Sahin Seminar Series
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Making Enlightenment Newtonianism
in France c. 1700”
J. B. Shank
Associate Professor of History, University of Minnesota
The eighteenth-century French philosophes claimed that they were
responsible for introducing the French to the light of Newtonian
science, and a still powerful tradition of historiography echoes their
view. This lecture will challenge that account by examining the
immediate reception of Newton's Principia in 1690s Paris. It will show
that rather than being ignorant of Newton's work, or prejudicially
aligned against it because of their Cartesian loyalties, French men
and women embraced a version of Newton's science that became
foundational to later Enlightenment French science.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Building E51 Room 149
Corner of Amherst and Wadsworth Streets, Cambridge, MA
4:30 – 6:00 pm
Free and open to the public. For more information, contact Margo
Collett at [email protected]. This lecture
is sponsored by MIT's History Faculty and the Program in Science,
Technology and Society._______________________________________________
Sci-tech-public mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sci-tech-public
