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Drs. J. van Driel (Joppe)

Background

After finishing my bachelors in Physics and Astronomy and in Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam in 2008, I decided to merge my interests in the exact sciences and in philosophy in the specialized master History and Philosophy of Science at the Utrecht University. In the course of my MA, I developed an interest in the history of science, which I learned to understand as a particularly fruitful branch of epistemology, as well as a source of valuable insights into the origins – and meaning – of modernity. For my MA thesis I did a four months research internship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, in Berlin. I wrote a thesis on the development of (anti-reductionistic) scientific methodology in the context of the mid-eighteenth-century debate on materialism and atheism, countering Jonathan Israel’s fictitious and distorting vision of the Enlightenment – which mistakenly traces the roots of modernity back to metaphysical discourse of what he calls the ‘radical Enlightenment’. After graduating cum laude in 2011, I joined the STePS department at the University of Twente, to become a PhD Student at Prof. Lissa Robert’s project on chemistry in everyday life (see below).

Research

I am currently doing research on the history of chemistry in the Netherlands during the second half of the eighteenth century. The goal is to lay bare the role of chemistry in developments in such branches of everyday life as (1) travel and trade; (2) domestic industry (domestic production of consumer goods that tied together pedagogy, international competition and social reform); (3) sustenance (the production of food, medicine, education); (4) beauty (consumption patterns, fashion, aesthetics); (5) agriculture. And vice versa: the role of everyday life in the development of chemistry. This way, the traditional investigative division between (scientific) knowledge content and (applied) material practice will be questioned and historicized.

Teaching

2009-2011: ‘History of Philosophy’ and ‘Philosophy of Science in Context’ at the Utrecht University.

Other activities

I am one of the four members of the award-winning kleinkunst/cabaret group Poolvogel. We write and perform sketches and songs in the tradition of Monty Python, Orkater, NUHR. For more information and an up-to-date tour schedule, see: www.poolvogel.nl.

Publications

P. Ziche and J. van Driel: “Wissenschaft”, in: Europäische Geschichte Online, http://www.ieg-ego.eu/de/threads/hintergruende/wissenschaft

J. van Driel: “Enlightening the matter of science: The anti-materialistic Enlightenment philosophy of Jean de Castillon (1709-1791)”, in preparation.