Jonathan Swift was an 18th century writer from Ireland who satirized science in his works. In Gulliver's Travels, he depicted the Laputians as divorced from practical concerns and reality due to their focus on abstract mathematics. For Swift, the Royal Society had become too theoretical and neglected utility. He saw little value in science without practical benefits and criticized the reductive nature of empiricism. Through his widely read satire, Swift challenged the growing scientific community to consider practical applications and the human impacts of their work.

1. • NAME: MAHIDA BHUMIKA PRAKASHBHAI
• ROLL NO: 5
• ENROLLMENT NUMBER:3069206420200021
• M.A. SEM -1
• SUBJECT: PAPER 2 NEOCLASSICAL LITERATURE
• TOPIC: JONATHAN SWIFT AND SCIENCE

2. JONATHAN SWIFT

3. Jonathan Swift was born on 30 November 1667
in Dublin, Ireland. He was the second child and only
son of Jonathan Swift (1640–1667) and his wife
Abigail Erick (or Herrick) of Frisby on the
Wreake. His father was a native of Goodrich,
Herefordshire, but he accompanied his brothers to
Ireland to seek their fortunes in law after
their Royalist father's estate was brought to ruin
during the English Civil War. His maternal
grandfather, James Ericke, was the vicar
of Thornton in Leicestershire

4. • JONATHAN SWIFT AND THE
DEPICTION OF SCIENCE

5. SWIFT AND SCIENCE
• Science was also a target of his satirical writings, particularly in Gulliver’s Travels,
where he referenced real scientific experiments taken from the Royal Society to
mock aspects of scientific thought and utility. … In this regard Swifts primary target
was science as done by the largely Newtonian Royal Society.

6. • Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) was a popular writer during the 1700s and used satire
to comment on many political and philosophical ideas at the time. Science was also
a target of his satirical writings, particularly in Gulliver’s Travels, where he referenced
real scientific experiments taken from the Royal Society to mock aspects of scientific
thought and utility. Jonathan Swift’s satirical writing on scientific exploits was
influence by his political leanings and personal philosophy but his criticisms were
still valid concerning some of the scientific thought and experimentation at the time.

7. IN GULLIVER’S TRAVELS SWIFT’S
SATIRE OF SCIENCE IS PRIMARILY
ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH HIS
DEPICTIONS OF THE LAPUTIANS.
OF THESE STRANGE BEING SWIFT
WRITES:

8. • Their houses are very ill built, the walls bevil, without one right angle in any
apartment, and this defect ariseth from the contempt they bear to practical geometry;
which they despise as vulgar and mechanick, those instructions they give being too
refined for the intellectuals of their workmen, which occasions perpetual mistakes.
And although they are dextrous enough upon a piece of paper in the management of
the rule, the pencil and the divider, yet in the common actions and behaviour of life, I
have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people, nor so slow and
perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects, except those of mathematicks
and musick. They are very bad reasoners, and vehemently given to opposition, unless
when they happen to be of the right opinion, which is seldom their case.

9. Imagination, fancy, and invention, they are wholly strangers to, nor have any words in
their language by which those ideas can be expressed; the whole compass of their
thoughts and mind being shut up within the two forementioned sciences.”

10. SWIFT AND SCIENCE

11. • Here, Swift’s criticism is on the practicality of scientific endeavours. In this regard
Swifts primary target was science as done by the largely Newtonian Royal Society.
The Royal Society had become the defacto arbitrators of science during the 1700s
and held a large amount of power and prestige in regards to science. Swift’s claim
was that science and scientists of the Royal Society, as with the Laputians, are
divorced from real life and practical concerns. They had turned to purely
theoretical concerns and studies with a heavy reliance on abstract mathematics.

12. • The Royal Society, in how they acted as the supreme judge of good science, was
arbitrary or confused in their judgements. The Royal Society, as had been
influenced by Isaac Newton, had dismissed a large degree of science and had
reduced scientific endeavours towards only a few fields, such as mathematics. This
reduction, as with the Laputians, distorts how things are perceived. More so, in
Guliver’s Travels, the mentality of the Laputians had infected a nearby civilization by
the name of Balnibarbi. The Balnibarbi had set up academies in order to mimic the
Laputians and to discover new means of farming and other practical concerns but
the exercise proved a colossal failure. The practical use of science, which had once
been advocated by the Society had fallen out of favour through the rise of
Newtonian ideas of science, science had lost its utility and its practitioners had lost
sight of the practical concerns of the real world.

13. • Swift saw little point in scientific endeavours that did not have pragmatic
uses and that did not benefit human lives. This caused Swift to be extra
critical of science concentrated on theoretical understanding or other basic
scientific endeavors.
• But Swift also criticized sciences reductive nature and focus on the
empiricism and physicality. Swift’s political and moral positions put him in
opposition to the Newtonian sciences and reinforced his dislike of their form
of scientific knowledge.

14. • As a popular author Swift’s satire of then current science was widely read, even if
not fully understood, and his ideas presented a significant challenge to the
growing scientific community. Swift selected the worst and most wasteful scientific
experiments to satirize and attempted to condemn large segments of science and
the scientific method through his satire.

15. • REFERENCES
1. https://scientificenlightenment4726.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/jonathan-swift-
and-the-depiction-of-science/
2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels_(disambiguation)
3. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift

16. Thank
You…😇