Peter R. Dear 
Professor of the History of Science
Office: 435 McGraw Hall
Phone: (607) 255-6752
Fax: (607) 255-0469
E-Mail: prd3@cornell.edu
Office Hours: On Leave
Research and Teaching Interests
My research focus is on the history of European science in the seventeenth century. I teach more broadly in the history of science, however, and in the fairly new field of science and technology studies.
My main undergraduate survey lecture courses are HIST 2810 and HIST 2820, "Science in Western Civilization." 2810 (fall) focuses on medieval and early modern Europe up to about 1700, while 2820 (spring) begins in the early 18th century, moving from Newton to the early 20th century. This spring, I shall also be teaching an undergraduate seminar on science in early-modern Europe, the so-called Scientific Revolution. I also teach a graduate seminar called "Historiographical Approaches to Science."
Courses
| Fall 2009: | On Leave | |
|---|---|---|
| Spring 2010: | 4932 |
The History of Reason |
Education
Ph.D Princeton University, 1984
M.A. University of Cambridge, 1983
B.A. University of Cambridge, 1979
Recent Publications and Awards
Books
Mersenne and the Learning of the Schools (Cornell University Press, 1988)
Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 1995).
Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500-1700 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), Spanish translation as Las revolucin de las ciencias: El conocimiento europeo y sus expectativas (1500-1700), trans. Jos Ramn Marcaida Lpez (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2007). Second edition now in press, due 2009.
The Intelligibility of Nature: How Science Makes Sense of the World (University of Chicago Press, 2006); paperback (corrected) reprint 2008.
Co-editor with Lissa Roberts and Simon Schaffer, The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention from the late Renaissance to Early Industrialization (Amsterdam: Elista, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 2007); sole author of epilogue, "Towards a Genealogy of Modern Science," pp.431-441.
Articles
"Finite but Unbounded: The Sphere of the Spatial in History," in David N. Livingstone and Charles W.J. Withers, Geography and Revolution (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming).
“The Meanings of Experience," in Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park (eds.), The Cambridge History of Early Modern Science (Cambridge UP, in the press).
“Mysteries of State, Mysteries of Nature: Being an Authority in the Seventeenth Century," in Sheila Jasanoff (ed.), States of Knowledge (Routledge; in the press).
“Experiment in Science and Technology Studies," in Sheila Jasanoff (ed.), Science and Technology Studies, vol. 4.10 of International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Siences (Elsevier, 2002), pp. 277-293
"Religion, Science, and Natural Philosophy: Thoughts on Cunningham's Thesis," plus "reply to Andrew Cunningham," response to a reply, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 32A (2001), pp. 386, 393-395 respectively.
"Science Studies as Epistemography," "Overdetermination and Contingency," "another Visit to Epistemography," all in Kay A. Labinger and Harry Collins (eds.), The One Culture? A Conversation About Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 128-141, 196-200, 261-262 respectively.
"Mathematics and Morality on the Cusp of Modernity," Revue de l'histoire des mathematigues 7 (2001), pp. 277-293.
Essay-review of Michael Hunter and Edward Davis (eds.), The Works of Robert Boyle, in British Journal for the History of Science.
"The Ideology of Modern Science," essay-review of Pamela Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Johns Hopkins Univesity Press, Baltimore and London, 2001), Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 32A (2003), pp. 821-823.
"Marin Mersenne: Mechanics, Music and Harmony," in Paulo Gozza (ed.), Number to Sound: The Musical Way to the Scientific Revolution (Dordrecht etc." Kluwer, 2000), pp. 267-288.
Five articles in Wilbur Applebaum (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution (New York: Garland, 2000).
"Circular Argument: Descartes's Vortices and Their Crafting as Explanations of Gravity," to appear in a volume edited by Peter Anstey and John Schuster (Kluwer).
"A Philosophical Duchess: Understanding Margaret Cavendish and the Royal Society," to appear in a volume being prepared by David Burchell and Juliet Cummins.
The Intelligibility of Nature (book MS under review by University of Chicago Press).
"A Mechanical Microcosm: Bodily Passions, Good Manners, and Cartesian Mechanism," in Christopher Lawrence and Steven Shapin (eds.), Science Incarnate: Historical Embodiments of Natural Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1998), pp. 51-82.
"Method in the Study of Nature," in Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (eds.), The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 147-177.
"The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy: Toward a Heuristic Narrative for the Scientific Revolution," Configurations 1998, 6:173-193.
"Martin Mersenne," in Edward Craig (ed.), The Routledge History of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1998).
Awards
Helen and Miles Watson Davis Prize 2002, from History of Science Society, for Revolutionizing the Sciences.
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2000. Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, Jan. 1 to Aug, 20, 2001.
Ludwik Fleck Prize 1998, from the Society for Social Studies of Science, for Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1995).