Davy Takes to the Hills: Dialogic Enquiry and the Aesthetics of the Prospect View. (3rd July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fulford, Tim
• Is Part Of: Ambix. Volume 66:Number 2/3(2019)
• Page Start: 158
• Page End: 180
• Publication Date: 2019-07-03
• Subjects: Chemistry -- History -- Periodicals; Alchemy -- History -- Periodicals; Chemical industry -- History -- Periodicals; 540.9005
• DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2019.1616946
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-6980

Abstract

Abstract : I discuss some of the versions of scientific enquiry used and promoted by Davy, arguing that his self-fashioning as a "genius" and "hero of science" in the years 1801–1820, paralleling the self-fashioning of his friend Wordsworth, created a public persona that tended to occlude a practice of group enquiry to which, however, he publicly returned in his last years – significantly revising it so that it became a dialogic form of writing. This form, I suggest, construed knowledge not as the production of facts – or elements – by inductive method and controlled experiment, but as a conversational process between trusted peers, in which it is not just possible but fundamental to express doubt. Requiring no absolute commitment to a single view, dialogic exploration embraced uncertainty to engender new questions and ambivalence to generate new modes of enquiry.