hollow MenRead MoreANALIZ TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS28843 Words   |  116 Pagesï » ¿TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS The purpose of Text Interpretation and Analysis is a literary and linguistic commentary in which the reader explains what the text reveals under close examination. Any literary work is unique. It is created by the author in accordance with his vision and is permeated with his idea of the world. The reader’s interpretation is also highly individual and depends to a great extent on his knowledge and personal experience. That’s why one cannot lay down a fixed â€Å"model†

The Oppressive Force in Marriage - 1266 Words

In the novels written by Charlotte Gilman and Kate Chopin, the concept of marriage is contradicted from the romanticized relationship to a notion of imprisonment. Through the feminist perspective the reader gains a sense in which marriage may be the primary cause to gender oppression. In â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† Gilman’s central figure, who is unknown to the reader, is metaphorically imprisoned in a house in which the warden is her own husband. In contrast to this Chopin’s Character, Louise Mallard, gains a sense of liberation from a bleak marriage. It is clear that there two works illustrate how the characters are imprisoned through marriage. In both works there is a fine-line between the concept of domesticity and masculinity that ties†¦show more content†¦In addition to this in â€Å"The Story of an Hour†, Mallard is confined to the home due to her illness as her husband, Brently, is also away on a trip. This is an indication of what Kent attempts to explain in his article. The undisputed authority that Victorian men hold against women proves to connect to gender oppression and leads to the domestication of women. In addition to this, masculinity in marriage contributes to oppression of women due to the general idea of their need to for control or power over another. In â€Å"The story of An Hour† there is no indication of whether Mallard was passive or subservient to Brently but she felt the sweet sense of liberation when she thought she was a widow. She was ‘free’ of marriage, ‘free’ of her husband and ‘free’ in body and soul (Chopin 124). It is clear that male dominancy in marriage proves to be an oppressive factor to most women and in Mallard’s perspective she was ‘free’ from the oppression. The Yellow Wallpaper also illustrates this factor as John refuses to meet his wife’s demands to at least change the ugly yellow wallpaper instead of all owing her to move to a different room. 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