Instituting science in Sweden

Abstract

INTRODUCTION the ideas, the organization, and the technology associated with the seventeenth century Scientific Revolution were introduced into Sweden in three steps. First, Cartesian philosophy (with Copernican cosmology) was imported in the course of a prolonged academic row in the second half of the seventeenth century; second, institutions of the continental and British academy type were created in the first half of the eighteenth century, while at the same time Newtonianism and experimental physics made their entry; third, in the decades around the mid-eighteenth century, science reached maturity with Swedish scientists achieving international eminence in a number of fields – especially in natural history, mineralogy and chemistry. Carl Linnaeus (von Linne) and his colleagues made the eighteenth century a golden age for Swedish science (and a favourite topic for latter-day historians of science). Around 1780, however, the position as one of the most active scientific nations in Europe was lost, and toward the end of the century Swedish science had been reduced to relative obscurity. In the following, the technical or philosophical aspects of Swedish science will be touched upon but lightly; the development will be discussed primarily from the institutional point of view. The seventeenth century will therefore be dealt with briefly, while the organization of the forces of Swedish science, which occurred in part as a response to the disintegration of the forces of the Swedish military, will be given a fuller treatment.

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