Gender and Boyle's Law of Gases

Elizabeth Potter

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English

Indiana University Press
22 April 2001

Gender studies: women; Science: general issues; Physics of gases

Boyle's Law, which describes the relation between the pressure and volume of a gas, was worked out by Robert Boyle in the mid-1600s. His experiments are still considered examples of good scientific work and continue to be studied along with their historical and intellectual contexts by philosophers, historians, and sociologists. Now there is controversy over whether Boyle's work was based only on experimental evidence or whether it was influenced by the politics and religious controversies of the time, including especially class and gender politics. Elizabeth Potter argues that even good science is sometimes influenced by such issues, and she shows that the work leading to the Gas Law, while certainly based on physical evidence, was also shaped by class and gender considerations. At issue were two descriptions of nature, each supporting radically different visions of class and gender arrangements. Boyle's Law rested on mechanistic principles, but Potter shows us an alternative law based on hylozooic principles (the belief that all matter is animated), whose adherents challenged social stability and the status quo in 17th-century England.

By: Elizabeth Potter
Imprint: Indiana University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 338g
ISBN: 9780253214553
ISBN 10: 0253214556
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 22 April 2001
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Elizabeth Potter is the Alice Andrews Quigley Professor of Women's Studies at Mills College. She is co-editor of Feminist Epistemologies and author of numerous articles in feminist epistemology and feminist philosophy of science.

Reviews for Gender and Boyle's Law of Gases

<p> Gender and Boyle's Law of Gases is about more than its title implies: not only does Potter (Mills College) engage in the continuing dialogue about if andhow gender might affect the practice of science, but she also goes beyond gender andenters the contemporary discussion about the social dimension of science.Accordingly, most of the book is devoted to a review of the history of the EnglishCivil War and Revolution, the radical social and political groups that were activeat that time (Levellers, sectaries), and to a discussion of the religious and socialmeaning of hylozoism (an early Greek philosophy that states that all matter haslife) in the 17th century. Potter argues for a compromise position between those whowould insist that Boyle's science was derived entirely from experimental andobservational evidence, and those who believe that his ideas about gender and histotal rejection of hylozoism (because of its radical political implications)influenced the science that led to the Gas