Social context shaped which mechanical ideas seemed plausible, not their content
Evidence
While social and historical conditions did not determine the specific content of the mechanical philosophy or form an impetus to construct a philosophy in direct response to social circumstances, they helped to make plausible some presuppositions about nature and to invalidate others. The social context helps to explain why intellectuals in the early seventeenth century became interested in particular ideas of their predecessors, transforming and elaborating them to be consistent with their own historical experience. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 768
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the earlier chapter-4 claim that social change selects among available ideas rather than dictating belief — a methodological caution worth teaching across the polyad. — connects to: Material forces are social creations, not discoveries of preexisting nature — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1648; Machines are analyzed as social relations, not as natural objects; Newtonian science shaped a mechanical worldview of human reason — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 22 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Material forces are social creations, not discoveries of preexisting nature
#expands(0.85) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1648 - Newtonian science shaped a mechanical worldview of human reason
#exemplifies(0.80) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 22 - The truth of ideas is independent of their social origins
#complicates(0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 210 - Machines are analyzed as social relations, not as natural objects
#expands(0.78) - Social change selects among available ideas rather than dictating belief
#expands(0.75) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 66 - Concepts formed without social context restrict and confine knowledge
#expands(0.72) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 738