Comments on: Review: John M. Dixon’s The Enlightenment of Cadwallader Colden: Empire, Science, and Intellectual Culture in British New York

By: Some Random Dude

Some Random Dude — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 21:51:40 +0000

Hi Kerry, I thought your great review would have benefited from a bit more space allocated to chapter six. I found it utterly fascinating (I had no idea that the 18th century had a “Bruno Latour” in the form of Berkeley), and I thought Dixon’s description of debates between deductive and inductive approaches toward the implications of Newton’s ideas really strong. It would have been nice if Dixon had devoted a little more effort to investigating the origins of Colten’s active matter theory, since the concept of inertia did not originate with Newton or Galileo. We may chuckle at Colden’s ambition and the seeming absurdity of his threefold conception of matter, but given today’s quest to figure out baryonic matter vs. dark matter vs. dark energy and JWST’s upending of the history of the early universe, it’s clear that we may not know much more about the true nature of matter than Colden and his contemporaries.

By: Alexander Chin

Alexander Chin — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 02:43:03 +0000

Hi Kerry, your review was interesting, as always. What I found interesting was the last paragraph of your review, as I thought a lot of similar things throughout the book. When reading it, I would have liked more of either the social dynamics surrounding Colden or his scientific work. But in this book, it felt more like the science was a tool to explain the social climbing. But as you said, there was very little experimentation in this book, and I think it would have been very interesting to see the social dynamics of the use of slaves in colonial science and how pervasive this was as a practice. Also, I look forward to your opinions on the Native American interactions shown within this book, as it seemed that they were only mentioned briefly, even though his history of Native Americans was an important part of Colden’s life.

By: William Dunn

William Dunn — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 01:43:50 +0000

Power, politics, philosophy, and a man on the make. Was Colden even interested in science, or was it just one more status game? Dixon has introduced us to the political anthill that early 18C British American strivers fought so hard to dominate. Colden’s father and grandfather were 17C Presbyterians, and by the rhetoric of the time probably considered Whigs, and radical ones at that. By the time Colden graduated from U. Edinburgh, the Presbyterians were the dominant group in Scotland and part of the striving middle class. Colden’s efforts to become a gentleman and a part of the landed gentry led him to “upstate” New York. And therein hangs the tale that Dixon tells well.

What complicates the “is it science?” query is that Colden has so many motives and interests. Is knowledge acquired along the way? Certainly. Is Colden a philosopher? That is a more challenging question. Dixon shows that Colden was smart, ambitious, and a careful political “trimmer.” So, when Colden develops a theory of matter to explain gravitation more satisfactorily than Newton it is challenging to assess his work: is it an original insight, or an effort to gain prominence in European intellectual circles, or both, or something else? As our reviewers have noted, Colder appears to have done little experimentation.

By the end of the tale, Colden is being attacked by Livingston and his new-model Reflectors. These New Whigs, of course, were the wave of a future that Colden inadvertently helped to create but didn’t live to see. Colden had become a successful and loyal subject of the Crown, a Royalist with Tory views, and a proponent of an increasingly ignored view of harmonious pursuit of enlightenment through reasoning by worthy elites. Was he an exponent of a kind of special “Tory” science? Did he view “enlightenment” as an improving, Tory project? Or was Colden just another striver on the anthill?

Dixon’s book is unsettling in a very interesting way. His Colden is no hero, but neither is he a villain — rather, he is a tragic figure. Seeking wealth and status he gains both only to be vilified for what he has accomplished. Seeking intellectual renown he gains access to the Republic of Letters, has his moment of fame, only to be dismissed as unworthy. In telling Colden’s complicated tale Dixon illuminates British and colonial politics. We also see the effects of some of the religious and philosophical currents circulating in elite circles. But mostly we see religion, philosophy, theory, and experiment caught in constant political striving.