Picturing knowledge : historical and philosophical problems concerning the use of art in science / / edited by Brian S. Baigrie

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910780666203321
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 1996; ©1996
• ISBN: 1-4426-5435-X; 1-282-04558-X; 9786612045585; 1-4426-7847-X
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (414 p.)
• Collana: Toronto Studies in Philosophy
• Disciplina: 502.2
• Soggetti: Scientific illustration - History; Scientific illustration - Philosophy; History
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: 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.
• Sommario/riassunto: 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.