"Eisenstein’s fundamental point, which I think is entirely sound, is that you cannot understand anything about the transition from ancient or medieval intellectual life to the modern life of the mind without grasping the importance of being able to quickly, cheaply make large numbers of very accurate copies of a text, and distribute them widely…."
That's where classical civilization stalled out - there were millimetres away from the printing press (they could make the Antikytheira mechanism), even if they had to use papyrus. Paper was further away but reachable - but it didn't occur to anyone to do that.
Give me the printing press and paper in Alexandria in 250 BC, and a classical industrial revolution is 2-300 years away.
Eminent scientists do not automatically make good historians or philosophers of science - although I confess to admiring Weinberg's To Explain the World.
In the matter of history I found David Wootton's The Invention of Science to be extremely persuasive. He can really only be refuted by someone with a similarly detailed knowledge of the relevant books and manuscripts. That's too high a bar to be cleared by someone who isn't a specialist.
In the matter of epistemology, I don't find Michael Strevens to be quite as persuasive, but that is natural; his findings are more theoretical and less empirical. But he still the best we have so far.
People talk a great deal about the printing press, understandably, less about the shift from parchment to paper. The *economical* production of paper is a highly non-trivial matter that has taken a lot of innovation in its own right. Interesting that the pandemic started with a run on toilet paper (whatever the actual reason) and has moved on to a publishing crisis.
"Eisenstein’s fundamental point, which I think is entirely sound, is that you cannot understand anything about the transition from ancient or medieval intellectual life to the modern life of the mind without grasping the importance of being able to quickly, cheaply make large numbers of very accurate copies of a text, and distribute them widely…."
That's where classical civilization stalled out - there were millimetres away from the printing press (they could make the Antikytheira mechanism), even if they had to use papyrus. Paper was further away but reachable - but it didn't occur to anyone to do that.
Give me the printing press and paper in Alexandria in 250 BC, and a classical industrial revolution is 2-300 years away.
elm
annoying contingencies
Eminent scientists do not automatically make good historians or philosophers of science - although I confess to admiring Weinberg's To Explain the World.
In the matter of history I found David Wootton's The Invention of Science to be extremely persuasive. He can really only be refuted by someone with a similarly detailed knowledge of the relevant books and manuscripts. That's too high a bar to be cleared by someone who isn't a specialist.
In the matter of epistemology, I don't find Michael Strevens to be quite as persuasive, but that is natural; his findings are more theoretical and less empirical. But he still the best we have so far.
People talk a great deal about the printing press, understandably, less about the shift from parchment to paper. The *economical* production of paper is a highly non-trivial matter that has taken a lot of innovation in its own right. Interesting that the pandemic started with a run on toilet paper (whatever the actual reason) and has moved on to a publishing crisis.