Leviathan And The Air Pump Summary

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Leviathan and the Air-Pump by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer Leviathan and the Air Pump is a book by Steve Shapin and Simon Schaffer, that was published in 1985. This book talks about the debate between Thomas Hobbes author of the political treatise Leviathan and vehement critic of the systematic experimentation in natural philosophy and Robert Boyle, mechanical philosopher and the owner of the newly invented air pump. The debate was over Boyle’s air pump experiment and existence of a vacuum in the 1660’s. Shapin and Schaffer were able to refute firmly any sort of traditionalist notions that "hard sciences" like physical chemistry were not affected by social currents. Shapin and Schaffer's work informed us on how Boyle's development of

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