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Picturing knowledge : historical and philosophical problems concerning the use of art in science / edited by Brian S. Baigrie.
- Format:
- Book
- Series:
- Toronto studies in philosophy
- Toronto Studies in Philosophy
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Scientific illustration--History.
- Scientific illustration.
- Scientific illustration--Philosophy.
- Genre:
- History.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (414 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Toronto, [Ontario] ; Buffalo, [New York] ; London, [England] : University of Toronto Press, 1996.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- The traditional concept of scientific knowledge places a premium on thinking, not visualizing. Scientific illustrations are still generally regarded as devices that serve as heuristic aids when reasoning breaks down. When scientific illustration is not used in this disparaging sense as a linguistic aid, it is most often employed as a metaphor with no special visual content. What distinguishes pictorial devices as resources for doing science, and the special problems that are raised by the mere presence of visual elements in scientific treatises, tends to be overlooked. The contributors to this volume examine the historical and philosophical issues concerning the role that scientific illustration plays in the creation of scientific knowledge. They regard both text and picture as resources that scientists employ in their practical activities, their value as scientific resources deriving from their ability to convey information.
- Contents:
- Didactic and the elegant : some thoughts on scientific and technological illustrations in the Middle Ages and Renaissance / Bert S. Hall
- Temples of the body and temples of the cosmos : vision and visualization in the Vesalian and Copernican revolutions / Martin Kemp
- Descartes's scientific illustrations and 'la grande mecanique de la nature' / Brian S. Baigrie
- Illustrating chemistry / David Knight
- Representations of the natural system in the nineteenth century / Robert J. O'Hara
- Visual representation in archaeology : depicting the missing-link in human origins / Stephanie Moser
- Towards an epistemology of scientific illustration / David Topper
- Illustration and inference / James R. Brown
- Visual models and scientific judgement / Ronald N. Giere
- Are pictures really necessary? The case of Sewall Wright's 'Adaptive landscapes' / Michael Ruse.
- Notes:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on print version record.
- ISBN:
- 1-4426-5435-X
- 1-282-04558-X
- 9786612045585
- 1-4426-7847-X
- OCLC:
- 979954616
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