{"title":"A tale of a threshing machine: Images of the Voigt-Leibniz mathematical-agricultural machine at the beginning of the 18th century","authors":"Michael Friedman","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.01.005","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper examines how a certain threshing machine was developed and improved by Jobst Heinrich Voigt and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz between 1699 and 1700. While this machine was based on various mechanical principles and instruments, including the pinned drum mechanism first noted by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, it was later reconceptualized as a ‘mathematical’ machine. I claim that such a positioning was not unique to this machine, but part of a wider movement during the 18th century that considered various artisanal instruments as mathematical, as well as agricultural and artisanal knowledge as scientific. Examining the development and subsequent reception of this machine, I show that during the first decades of the 18th century these conceptions gave rise to a double image of this machine, and hence of agricultural knowledge in general: on the one hand, this machine was considered as more efficient and productive (while still in need of improvement); on the other hand, it was viewed, either implicitly or explicitly, as something that should be studied by mathematicians, thus reflecting a changing image of mathematics.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000220","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper examines how a certain threshing machine was developed and improved by Jobst Heinrich Voigt and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz between 1699 and 1700. While this machine was based on various mechanical principles and instruments, including the pinned drum mechanism first noted by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, it was later reconceptualized as a ‘mathematical’ machine. I claim that such a positioning was not unique to this machine, but part of a wider movement during the 18th century that considered various artisanal instruments as mathematical, as well as agricultural and artisanal knowledge as scientific. Examining the development and subsequent reception of this machine, I show that during the first decades of the 18th century these conceptions gave rise to a double image of this machine, and hence of agricultural knowledge in general: on the one hand, this machine was considered as more efficient and productive (while still in need of improvement); on the other hand, it was viewed, either implicitly or explicitly, as something that should be studied by mathematicians, thus reflecting a changing image of mathematics.
期刊介绍:
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science is devoted to the integrated study of the history, philosophy and sociology of the sciences. The editors encourage contributions both in the long-established areas of the history of the sciences and the philosophy of the sciences and in the topical areas of historiography of the sciences, the sciences in relation to gender, culture and society and the sciences in relation to arts. The Journal is international in scope and content and publishes papers from a wide range of countries and cultural traditions.