The Scientific Revolution in Scotland Revisited

Abstract

This chapter reviews scholarship on the Scientific Revolution in Scotland. A long-ignored manuscript of astronomical, mathematical, and natural philosophical verse and prose commentary provides an invaluable opportunity to explore many of the aspects that have drawn the attention of revisionist studies. A preliminary evaluation of the manuscript’s form, content, and production-context provides the opportunity to gain a far more nuanced understanding of the progress of intellectual change during the long Scientific Revolution as literary, philosophical, and scientific dialectic forged new paths. The manuscript highlights that, contrary to the prevailing scholarly view, not only were the new methodological approaches and phenomenological theories of the Scientific Revolution being taught and debated in early modern Scotland; key educationalists within the realm from the time of Copernicus made significant contributions to scientific progress.

David Gregory's manuscript ‘Isaaci Neutoni Methodus fluxionum’ (1694): A study on the early publication of Newton's discoveries on calculus

“…It seems that one might even surmise that Gregory, as well as Craig, considered himself a mathematician whose results and methods could be received as original and of import by the Continentals. 107 Last but not least, this short treatise would not have been possible outside a mathematical culture in which information was shared via manuscript circulation, correspondence and personal encounters. Gregory received information about mathematical discoveries in the calculus not only from Newton, but also from many other mathematicians with whom he corresponded and whom he met, such as Craig, Campbell, Pitcairne, Hudde, Sluse, Fatio, Huygens and Halley.…”