WEDGWOOD AS A SCIENTIST.

WEDGWOOD AS A SCIENTIST. I bought copies of THE WESTERN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION by J. Bronowski and Bruce Mazlish when our children were infants in order to give one to each of them when they were older. I think it’s that good a history of philosophy. In a book with separate chapters on philosophers like Descartes and Hobbes and Locke, the authors devote a chapter each to the Industrial Revolution and the Lunar Society, treating the accomplishments in applied science of manufacturers as being of equal intellectual importance with those of the great philosophers. They use Josiah Wedgwood as an example of some one who applied scientific understanding to the problems his business presented. Wedgwood learned how to measure and control the temperature of his kilns and invented the pyrometer which measures high temperature. Bronowski and Mazlish credit him with the discovery that color measures high temperature in every material.