This paper examines the tensions found between J.B. Shank and M. Feingold in their discussion of Newton's integration in 17th-century French-Enlightenment. Our perception today of this period in...Show moreThis paper examines the tensions found between J.B. Shank and M. Feingold in their discussion of Newton's integration in 17th-century French-Enlightenment. Our perception today of this period in history wherein a major cultural, social, and methodological shift with regards to science, history, and notions of modernity occured, can be seen to harbor the potential ambiguities generated by a historicist lense. To attempt to understand how a period perceived as foundational for scientific modernity may become historicized itself and become a figurehead of a new tradition, a comparative historiographic analysis of our current accounts of the French integration of Newtonian science may help understand how we come to understand historical moments of intellectualism when it is interlinked with current hegemonic tradition.Show less
