7 - The Rise of a Public Science? Women and Natural Philosophy in the Early Modern Period

Summary

An essential feature of the Scientific Revolution was the institutionalization and professionalization of the new science, especially in national societies like the Royal Society of London and the French Académie des Sciences, but also in less formal institutional structures, such as correspondence networks, journals, salons, and private spaces. On the one hand, this provided new spaces and new demographics of knowledge production, especially an increased participation by women. On another, it raised a variety of issues related to socially-embedded epistemology, such the proper means of reporting observations and results, and the grounds for witnessing and testimony. This is an area of research that has rapidly expanded in recent years, as this chapter discusses by focusing on the cases of Johanna Stephens and Émilie Du Châtelet.