Leviathan and The Air-Pump

Leviathan And The Air-Pump

Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (published 1985) is a book by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer. It examines the debate between Robert Boyle and Thomas Hobbes over Boyle's air-pump experiments in the 1660s. On a more theoretical level, the book explores the deeper issue of acceptable methods of knowledge production. It also focuses on societal factors related to the different knowledge systems promoted by Boyle and Hobbes. The "Leviathan" in the title refers to Hobbes's book on the structure of society, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil and the "Air-Pump" refers to Robert Boyle's invention, which is the central topic of debate for the contemporaries under study.

The book also contains a translation by Schaffer of Hobbes's Dialogus physicus de natura aeris, which attacked Robert Boyle and others who were forming themselves into a society for experimental research, the Royal Society.

In 2005, Shapin and Schaffer were awarded the prestigious Erasmus Prize for the book.

Read more about Leviathan And The Air-Pump:  Chapter I: Understanding Experiment, Chapter II: Seeing and Believing: The Experimental Production of Pneumatic Facts, Chapter III: Seeing Double: Hobbes's Politics of Plenism Before 1660, Chapter IV: The Trouble With Experiment: Hobbes Versus Boyle, Chapter V: Boyle's Adversaries: Experiment Defended, Chapter VI: Replication and Its Troubles: Air-Pumps in The 1660s, Chapter VII: Natural Philosophy and The Restoration: Interests in Dispute, Chapter VIII: The Polity of Science: Conclusions, Criticisms of Leviathan and The Air-Pump, Editions