The Invention of Science

Wootton’s history of the Scientific Revolution argues that what was invented between roughly 1500 and 1700 was not a set of discoveries but the conceptual equipment for having them — and he makes the case largely through language: discovery, fact, experiment, hypothesis, theory, evidence and laws of nature acquire their modern senses in this period because the practices they name did not previously exist. Against the relativist historiography of science he insists the change was real and cumulative.

Why it’s on the list: Placed in Science, Technology, and Epistemology alongside Popper, Kuhn and Polanyi, it supplies the historical case for what the others treat philosophically — when and how the practice of knowing changed.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on Science, Technology, and Epistemology. Shared on X on March 9, 2026 and saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 211-entry transcription, with the four parts and sixteen sub-sections, is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this card came from.
• Science — the thing the book says was invented rather than uncovered.
• Epistemology — new vocabulary as new machinery for justifying belief.
• Progress — Wootton’s defence of the claim that this change was genuine advance.
• Innovation — the argument that method precedes discovery.