Papers by Kenneth Caneva
Metascience, May 15, 2013
Isis, 2003
In its exhaustive survey of essential primary sources, its sympathetic yet incisive analysis, and... more In its exhaustive survey of essential primary sources, its sympathetic yet incisive analysis, and its masterful interweaving of the lives and ideas of his dozen protagonists, the bulk of Robert Richards’s Romantic Conception of Life constitutes the best synthetic account I have ever read of the scientific—especially biological—aspects of German Romantic philosophy. The author has explored all imaginable sources and mined them for every relevant nugget of information. Focusing roughly on the period 1770–1830, Richards has charted the philosophical and scientific ideas of German Romantic thinkers “as their ideas emerged from the intellectual legacy to which they were heir, from their immediate scientific experiences, and especially from their more intimate personal relationships” (p. xviii). The amount of biographical detail may tax the patience of the reader who wants to know what the significance is of this or that fact, but the picture that results is all the richer for having been so fleshed out, and it well illustrates Richards’s point that an adequate understanding of German Romantic philosophy cannot be divorced from the interconnected lives of the people who created it. “Out of these intellectual and personal interactions came a mode of thought that emphasized creative becoming, development, and self-realization” (p. 200). Richards is especially good, for example, in showing the connections between Goethe’s art and science in the context of his lived life, in particular his aesthetic response to both women in the flesh and the female as an abstraction. Nor did he thereby ignore the importance of Goethe’s response to both Kant’s and Schelling’s philosophical enterprises. Indeed, the book invites reflection on what it means to understand a philosophical system like Schelling’s, which evolved from work to work without ever achieving canonical form, which employed concepts and modes of thought largely alien to most of us, and which
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1998
... If it is, then the charge of relativismas it has been leveled at Kuhn, for ... Indeed, havin... more ... If it is, then the charge of relativismas it has been leveled at Kuhn, for ... Indeed, having given up truth as a meaningful 10The drift of this essay would seem to ... part to the spirit of Andy Pickering's 'mangle of practice''The traditional oppositions between objectivity, relativity, and ...
Book Reviews by Kenneth Caneva
n 1847, Herman Helmholtz, arguably the most important German physicist of the nineteenth century,... more n 1847, Herman Helmholtz, arguably the most important German physicist of the nineteenth century, published his formulation of what became known as the conservation of energy--unarguably the most important single development in physics of that century, transforming what had been a conglomeration of separate topics into a coherent field unified by the concept of energy. In Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy: Contexts of Creation and Reception (MIT Press, 2021), Kenneth Caneva offers a detailed account of Helmholtz's work on the subject, the sources that he drew upon, the varying responses to his work from scientists of the era, and the impact on physics as a discipline.
Caneva describes the set of abiding concerns that prompted Helmholtz's work, including his rejection of the idea of a work-performing vital force, and investigates Helmholtz's relationship to both an older generation of physicists and an emerging community of reformist physiologists. He analyzes Helmholtz's indebtedness to Johannes Müller and Justus Liebig and discusses Helmholtz's tense and ambivalent relationship to the work of Robert Mayer, who had earlier proposed the uncreatability, indestructibility, and transformability of force. Caneva examines Helmholtz's continued engagement with the subject, his role in the acceptance of the conservation of energy as the central principle of physics, and the eventual incorporation of the principle in textbooks as established science.
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Papers by Kenneth Caneva
Book Reviews by Kenneth Caneva
Caneva describes the set of abiding concerns that prompted Helmholtz's work, including his rejection of the idea of a work-performing vital force, and investigates Helmholtz's relationship to both an older generation of physicists and an emerging community of reformist physiologists. He analyzes Helmholtz's indebtedness to Johannes Müller and Justus Liebig and discusses Helmholtz's tense and ambivalent relationship to the work of Robert Mayer, who had earlier proposed the uncreatability, indestructibility, and transformability of force. Caneva examines Helmholtz's continued engagement with the subject, his role in the acceptance of the conservation of energy as the central principle of physics, and the eventual incorporation of the principle in textbooks as established science.
Caneva describes the set of abiding concerns that prompted Helmholtz's work, including his rejection of the idea of a work-performing vital force, and investigates Helmholtz's relationship to both an older generation of physicists and an emerging community of reformist physiologists. He analyzes Helmholtz's indebtedness to Johannes Müller and Justus Liebig and discusses Helmholtz's tense and ambivalent relationship to the work of Robert Mayer, who had earlier proposed the uncreatability, indestructibility, and transformability of force. Caneva examines Helmholtz's continued engagement with the subject, his role in the acceptance of the conservation of energy as the central principle of physics, and the eventual incorporation of the principle in textbooks as established science.