The heavens of the sky and the heavens of the heart: the Ottoman cultural context for the introduction of post-Copernican astronomy

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
AVNER BEN-ZAKEN
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Arabic Text ◽  
Copernican System ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Modern Arabic

In 1637 a Frenchman named Noël Duret (Durret) published a book in Paris that referred to the heliocentric Copernican system. In 1660 an Ottoman scholar named Ibrāhīm Efendi al-Zigetvari Tezkireci translated the book into Arabic. For more than three centuries this manuscript was buried in an Ottoman archive in Istanbul until it resurfaced at the beginning of the 1990s. The discovery of the Arabic text has necessitated a re-evaluation of the history of early modern Arabic natural philosophy, one that takes into account the intellectual context of Ibrāhīm Efendi and the overarching trends in the world of Sufi mysticism. These trends were reflected in art, literature, philosophy and natural philosophy. Using philological and cultural clues, as well as Ibrāhīm Efendi's own words, we can attempt deductions about why, how and for what purposes Ibrāhīm Efendi chose Duret's book for his project.

Reason of State(s) and Reasons of Church

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania Tutino
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Natural Philosopher ◽  
Political Rivalry ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Context

This chapter uses the case of the French Jesuit natural philosopher and moral theologian Honoré Fabri as a lens through which we can analyze the polemical, political, ecclesiological, and theological battles between Jesuits and Jansenists that exploded in the second half of the seventeenth century, especially after the publication of Pascal’s Provincial Letters. This chapter shows that the debates on moral theology must be seen within a wider intellectual context, including the recent developments in the realm of natural philosophy, and were inextricably linked to the political history of early modern Europe, and especially to the political rivalry between France and Spain.

World as (Arabic) Text: Mīr Dāmād and the Neopythagoreanization of Philosophy in Safavid Iran

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 378-431
Author(s):  
Matthew Melvin-Koushki
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Arabic Text ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Mathematical Text ◽  
Western History ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
Primary Mode ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Abstract The heavily Neoplatonic and antiquarian-perennialist tenor of Safavid philosophy is now widely recognized by specialists; but few have acknowledged its equally notable Neopythagorean turn. Likewise, that the primary mode of applied Neoplatonic-Neopythagorean philosophy as a Safavid imperial way of life was occult science has been ignored altogether, making impossible a history of its practice. The case of the Twelver Shiʿi sage-mage Mīr Dāmād – famed down to the present as an occult scientist – is here especially illustrative: for he was largely responsible for this Neopythagoreanization of Safavid philosophy, which saw the remarkable transmogrification of Ibn Sīnā himself into a Neopythagorean-occultist, by his espousal of a peculiarly Mamluk-Timurid-Aqquyunlu brand of philosophical lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf) in at least three of his many works. The example of this imperial Neopythagoreanizing lettrist is thus crucial for understanding the intellectual and religiopolitical continuity of Safavid Shiʿi culture with Sunni precedent, as well as contemporary Persianate and Latinate parallels. Within Western history of science more broadly, Mīr Dāmād and the host of his fellow Muslim kabbalists must now be restored to the master mathesis narrative whereby scientific modernity is but the upshot of early modern Western philosophers’ penchant for reading the world as a mathematical text.

scholarly journals Pierre Monbeig and the Formation of Geography in Brazil (1925-1957): Geohistory of Knowledge, Intellectual History and the Insertion of Brazilian Geography into the World-Science

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Alves de Lira
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
World Science ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
The World ◽  
University Professor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Context

This paper aims to present the exemplarity of an intellectual meeting between a French intellectual, trained in history and geography at the Sorbonne, France (before spending time in Spain during the beginning of his doctorate), and the “Brazilian terrain”. From his training to his work as a university professor in Brazil, what I want to characterize is a transnational intellectual context in the domain of the history of science, using geographical reasoning as a reference. However, before becoming aware of these intellectual processes, it should be said that at the base of this context lies the Brazilian space. This kind of reasoning as a proposed methodology is named here the geohistory of knowledge. In this paper, I seek to present this methodology and its theoretical and empirical results, focusing on how the construction of contextualization can be related to space.

Bacon’s Novum organum

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
Elodie Cassan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Way

Dan Garber’s paper provides materials permitting to reply to an objection frequently made to the idea that the Novum Organum is a book of logic, as the allusion to Aristotle’s Organon included in the very title of this book shows it is. How can Bacon actually build a logic, considering his repeated claims that he desires to base natural philosophy directly on observation and experiment? Garber shows that in the Novum Organum access to experience is always mediated by particular questions and settings. If there is no direct access to observation and experience, then there is no point in equating Bacon’s focus on experience in the Novum Organum with a rejection of discursive issues. On the contrary, these are two sides of the same coin. Bacon’s articulation of rules for the building of scientific reasoning in connection with the way the world is, illustrates his massive concern with the relation between reality, thinking and language. This concern is essential in the field of logic as it is constructed in the Early Modern period.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-147
Author(s):  
Stephen Menn ◽  
Justin E. H. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Medical Philosophy ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Academic Dissertations

The life of Anton Wilhelm Amo is summarized, with close attention to the archival documents that establish key moments in his biography. Next the history of Amo’s reception is considered, from the first summaries of his work in German periodicals during his lifetime, through his legacy in African nationalist thought in the twentieth century. Then the political and intellectual context at Halle is addressed, considering the likely influence on Amo’s work of Halle Pietism, of the local currents of medical philosophy as represented by Friedrich Hoffmann, and of legal thought as represented by Christian Thomasius. The legacy of major early modern philosophers, such as René Descartes and G. W. Leibniz, is also considered, in the aim of understanding how Amo himself might have understood them and how they might have shaped his work. Next a detailed analysis of the conventions of academic dissertations and disputations in early eighteenth-century Germany is provided, in order to better understand how these conventions give shape to Amo’s published works. Finally, ancient and modern debates on action and passion and on sensation are investigated, providing key context for the summary of the principal arguments of Amo’s two treatises, which are summarized in the final section of the introduction.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
New Materials ◽  
History Of ◽  
General Topic ◽  
History Of Universities

This monographic issue of History of Universities presents new materials and case studies in order to deepen our understanding of the role of the academic milieu in the early modern reshaping of natural philosophy. The contributions included in this volume aim to pursue two main axes of research: (1) the reconstruction and exploration of the dialectics between tradition and innovation in the reshaping of natural philosophy; (2) the attempt to constitute and consolidate new traditions in natural philosophy. This introduction presents the general topic of the volume, the methodological approach developed by the contributors and the contents of each contribution.

Reading Books in Natural Philosophy: How Conrad Gessner‘s Commentary on De Anima (1563) was Annotated and Interpreted

2017 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-89
Author(s):  
Anja-Silvia Goeing
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Preventive Healthcare ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Object Of Study

Conrad Gessner (1516–65) was town physician and lecturer at the Zwinglian reformed lectorium in Zurich. His approach towards the world and mankind was centred on his preoccupation with the human soul, an object of study that had challenged classical writers such as Aristotle and Galen, and which remained as important in post-Reformation debate. Writing commentaries on Aristotles De Anima (On the Soul) was part of early-modern natural philosophy education at university and formed the preparatory step for studying medicine. This article uses the case study of Gessners commentary on De Anima (1563) to explore how Gessners readers prioritised De Animas information. Gessners intention was to provide the students of philosophy and medicine with the most current and comprehensive thinking. His readers responses raise questions about evolving discussions in natural philosophy and medicine that concerned the foundations of preventive healthcare on the one hand, and of anatomically specified pathological medicine on the other, and Gessners part in helping these develop.

Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Chomel (1671–1740): A Case Study in Problems Relating to the Social Status of Scientists in the Early Modern Period

1986 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-322
Author(s):  
David Sturdy
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Scientific Activity ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practice Of Science

Consider this statement: the practice of science influences and is influenced by the civilization within which it occurs. Or again: scientists do not pursue their activities in a political or social void; like other people, they aspire to make their way in the world by responding to the values and social mechanisms of their day. Set in such simple terms, each statement probably would receive the assent of most scholars interested in the history of science. But there is need for debate on the nature and extent of the interaction between scientific activity and the civilization which incorporates it, as there is on the relations of scientists to the society within which they live. This essay seeks to make a contribution mainly to the second of these topics by taking a French scientist and academician of the eighteenth century and studying him and his family in the light of certain questions. At the end there will be a discussion relating those questions or themes to the wider debate. There is an associated purpose to the exercise: to present an account of the social origins and formation of Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Chomel (botanist, physician and member of the Academic des Sciences) which will augment our knowledge of this particular savant.

The World the Bedouin Lived in: Climate, Migration and Politics in the Early Modern Arab East

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-55
Author(s):  
Astrid Meier ◽  
Tariq Tell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Marginal Zones

Environmental history provides a perspective from which we can deepen our understanding of the past because it examines the relationships of people with their material surroundings and the effects of those relationships on the individual as well as the societal level. It is a perspective that holds particular promise for the social and political history of arid and marginal zones, as it contributes to our understanding of the reason some groups are more successful than others in coping with the same environmental stresses. Historians working on the early modern Arab East have only recently engaged with the lively field of global environmental history. After presenting a brief overview of some strands of this research, this article illustrates the potential of this approach by looking closely at a series of conflicts involving Bedouin and other power groups in the southern parts of Bilād al-Shām around the middle of the eighteenth century.

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