Defining Science deals with the major role of the historian and philosopher of science, William Whewell, in early Victorian debates about the nature of science and its moral and cultural value. Richard Yeo also examines the different forms or genres in which science was discussed in the public sphere--most crucially in the Victorian review journals, but also in biographical, historical and educational works. Analysis of the whole corpus of Whewell's work suggests that it be seen not only as an attempt to define science, but to clarify his own vocation as its leading critic.

Defining Science deals with the major role of the historian and philosopher of science, William Whewell, in early Victorian debates about the nature of science and its moral and cultural value. Richard Yeo also examines the different forms or genres in which science was discussed in the public sphere--most crucially in the Victorian review journals, but also in biographical, historical and educational works. Analysis of the whole corpus of Whewell's work suggests that it be seen not only as an attempt to define science, but to clarify his own vocation as its leading critic.

The eighteenth-century English dictionaries of arts and sciences claimed to contain all knowledge that a person of education should possess. Richard Yeo places these scientific dictionaries in a rich cultural framework of debate that includes the classification of knowledge, the tradition of commonplaces, the Republic of Letters, the Enlightenment public sphere, copyright issues, and the specialization of science. He examines assumptions about the organization, communication, and control of knowledge in these works. Elegantly illustrated and clearly written, Encyclopaedic Visions provides a...