时间：2020年10月29日（周四）下午16:00–18:00
方式：纯线上讲座，腾讯会议号868 890 482（https://meeting.tencent.com/s/q20qtDABI8S3）
主讲人：Matthias Schemmel博士（Max Planck Institute for the History of Science）
讲题：Alternatives in the history of science: Pathways of mechanics in early modern Europe and in China
内容简介：
The historical development of science is neither predetermined and fixed once and for all, nor is it an arbitrary process in which ‘anything goes’. Alternatives in the history of science can be discerned on various levels of analysis, from minute differences in the theoretical interpretation of a given observation to the rise and demise of entire alternative knowledge traditions. What accounts for the existence of these alternatives and what are the decisive factors in their historical selection? In my lecture I will approach these fundamental questions by discussing concrete examples from the history of mechanics.
I will begin by discussing the work on motion of the English mathematician and philosopher Thomas Harriot (1560–1621) as it can be reconstructed from his manuscripts and compare it to the independent contemporaneous work of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). I will argue that this comparison shows that there was a corpus of shared knowledge in early modern mechanics that defined the space of possible alternative solutions to the shared problems. As a consequence, Harriot and Galileo arrived along different inferential pathways at insights that served as germs for later classical mechanics.
These findings then lead me to the consideration of alternatives on a larger scale. What were the conditions for the continuation of Harriot’s and Galileo’s pathways and for the progressive development of European mechanics into a force of production? I will explore these conditions in the European knowledge system through a comparison to examples of alternative historical pathways of mechanics in China.
演讲人简介：
Matthias Schemmel studies the historical development of structures of knowledge connected to the exact sciences in their cognitive, material, and social dimensions, both from a long-term and a global perspective. The aim is to achieve an understanding of the place of scientific knowledge within human societies, as regards its epistemic status as well as its impact on society. In working toward this goal, he has pursued empirical, i.e., source-based, research in different areas marked by important knowledge transformations. These areas are the emergence of theoretical science in ancient societies; transformations within the medieval and early modern European knowledge systems; the transfer of knowledge between cultures, particularly China and the West; and the reorganization of the knowledge of physics, astronomy, and their neighboring disciplines in the twentieth century.
A particular focus of his research are external, or material, representations of knowledge such as manuscripts and the role they play in the transmission and transformation of knowledge. In this context he also works on various digital editions of manuscripts and hand written artifacts. Current research and teaching activities further pertain to the political dimension of science and the role of science in the Anthropocene.
