NSF Award
9423354
Recent historical approaches to science in the late seventeenth century are beginning to reveal how nature and morals continued to be linked during the scientific revolution, with important effects on scientific theory. This project examines the issue for scientists dependent on patronage, ascertaining how the interplay between scientific and moral values affected notions of conscience. The method involves study of archives and rare book collections in France, Holland, England and Sweden, to examine the life and work of scientists associated with the Parisian Royal Academy of Sciences during the reign of Louis XIV. By studying both public and private documents and records, the investigation can identify opposition and its motives, in relationship to views of cosmology, the theory of the soul and public issues of conscience. The findings will clarify what moral lessons scientists inferred from nature; issues of conscience that troubled them; how they handled disagreements with patrons; the extent to which opposition could endanger a scientific career or scientific achievements prevent punishment; to what degree scientific matters sparked issues of conscience or abetted the fight for moral principle; and whether the necessity of opposition affected either the scientific or the moral principles that guided scientists' lives. These results will be published in articles and a book.
