Science in the Public Sphere

The common focus of the essays in this book is the debate on the nature of science - often referred to by contemporaries as ’natural knowledge’ - in Britain during the first half of the 19th century. This was the period before major state support for science allowed its professionalization; indeed, it was a time in which the word ’scientist’ (although coined in 1833 by William Whewell) was not yet widely used. In this context, the questions about the nature of science were part of a public debat