Ted McCormick, William Petty and the Ambitions of Political Arithmetic

摘要

In Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985) Simon Shapin and Steven Schaffer argue that 'questions of epistemology are also questions of social order' (p. 342). Questions about the connections between knowledge and society are illustrated in the cover image of the book under review here. A portrait of Petty by Isaac Fuller showing Petty in his doctor of medicine's gown with a skull in one hand and Vesalius's book on anatomy open beside him shows knowledge to require demonstration in theory (Vesalius's book) and practice (medical gown), and revelation for public inspection in print and on canvas. McCormick's book investigates the connections between epistemology and the social sciences, and between natural philosophy and knowledge of and control over populations and territory, though Petty, the history of whose writings is a history of early modern science and print culture, of manuscript circulation, and of learnt societies.