Download or read book Historia written by Gianna Pomata and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays examine how the genre of historia reflects connections between the study of nature and the study of culture in early modern scholarly pursuits. The early modern genre of historia connected the study of nature and the study of culture from the early Renaissance to the eighteenth century. The ubiquity of historia as a descriptive method across a variety of disciplines--including natural history, medicine, antiquarianism, and philology--indicates how closely intertwined these scholarly pursuits were in the early modern period. The essays collected in this volume demonstrate that historia can be considered a key epistemic tool of early modern intellectual practices. Focusing on the actual use of historia across disciplines, the essays highlight a distinctive feature of early modern descriptive sciences: the coupling of observational skills with philological learning, empiricism with erudition. Thus the essays bring to light previously unexamined links between the culture of humanism and the scientific revolution. The contributors, from a range of disciplines that echoes the broad scope of early modern historia, examine such topics as the development of a new interest in historical method from the Renaissance artes historicae to the eighteenth-century tension between "history" and "system"; shifts in Aristotelian thought paving the way for revaluation of historia as descriptive knowledge; the rise of the new discipline of natural history; the uses of historia in anatomical and medical investigation and the writing of history by physicians; parallels between the practices of collecting and presenting information in both natural history and antiquarianism; and significant examples of the ease with which early seventeenth-century antiquarian scholars moved from studies of nature to studies of culture.
Download or read book Reading the French Enlightenment written by Julie Candler Hayes and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-07-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this 1999 book, Julie Candler Hayes offers an ambitious reinterpretation of a crucial aspect of Enlightenment thought, the rationalizing and classifying impulse. Taking issue both with traditional liberal and contemporary critical accounts of the Enlightenment, she analyses the writings of Denis Diderot, Emilie Du Châtelet, the Abbé de Condillac, Buffon, d'Alembert and numerous others, to argue for a new understanding of 'systematic reason' as complex, paradoxical and ultimately liberating. Hayes examines the tensions between freedom and constraint, abstraction and materialism, linear and synoptic order, that pervade not only philosophic and scientific discourse, but also epistolary writing, fiction and criticism. Drawing on the insights of a wide range of theorists from Adorno, Habermas and Foucault to Deleuze and Derrida, she offers a dialogue between the eighteenth century and our own, an ongoing exploration of the question, 'what is Enlightenment?'.
Download or read book The Enlightenment in Practice written by Jeremy L. Caradonna and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public academic prize contests—the concours académique—played a significant role in the intellectual life of Enlightenment France, with aspirants formulating positions on such matters as slavery, poverty, the education of women, tax reform, and urban renewal and submitting the resulting essays for scrutiny by panels of judges. In The Enlightenment in Practice, Jeremy L. Caradonna draws on archives both in Paris and the provinces to show that thousands of individuals—ranging from elite men and women of letters artisans, and peasants—participated in these intellectual competitions, a far broader range of people than has been previously assumed. Caradonna contends that the Enlightenment in France can no longer be seen as a cultural movement restricted to a small coterie of philosophers or a limited number of printed texts. Moreover, Caradonna demonstrates that the French monarchy took academic competitions quite seriously, sponsoring numerous contests on such practical matters as deforestation, the quality of drinking water, and the nighttime illumination of cities. In some cases, the contests served as an early mechanism for technology transfer: the state used submissions to identify technical experts to whom it could turn for advice. Finally, the author shows how this unique intellectual exercise declined during the upheavals of the French Revolution, when voicing moderate public criticism became a rather dangerous act.
Download or read book The Newton Wars the Beginning of the French Enlightenment written by J.B. Shank and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nothing is considered more natural than the connection between Isaac Newton’s science and the modernity that came into being during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Terms like “Newtonianism” are routinely taken as synonyms for “Enlightenment” and “modern” thought, yet the particular conjunction of these terms has a history full of accidents and contingencies. Modern physics, for example, was not the determined result of the rational unfolding of Newton’s scientific work in the eighteenth century, nor was the Enlightenment the natural and inevitable consequence of Newton’s eighteenth-century reception. Each of these outcomes, in fact, was a contingent event produced by the particular historical developments of the early eighteenth century. A comprehensive study of public culture, The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment digsbelow the surface of the commonplace narratives that link Newton with Enlightenment thought to examine the actual historical changes that brought them together in eighteenth-century time and space. Drawing on the full range of early modern scientific sources, from studied scientific treatises and academic papers to book reviews, commentaries, and private correspondence, J. B. Shank challenges the widely accepted claim that Isaac Newton’s solitary genius is the reason for his iconic status as the father of modern physics and the philosophemovement.
Download or read book Catholic Physics written by Marcus Hellyer and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the changing character of natural philosophy in Jesuit colleges and universities in German lands.
Download or read book Instruments and the Imagination written by Thomas L. Hankins and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman investigate an array of instruments from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century that seem at first to be marginal to science--magnetic clocks that were said to operate by the movements of sunflower seeds, magic lanterns, ocular harpsichords (machines that played different colored lights in harmonious mixtures), Aeolian harps (a form of wind chime), and other instruments of "natural magic" designed to produce wondrous effects. By looking at these and the first recording instruments, the stereoscope, and speaking machines, the authors show that "scientific instruments" first made their appearance as devices used to evoke wonder in the beholder, as in works of magic and the theater. The authors also demonstrate that these instruments, even though they were often "tricks," were seen by their inventors as more than trickery. In the view of Athanasius Kircher, for instance, the sunflower clock was not merely a hoax, but an effort to demonstrate, however fraudulently, his truly held belief that the ability of a flower to follow the sun was due to the same cosmic magnetic influence as that which moved the planets and caused the rotation of the earth. The marvels revealed in this work raise and answer questions about the connections between natural science and natural magic, the meaning of demonstration, the role of language and the senses in science, and the connections among art, music, literature, and natural science. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Astronomical Notices written by and published by . This book was released on 1862 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Centenary of Science in Manchester In a Series of Notes written by Robert Angus Smith and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2023-12-18 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.
Download or read book The Simplicity of the Creation written by William Adolph and published by . This book was released on 1864 with total page 1416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book De L esprit written by C. A. Helvetius and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A History of the Royal Society written by Charles Richard Weld and published by . This book was released on 1848 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Annual Report of the Committee written by Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (London, England) and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dawn to Daylight written by Anonymous and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2023-11-20 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.
Download or read book De magnis coniunctionibus written by Abū Maʻshar and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides the Arabic, Latin and English text of the major work on historical astrology of the Middle Ages. The text is attributed either to Abū Ma'šar (787-886) or to his pupil Ibn al-Bāzyār, and was translated into Latin in the mid-twelfth century. In eight books (parts) it provides the scientific basis for predictions concerning kings, prophets, dynasties, religions, wars, epidemics etc., by means of conjunctions of planets, comets and other astronomical factors. It is cited frequently by both Arabic and Latin authors. These editions will provide, for the first time, the context of these citations. Aside from its intrinsic interest for cultural history and the history of science, this work provides several details. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004117334).
Download or read book The Transits of Venus 1874 and 1882 written by George Biddell Airy and published by . This book was released on 1868 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Geometrical and Graphical Essays Containing a General Description of the Mathematical Instruments Used in Geometry Civil and Military Surveying Levelling and Perspective written by George Adams and published by . This book was released on 1803 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A New Theory of the Solar System written by Thomas Job and published by . This book was released on 1899 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
